32 DUBLIN UNIVERSITY 



walls. It remained, therefore, for the young men of the University 

 themselves to do something, and that something they have well com- 

 menced in the institution of this Society. Nor is the value of this 

 Society, and of such societies as this, confined to its value as a mere part 

 of our educational machine. I believe it has a higher and more impor- 

 tant value, as forming a link between the students who are studying 

 within these walls and their predecessors who have gone forth into the 

 world ; and when the gates of your Alma Mater close behind you — when 

 many of those whom I address shall have gone forth to carry the Gospel 

 of peace to the hamlets and villages of our land — when many shall have 

 gone to the mountains and plains of India, and to the Colonies — when 

 others of you, as medical men, shall have assigned to you the scarcely 

 less solemn duty of carrying the aids of science to solace the pain and 

 aid the necessities of the sick and suffering poor — when you have left 

 these walls, and entered upon your appointed path of life, you will feel 

 a want of some tie or link to connect you with this place, in which you 

 will have spent the happiest hours of your lives. To others, I am happy 

 to say, another and very bright career has, within the last few years, 

 been opened, by the opening of the higher branches of the public service 

 to your honourable competition. The highest offices in the India Ser- 

 vice, in the Army, and in the Koyal Navy are thrown open to your 

 competition, and the best man must win. Every other office in the 

 public service which is worth competing for, in time, I have no doubt, 

 will be thrown open to your competition, and many of you will 

 be scattered over the globe, and you will then feel the want of some 

 link and bond to connect you with those from whom you received 

 your education. I speak from experience — not alone from my own 

 experience, but from the experience of others as well — that when 

 once you have left these walls, you may form many acquaintances, 

 but you will add few to the number of your friends. The friendship 

 which one forms in youth will last till the grave closes upon him. 

 There is no such thing as cordial friendship except that formed in youth. 

 You may become acquainted with men for the purpose of business, in 

 pursuit of pleasure or instruction ; but the warm friendships that 

 are to last through life must be formed with those of an equal age, 

 in such institutions as that in which we are now assembled. It is, 

 then, no light or mean privilege to have learned here to converse with 

 nature, and love the works of God. It will preserve you from tempta- 

 tion in the hour of solitude ; it will give you moments of employment ; 



