Uppingham by the Sea eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 104 pages of information about Uppingham by the Sea.

Uppingham by the Sea eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 104 pages of information about Uppingham by the Sea.
to-night once more meet together as one body. (Loud applause.) We are united now as we never have been before methinks (cheers); for never before, to my knowledge, in England, have town and school been so completely welded together as your welcome to us home and our presence here together to-night shows us to be now. (Loud and long-continued applause.) There have been many blessings in this great trial, but certainly not least do I set that, that we and you are once more met as one.  Your work and ours is so mixed up—­our work so mixed with yours, and yours with ours—­that it is not possible that anything should go out of this place, any life come forth from it, which does not to a great degree bring honour or discredit to both; and I do think (what was said to-night) that we are here together to work in the highest way, not as a matter of pecuniary advantage only in a place like this, but simply that we, one with another, should push forward life and make it crown that living edifice of truth, which, as it seems to me, is town and school working together.  And what a type that town is.  “A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;” and surely as a school and a home, a home of learning and light, this place is both actually and figuratively set upon its hill.  Everything of the past year has gone out into land after land, in letters and papers and narratives on all sides:  the busy-boy mind and the busy-boy pen photographs most accurately all the minute incidents that interest their opening life, and it passes out everywhere.  I know that in India, and China, and Australia, and Canada—­and I might go on with half the countries in the world—­there has been talk in many a distant home of what has happened here.  It may very well be that at this moment your names are on many lips as letters of English news have come in lately from England, and your welcome of us will travel out to the ends of the earth, so great is the power of “a city set upon a hill.”  And when you pray that we may be Christian gentlemen in the life that is coming, I say it lies a great deal in your own hands.  Help us by so smoothing our path in all ways so that your honour may be our honour and your work our work, and that as we are grateful to you to-night so the world outside may be grateful to you also for work hereafter, and that none shall go out of Uppingham School and shall not carry wherever he goes a thankful memory of Uppingham town, and that whenever the name of Uppingham is heard in any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with no divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world may be grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for the welcome given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful for the possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the happy homes you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently.  I thank you most heartily in the name of the school and the masters and myself for this address, which I trust will for ever remain not the least honoured relic of this school.”

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Uppingham by the Sea from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.