You who are students all know _The Advancement of Learning_, just as the servants sitting beside you all know the second chapter of First Peter.

Well, your master Verulam there tells you, and indeed on every page of his, that it is only to a humble, waiting, childlike temper that nature, like grace, will ever reveal up her secrets.

'There is small chance of truth at the goal when there is not a childlike humility at the starting-post.' Well, then, all you students who would fain get to the goal of science, make the Church of Christ your starting-post.
Come first and come continually to the Christian school to learn humility, and then, as long as your talents, your years, and your opportunities hold out, both truth and goodness will open up to you at every step.

Every step will be a goal, and at every goal a new step will open up.

And God's smile and God's blessing, and all good men's love and honour and applause will support and reward you in your race.