We ought to be what we want to seem, or those under us will find out very soon that we only seem what we ought to be. If we think only of the duty we have in hand, we may hope to make the others think of it too. But if we are fidgety or uneasy about trifles, can we hope to impress them with the importance of essential things? There is so much talk about persons now-a-days. Everybody criticises everybody. Everybody seems liable to be drawn into a current, against somebody, or in favour of every one doing what she likes, pleasing herself, or getting promotion. If any one gives way to all these distractions, and has no root of calmness in herself, she will not find it in any Hospital or Home. “All this is as old as the hills,” you will say. Yes, it is as old as Christianity; and is not that the more reason for us to begin to practise it to-day? “_To-day_, if ye will hear my voice,” says the Father; “_To-day_ ye shall be with me in Paradise,” says the Son; and He does not say this only to the dying; for Heaven may begin here, and “The kingdom of heaven is within,” He tells us. Most of you here present will be in a few years in charge of others, filling posts of responsibility. _All_ are on the threshold of active life. Then our characters will be put to the test, whether in some position of charge or of subordination, or both. Shall we be found wanting? Unable to control ourselves, therefore unable to control others? With many good qualities, perhaps, but owing to selfishness, conceit, to some want of purpose, some laxness, carelessness, lightness, vanity, some temper, habits of self-indulgence, or want of disinterestedness, unequal to the struggle of life, the business of life, and ill-adapted to the employment of Nursing, which we have chosen for ourselves, and which, almost above all others, requires earnest purpose, and the reverse of all these faults? Thirty years hence, if we could suppose us all standing here again passing judgment on ourselves, and telling sincerely why one has succeeded and another has failed; why the life of one has been a blessing to those she has charge of, and another has gone from one thing to another, pleasing herself, and bringing nothing to good--what would we give to be able _now_ to see all this before us? Yet some of those reasons for failure or success we may anticipate now. Because so-and-so was or was not weak or vain; because she could or could not make herself respected; because she had no steadfastness in her, or on the contrary because she had a fixed and steady purpose; because she was selfish or unselfish, disliked or beloved; because she could or could not keep her women together or manage her patients, or was or was not to be trusted in Ward business. And there are many other reasons which I might give you, or which you might give yourselves, for the success or failure of those who have passed through this Training School for the last eleven years. Can we not see ourselves as others see us?