Obedient: not wilful: not having such a sturdy will of our own. Common sense tells us that no training can do us any good, if we are always seeking our own way. I know that some have really sought in dedication to God to give up their own wills to His. For if you enter this Training School, is that not in effect a promise to Him to give up your own way for that way which you are taught? Let us not question so much. You _must_ know that things have been thought over and arranged for your benefit. You are not bound to think us always right: perhaps you can’t. But are _you_ more likely to be right? And, at all events, you know you _are_ right, if you choose to enter our ways, to submit yours to them. In a foreign Training School, I once heard a most excellent pastor, who was visiting there, say to a nurse: “Are you _dis_couraged?--say rather, you are _dis_obedient: they always mean the same thing.” And I thought how right he was. And, what is more, the Nurse thought so too; and she was not “discouraged” ever after, because she gave up being “disobedient.” “Every one for herself” ought to have no footing here: and these strong wills of ours God will teach. If we do not let Him teach us here, He will teach us by some sterner discipline hereafter--teach our wills to bend first to the will of God, and then to the reasonable and lawful wills of those among whom our lot is cast. I often say for myself, and I have no doubt you do, that line of the hymn: Tell me, Thou yet wilt chide, Thou canst not spare, O Lord, Thy chastening rod. Let Him reduce us to His discipline before it is too late. If we “kick against the pricks,” we can only pray that He will give us more “pricks,” till we cease to “kick.” And it is a proof of His fatherly love, and that He has not given us up, if He does. For myself, I can say that I have never known what it was, since I can remember anything, not to have “prickly” discipline, more than any one knew of; and I hope I have not “kicked.” To return to _Trustworthiness_. Most of you, on leaving the Home, go first on night duty. Now there is nothing like night duty for trying our trustworthiness. A year hence you will tell me whether you have felt any temptation not to be quite honest in reporting cases the next morning to your Sister or Nurse: that is, to say you have observed when you have not observed; to slur over things in your report, which, for aught you know, may be of consequence to the patient: to slur over things in your work because there is no one watching you: no one but God. It has indeed been known that the Night Nurse had stayed in the kitchen to talk; but we may trust such things will not happen again.