Then he told the young men that they should have ambition to do even better than their fathers had done; that they should not lose sight of the welfare of the community and the prosperity of the commonwealth; and that they should give Virginia again her place of leadership among the states, and take away from the South the allegation that she is wanting in enterprise. He closed with the following rules of conduct: “Whatever may be the degree of success that I have met with in life, I attribute it, in a great measure, to the adoption of such rules. One was never to let the mind be idle for want of useful occupation, but always to have in reserve subjects of thought or study for the leisure moments and quiet hours of the night. When you read a book, let it be with the view to special information. The habits of mind to be thus attained are good, and the information useful. It is surprising how difficult one who attempts this rule finds it at first to provide himself with subjects for thought—to think of something that he does not know. In our ignorance our horizon is very contracted: mists, clouds, and darkness hang upon it, and self fills almost the entire view around, above, and below to the utmost verge. But as we study the laws of nature, and begin to understand about our own ignorance, we find light breaking through, the horizon expanding, and self getting smaller and smaller. It is like climbing a mountain: every fact or fresh discovery is a step upward with an enlargement of the view, until the unknown and the mysterious become boundless—self infinitely small; and the conviction comes upon us with a mighty force that we know nothing—that human knowledge is only a longing desire.” In conclusion, he warned them against believing that they had finished their education on leaving the University, for they had merely cleared away the rubbish and prepared the foundations. If they ceased to study, they soon would forget what they had learned and mental retrogression would begin; for just as movement and progress were necessary aspects of life in the physical world so were rest and decay correlative terms in the mental and moral realms. Among the numerous addresses which he delivered during the decade preceding the Civil War, the most eloquent and significant was the one given on October 10, 1860, at the laying of the corner stone of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. For this occasion there were assembled eight bishops, two hundred presbyters, and five thousand people. In introducing Maury, Bishop Otey, his old teacher and friend, referred to him as a distinguished fellow-citizen, whose labors in the cause of science have crowned his name with honor throughout the world and made him, in a manner, the property of all the nations, for the winds of Heaven and the waves of the sea had been made tributary by him to increasing the facilities of trade to every land and on every sea where commerce spreads her sails.