Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras/Part 2/The Rev. R. Halley, M.A.
FIFTH CONVOCATION.
(By Rev. R. Halley, M.A.)
Gentlemen,—By the regulations of our University, at this stage of to-day's procedure, it becomes the duty of a member of the Senate to exhort you to conduct yourselves suitably unto the position to which by the degree conferred upon you, you have attained. This duty by order of the Vice- Chancellor devolves upon me, and in the name of this University I call upon you at all times so to act, that your good name may add lustre to your degrees; that in the consistency of your life, the purity of your motives, the exaltation of your aims and the devotedness of your patriotism, it may be seen that the cultivation of sound learning is a spring of lofty action; and that you may repay the fostering care with which you have yourselves been nurtured, by continuing "to support and promote the cause of morality and sound learning" in this Presidency.
You, as amongst the earlier graduates of this University, will doubtless have great influence upon your countrymen for good or evil; they will look to you for the fruits of Western learning, and by your lives will they judge of its results. Your literary
exertions have been rewarded this day by your admission to a
University degree, but remember that with this new position you have incurred new responsibilities—not only in the promise and declaration you have made, but in the fact that you have received, as a trust, the setting forth before the world's eye in your own persons the advantages of a liberal education.
In times gone by the treasures of the East were carried towards the West in so great profusion that Eastern wealth became proverbial; What the University offers. but as the merchant sends forth his ship from port laden with a rich cargo, in faith that she shall cross the seas and traverse them again and enter once more the port bringing higher freight to repay him for his lengthened waiting, so now the day has come, when, your waiting being ended, your vessel has returned to port, and the treasures of the West are laid at your feet. We offer to you, as we think, a literature unsurpassed in the world's history for extent, variety, and elevated thought; science, mental, moral and physical, true, because it is derived from a careful induction of facts and phenomena, subjective and objective, and is not the crude invention of mere theorists; art, refined and elevated, because it is the truthful expression of conceptions gained from nature, rather than the grotesque fancies of a distorted imagination. This is our merchandise; your position here to-day bears witness that you have tested its value, and we call upon you still to buy the truth and sell it not.
I say the truth rather than knowledge, for knowledge is but the instrument, truth is the object to be sought. It is not enough to know the theories of men; you must carefully test them and examine for yourselves, separating the wheaten grain of truth from the chaff of doubtful speculations. You must try and gain something worth believing and cherishing, something that you can weave into the texture of your own mental being, and something that you can hold by in practice, as a guide in action—a power within you.
The title you now assume suggests a figure. The title—a comparison. Borrowed from chivalry, it speaks to you of loyalty and honour. You are the bachelors, you have come to the age of manhood, and, after refined investigation, have been deemed worthy, and have been this day invested with manly arms. You have yet to win in the field the full honours of the Knight banneret, but now you are no longer squires, as knights you must conduct yourselves. Go forth to the tournament, let knowledge be your spear, but let truth be your mistress—she sits, the Queen of the Fair, to watch the day, and from her hands shall you receive the prize of the valiant. Wearing her favours, what a motive to the knightly virtues! And the first of them is loyalty. Be loyal to her whom you have chosen, for her do battle, whoever may oppose—whatever your object, you cannot deprave the truth.
Arrayed in the lists are the champions of Error—she presumes to sit in rivalry with Truth—she! Antiquity, the champion of error. with her brazen face, shaking her gaudy ribbons! And who are her champions? There is grey-haired Antiquity, who in many lists has unhorsed the champions of Truth; whilst he deals his hardest blows, he will recount for your dismay his victories of old, and if the battle goes hard with him, he will cease his vauntings, and will appeal to your knightly magnanimity, reminding you that he was the friend of your fathers. Spare him if he will leave the lists, but so long as he is in arms for her rival, you must not, you dare not be disloyal to the Truth. He may taunt you as striplings, he may ridicule your mistress, he may laugh at your juvenile enthusiasm; but the day is yours, if you are stout of heart—before your weapon, knowledge, he cannot stand.
But side by side with Antiquity, yet strangely contrasted, are champions of Error, Other champions of Error. your equals in years. They are the sons of Pride, dubbed knights on the same day with yourselves, they have grown up in your company, and will prove loyal to error, as long as you leave them unslain. Unhorse them to-day, they will utter their defiance tomorrow; with them it must be war to the death. They are Crude Speculation, Juvenile Conceit, Dogmatism and Presumption. They hate the Truth with utter hatred, for they have tested her scorn. They would have sworn themselves hers, but she rejected them with disdain. And now they have taken their place as Error's knights-bachelors. Their sinister countenances are well-concealed, as in full armour they stand, fair to the eye of the inexperienced. With dazzling brilliance they advance, their plumes are bright, their devices gay, their lances sparkle in the sun; but though stalwart their form and gallant their bearing, make no friendship with them ; they are sons of Pride, and like their father, they hate the truth, they have embittered hearts; slay them outright, or they will never cease troubling you; yield to them but a foot and you wound and grieve the Truth. But I cannot describe all the champions of Error, they stand opposed, you can see them well, Custom, Influence, Profit and a host less known, all range themselves on Error's side.
But Truth calls on you to join her followers and to take up arms in company with Sobriety of Thought, Adherents of Truth. Carefulness of Investigation, Simplicity, Humility, Docility and Virtue, to show your loyalty and love for her. She claims your affection, as well as your arms; she must be mistress of the heart, as well as of the hand. If there be not love towards her in the heart, you but insult her when you take up her colours, and your wages shall be her scorn.
But if valour and loyalty for the Truth are the first of the knightly virtues, assuredly they are not all. Courtesy. I remind you that the next of them is Courtesy. If combat must be—if Truth's good name and Truth's wide sway can only be maintained by constant fighting, still towards even your bitterest foe, you must not forget that courtesy is demanded of one of your degree; you cannot descend into menials' hall and join in the squabbles of the retainers. With dignity and courtesy you must lead your own, choosing only to answer to the challenge of knights; and though you deal hard blows, you must neither trample on a wounded foe, nor forget the respect which is due to a worthy opponent. But out of the battle-field or of the tournament, to all you must exercise chivalrous courtesy, bearing yourselves as true knights with deference to your elders, with respect to your equals, with good-will and kindness towards the younger. And the courtesy of the true knight called forth his valour not only for his mistress, but to aid any who were in danger. So must it be yours, though Truth be your mistress, to step forward and save from harm, when any of the fair are in danger in your presence.
You must never shrink from breaking a lance in behalf of Patience, Other Virtues. and Temperance and Charity, and Purity, Philanthropy. If these be wounded or injured before your eyes, much more if their trust be from yourselves. Truth will be shamed, for you will lack the courtesy of her knights.
But there is also required of the true bachelor, Munificence. that he should show munificence. This virtue you are called upon to exercise. With knowledge as your weapon, you will spoil many foes; yet your gains must not be wholly for yourselves. You must help to scatter, with a profuse hand, the intellectual wealth you have won. You must not take the miser for your pattern, who hoards and never scatters, nor must it be sufficient for you to keep your retainers in comfort and the destitute from starvation; of your wealth you must scatter to the good and to the evil, denying yourselves that others may abound.
Last, but not least, of the knightly virtue, was Justice. Justice. Without this no knight could be complete, he must hate a wrong, and love the right, and defend only that which was just. There are amongst you those who have armed yourselves with law, as your weapon. You are champions of Truth and must not forget the virtue of Justice; without it you are no true knights. Let the true knight only wield so dangerous a weapon. Rightly are those who take it in their hands, more narrowly watched, and more severely judged than others, if in the smallest degree they forget their honor. A chosen band of knighthood, admitted by a special initiation, their honor is their best possession. One mean device, one coward's trick, one unfair blow, and the whole brotherhood of these Knights Templars is disgraced. They live to battle with oppression and with wrong.
Recreant knights will you be; ten times scorned in the halls of your special brotherhood, if you use your weapon to give triumph to wrong doing; if you wield the sharp edge of the law, to obtain for yourselves, advantages which are not yours of right,—or if for base gain, as a hireling freebooter, you seek for others, possessions to which they are not entitled. Truth calls to you as her champions, guard your honor unsullied in its purity; but especially exercise justice. Truth needs your aid. It is yours to cleave the black armour, within which chicanery and perjury and treachery have encased themselves. It is yours to strip them of their false devices and on the dunghill of their lying inventions, to strike off the spurs of these false and base born knights.
Knights Bachelors, you are invested this day, brace yourselves for the conflict, the lists are ready, the champions of Error have sounded the defiance, I call upon you to go forth as true Knights, endowed with valour and loyalty and courtesy, and munificence and justice. Give them a fall on behalf of your mistress, fear not their blows; onward! try your new armour! try the mettle of your weapons ; and as the old enemies of Truth bite the dust, your victory is secured. You shall come again to the spot where you obtained the favours of your mistress, and in the sunshine of her smiles shall you receive the prize of the conqueror. As the din of the martial music is heard through the field, and there is sounded and resounded from the lips of the minstrels—"Honor to the Sons of the Brave!"