And what a type that town is. "A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;"
and surely as a school and a home, a home of learning and light, this
place is both actually and figuratively set upon its hill. Everything of
the past year has gone out into land after land, in letters and papers
and narratives on all sides: the busy-boy mind and the busy-boy pen
photographs most accurately all the minute incidents that interest their
opening life, and it passes out everywhere. I know that in India, and
China, and Australia, and Canada--and I might go on with half the
countries in the world--there has been talk in many a distant home of
what has happened here. It may very well be that at this moment your
names are on many lips as letters of English news have come in lately
from England, and your welcome of us will travel out to the ends of the
earth, so great is the power of "a city set upon a hill." And when you
pray that we may be Christian gentlemen in the life that is coming, I say
it lies a great deal in your own hands. Help us by so smoothing our path
in all ways so that your honour may be our honour and your work our work,
and that as we are grateful to you to-night so the world outside may be
grateful to you also for work hereafter, and that none shall go out of
Uppingham School and shall not carry wherever he goes a thankful memory
of Uppingham town, and that whenever the name of Uppingham is heard in
any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with no
divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world may be
grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for the welcome
given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful for the
possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the happy homes
you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently.
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