Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/467

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We have been hearing lately, gentlemen, of a coming Convocation of Graduates to be incorporated for the very reasonable purpose of considering matters affecting the well-being of the University and making suggestions to the Senate regarding them. Would to heaven we could see another Convocation consisting of those amongst you—an immense majority they are who are Hindus—formed for the more reasonable and beneficent purpose of exploding the innovations in the ritual and usages of your sacred Vedas, which however brought in, have now unhappily, for centuries prevailed; innovations involving the degradation of the female sex, ruin to the moral virtues and the intellectual energies of the man, and the hopeless postponement of national advancement and domestic felicity. Already I seem to see a handwriting on the wall, that the end of this and other old superstitions is at hand. Shall they be driven not by the winter storm in its overwhelming fury, or shall they be removed by the gentle and peaceable means, which an united body of educated men, actuated by the purest patriotism, should well know how to use? How long will you hang back undecided and desponding? Whom and what do you fear, you who have sworn to-day, as far as in you lies, to support and promote the cause of morality, and to advance the well-being of your fellow men? Take courage as you take this solemn pledge, given in the presence of an august University which then and not till then decorated you with the insignia of the order to which you have so worthily attained. Graduates, farewell! May happiness and prosperity be yours in your course through the world. But however onerous and important your work in life may be, let the pleasures which arise from intellectual pursuits return to you at every vacant interval. The great reformer of philosophy has beautifully declared, that in all other pleasures, after they be used, "their verdure departeth, which showeth that they be deceits of pleasures;" but in these, "satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangable." These indeed are the only pleasures, which, fraught with unalterable delight and interest, outlive the fervent years of youth, and grow still stronger in the decay of age.

 

Gentlemen, — By the statutes of this University in regard to the form of procedure in conferring Degrees, it is enjoined that the Chancellor shall appoint a member of the Senate to deliver an address to the graduates, "exhorting them to conduct them- 