Our school year at St. Paul’s began this morning. Each day before the students arrive, we have Responsive Prayer and a brief homily with our teachers. Our Headmaster shared this quote from Luther with them this morning. The citation is Luther’s Works 3:50-51.

What work is greater and more splendid than imparting real and true instruction? If, then, you are a teacher or the head of a school, what are you to do? You are faithfully to instruct, teach, discipline, and admonish the youth entrusted to you.

You should do so expecting that some will do their duty and others will not. For he who wants to do good must expect that it is done in vain and that his good deed is poorly used because the number of those who spurn good advice is always greater than the number who follow it. And we should be satisfied when the good we do has not been entirely lost. It is enough if one of the ten lepers returns to acknowledge the benefit (Luke 17:17). So it is enough if one of ten pupils takes correction and studies diligently; for thus the benefit is not altogether lost. And in imitation of the example which God gives us, we are enjoined to do good to both the grateful and the ungrateful (Matthew 5:45).