The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-12-16 00:00:00

SERMONS IN LONDON, ON SUNDAY.

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

On Sunday, during the reading of the Litany at the morn-
ing service, the heat, fir. Church) desired the earnest prayers
of the coegregation for the Prince, and the following special
and authorised form id prayer was used 'for the recovery of
his Royal Highness, and also ou behalf of the Queen, the
Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family ": -
" Almighty God and Merciful Father, to whom alone
belong the issues orlife and death, look down from Heaven,
we humbly beseech Thee, with the eyes of mercy upon
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, now lying upon the bed
of sickness. Thou Father of Mercies and Ood of all
comfort, our only help In time .of need, W fly unto
Thee for succour on behalf of Thy servant. Grant,
ft Lord, that all the sins of his life past may be
done away and his soul washed in the precious blood
of Christ, that it may be pure and without spot before
Thee. If It shall be Thy pleasure, prolong, we beseech
Thee, his days here on earth. and grant that he may live t.oi
Thee and be an Instrument of Thy glory, and a blessing to
our Church and nation. Prepare him 0, most loving Father,
by Thy Holy Spirit, ler all that Hee before him, In We or in
death, through Jesum Christ, our Lord, Amen.

° Almighty and Everlasting God. who guidest the hearts
of Kings, and who had bleqt and sanctified the bonds of
love knit together the members of all Christian families look
down, we beseech Thee, on Thy servants, Victoria, our
Queen, and the Princess of Wales, in this day of their sweat
trouble, and on all the Royal Family. Comfort and surport
them in their present trial, and grant that their hearts may
be stayed only upon Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord—
Amen."

At the afternoon service In St. Pours Cathedral the Rev.
cauon I.l,ltion preached the sermon before a congregation
estimated at between 5,000 and 0,000 in number, assembled
in the dome-area. 'rhe subject was the " Last Judgment,"
the preacher taking for his text the 27th verse of the 21st
chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke-- And then xhall they ere
the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."
After noticing, towards the conception of his discourse, the
insiguilicance if all earthly interests, relatively to the eternal
interests of the soul and the future Judgment of Got, the
preacher said this aspect id the Judgment would be more
readily entered into by the congregation in those solemn
hours when the whole nation is watching with almost breath-
less suspense at the bedside of the Prince in whom it had
long learnt to sec its future monarch. They met that day
under the shadow of a great anxiety—groat in Itself, and
greater in its possible comequences This, at feast, all must
feel—that sickness and death know no favourites , that
in presence of the last realitlea they are, all of them,
the highest and the lowest, on a level. While they lifted
up their hearts earnestly to God in prayer for the Royal
sufferer, who but yesterday was enbt)ing all that this world
could give, and In whose future this great Empire
had no high a stake ; while they interceded not less
fervently for his august mother, our beloved sovereign, and
for his wife and children, let them not forget to note the
lesson which all severe sickness teaches, and which all who
have lookod Death and Judgment to any purpose in the face
would have them learn. All that does not lead to Goil or
come from Rim ; all that belongs only tir the things and
scenes of lime, all that cannot, as can faith and hope and
love, be truly incorporated with the very life of that soul
to which the death of the body is but a surface-incident in
Its existence, Is really nothing, if, indeed, it be not some-
thing that is worse than nothing.
The sermon, which was masked throughout with all the
characteristic eloquence and fervour of Canon Lidtion, was
Retested to with the deepest interest by the vast congre-
gation, and his touching reference to the all-absorbing sub-
ject of the time appeared to produce a moot prOtoUnti
tea-
preesion.