The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-12-21 00:00:00

CHAPEL ROYAL, SAVOY.

At the morning service the sermon was preached by the
Rev. Henry White, one of Her Majesty's chaplains, from the
text St. Matthew xxiv' 35, "Heaven and earth shall pass
away, nut my words shall net pass away." After expounding
the text the preacher alluded in the following words to the
death of the Princess Alice :—" England mourns to-day the
passing away of one of her choicest treasures of life, and, two,
Royal families deplore to-day the loss of one who, as
daughter, sister, wife, and mother, was consplcious for
every grace which can confer beauty and lustre on
womanly character. Few nations are so favoured as our
nation in being privileged to share both the joys and
sorrows of the Sovereign. The tierce light which beats
upon the Throne does not screen from us an intimate sym-
pathy with all that mars or makes the happiness of the
Royal family. The Queen has been called to endure for the
first time the loss of one of her own children. As all sufferers
.31a,re Mr attracted her own deepest sympathy in their

sorrows and losses, so surely and swiftly all will feel the most
profound commiseration for those who are the keenest
sufferers by this bereavement. As for the life which has
passed away so suddenly .we may well thank and praise God
for the bright example of intense affection and unwearied
devotion which has been left with us. Seventeen years
ago the Princess Alice watched with most tender and
touching care a life which was very precious to
the Queen and to the country—' a life (as Dean Milman
said) esteemed by all classes, from the highest to the
lowest, to have been a great and blameless example of '
the loftiest and lowliest duties equally fulfilled without an
effort, and, as it were, by the spontaneous working of
a true and generous nature.' Six years ago the Princess
watched with as touching and tender care the life of
another whose restoration was largely due to her loving
tendence, and whose preservation was celebrated by a
great national thanksgiving, and is commemorated in
this chapel by a beautiful painted window. Since
then the Princess was called to endure the loss of two
of her own children—one by a distressing accident, the
other by the painful disease which has wrought us our pre-
sent bereavement. She seemed to be as one ' borne to do
benefits,' and she has passed 111,Ply in the sacred service of
sympathy and devotion to which her life was ever ready to
be dedicated. A noble thinker has said that there is an
apparent caprice in the dispensation of death which points
to some hidden sequel.' For the true and tender life which
has just departed the sequel must he some bright and beauti-
ful destiny which in this world could not be fulfilled. For
such a life the words of Archbishop Trench must have a deep
meaning,—

" 'The joys, the tasks of earth thetsame in Heaven
shall be,
Only the narrow brook is widened to a sea.'

For such a loss our richest consolation lies within the great
prophecy that the time is coming when God will make up
tits jewels; when gems which were here unset shall grace
the diadem of the King of Kings; when lives cut short in
Infancy or refused full maturity shell enter into perfect con-
summation and bliss Believing this, we take comfort that
the passing away of dear or honoured lives is not a passage
from life to death, but from life to higher life; from love to
deeper love; from broken Communions of earth to immortal
fellowships in Heaven. Believing this, we accept the words
so exquisitely set in verse by Lord Lytton—

There is no clath—the stars go down
To rise noon some fa,rer shore :
- And bright in Heaven's jewelled crown,
They shine for evermore.
There is no death—an angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread,
And bears our best loved things away;
And then we Call them dead.
It Is impossible to 'give sorrow words,' but feelings too deep
for words wid go forth to-day from myriads of Christiaii
hearts throughout the world in loving and loyal solicitude
for the keen sorrow and crushing loss which has deprived
mother, hushand, sisters, brehers,,,and chldren of a
precious and beautiful life, which has' loas‘ed away in the
exercise of its deepest activities, affections, and sympathies.'

At the Temple Church (in the morning) the Rev. Canon
Spence, vicar of St. Pancras, who preached in the absence of
Dr. Vaughan, said in the course of his sermon ;—" Our
joyous Christmas season is darkened sadly for this ye-sr by
that sad death message flashed to our shores ye.terday. With
us no home of rich or poor but felt a thrid of deep, true
sorrow when to the many prayers for a well-loved life came
back the answer, alas, of death ; no heart among us but beat
in deep true sympathy for her own in another land who
mourn that brave, fair life s ) removed. We Englishmen
were proud, and justly proud, of our Princess who had
learned so well the lessons of her own Royal home; who,
among a strange and foreign people, so nobly carried out
those loved traditions of our Engl Ind, those maxims of our
own broad island charity, and so made every rank and order
of her adopted subjects love her. But with our sorrow surely
may be mingled pride in such a true Englishweiman, only too
soon cAllel home to join her father. God comfort those who
mourn her 1"

In the Metropolitan Tabernacle, at the morning service,
the congregation were asked specially by the preacher (Mr.
C. Spurgeon, jun.) to join in prayer for the bestowal of
Divine aid and blessing upon Her Majesty in her present sad
dill ction The preacher, in appropriate terms, touched
upon the sorrow which has fallen upon our royal household
—a sorrow which the nation participated in, for she whose
untimely and unexpected death had cast such a gloom over
the country was a particular favourite in every household
throughout the laud.

The Rev. Dr. Cumming, of the Scottisk National Church,
Covent-garden, delivered a lengthy discourse to his congre-
gation on Sunday morning in connection with the decease of
the lamented Princess. Ile selected for the text the words
of St. John's Gospel—" What you shall be you know not, but
you shall know hereafter. He then proceeded at great length
to point out that Christians in the world were kept in
Ignorance of the Divine design. This was the rule although
I there were some exceptions; and hence, according to the
rule, Christians generally found fault with God's dealings
with them, although in the world to come they would see
plainly that what they had been accustomed to regard as
the greatest calamities had been in reality the greatest
of blessings. The death of the nearest and dearest,
whether in the royal palace or in the meanest peasant's hut,
was, humanly speaking, '‘ a great misfortune," and the suf-
fering and desolation reaultwg from such death could not
be expressed in human speech. It was impossible for Chris-
tians, humanly speaking, to see the object of the death of
a loved mother of a family, or of a cherished wife and
daughter, but they would see it all clearly in the world be-
yond the grave. On conclusion of the discourse a "funeral"
hymn was sung, and the Rev. Doctor offered a special
prayer that her Majesty might be vouchsafed special
strength to bear up under the intense trial which the demise
of the lamented princess had just imposed upon her.