The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-07-03
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Victoria, tho Christian Empress OF
a Christian People.
Her Most Conspicuous scrsics to Humanity
the Example of Her Daily Life-Ths
Political Competency of
Women.

Rev. r. Dewi.t Talmage delivered
the following Victorian jubilee dis
course at the Beatrice (Neb.) Chav
tauqua, basing II upon the text:
What wilt thou, Queen Esther,-Esther. ". Z
This question, which was asked of ;
queen thousands of years ago, all civil
lied nations are this day asking o
Queen Victoria: what wilt thou hav,
OF honor, Of reward, or reverence, or
service, OF national and international
exclamation? What wilt thou, the
queen Of the neteenth century" The
seven miles of procession through the
streets OF London day after tomorrow
will be a small part OF the congratula-
tory procession whose multitudious
tramp will encircle the earth. The
celebrative anthems that will sound up
from Westminster Abbey and st. Paul's
cathedral in London will be less than
the vibration of one harp string as
compared with the doxologies which
this hour roll up from all nations in
praise TO God for the beautiful life and
the glorious reign of this oldest queer
amid many centuries. From 5 o'clock
OF the morning OF 1887, when the arch
bishop of Canterbury addressed the
embarrassed and weeping and almost
affrighted girl of Is years with the
startling words, Your Majesty" until
this sixticth anniversary of her
enthronement the prayer OF all
good people on all sides Of
the seas, whether that prayer be Of
fered by the 300, 900, 900 of her subjects
or the larger number of millions who
are not her subjects, whether that
prayer be solemnized in church, or
rolled from great orchestras, or poured
forth by military bands from forts and
battlcments and in front of triumph
ant armies all around the world, has
been and is now God save the qucenw
Amid the innumerable columns that
have been printed in eulogy of this
queen at the approaching anniversary
columns which, put together would
be literally miles long seems TO me
that the chief cause of congratulation
70 her and of praise to God has not yet
been properly emphasized, and in
many cases the chief keynote has not
over and over again what has occurred
in the Victorian era. The mightiest
thing she has done has been almost
ignored, while she has been honored by
having her name attached to individ-
uals and events for whom and for which
She had NO responsibility. We have
put before US the names of potent and
grandly useful men and women who
have lived during her reign, but do
not suppose that she at all helped
Thomas Carlyle in twisting his in
volved and mighty satires, or helped
Disraeli in issuance of his epigram-
matte wit, or helped Cardinal Newman
in his crossing over from religion to re-
iigion, or helped TO inspire the en-
chanted sentiments of George Eliot
and Harriet Murtincau and Mrs. Brown
ing, or helped to invent any Of George
Eruikshank's hcalthful cartoons, or
helped George Grey in founding a
British South African empire, or kim
died the patriotic fcrvor with which
John Bright stirred the masses, or had
anything TO do with the invention of
the telephone or photograph, or the
building up OF the science of bacteriol-
ogy, or the directing Of the Roentgen
rays which have revolutionized sur
gerry, or helped in the inventions for
facilitating printing and railroading
and ocean voyaging. One is not TO be
credited or discredited for the virtue or
the vice, the brilliance or the stupidi-
ty, Of his or her contemporaries.
While Queen Victoria has been the
friend OF all art, all literature, all sci
cncc, all invention, all reform, her
reign will be most remembered for all
time and all eternity as the reign of
Christianity. beginning with that
scene at five o'clock in the moaning, in
kcnsington palace, where she asked
the archbishop of Canterbury to pray
ing Divine guidance, until this hour,
not only in the sublime liturgy of her
established church, but on all occa-
sions, she has directly or indirectly de-
c!ared: IL believe in God the Father
Almighty, maxer of Heaven and earth;
and in Jesus Christ His only bcgotten
Son" | declare it, fearless of any con-
tradiction, that the mightiest cham
pion of Christianity to-day is the
throne OF England. The queens book,
30 much criticised at the time OF its
appearance, some saying it was not
sltillfully done, and some saying
that the private affairs of
household ought not so to have
been exposed, was nevertheless n
book Of vast usefulness from the fact
that it showed that God was acknowl-
edged in all her life and that Rock of
Ages" was not an unusual song in
Windsor Castle. Was her son, the
prince OF Wales, down with an illness
chat bafIied the greatest doctors of En-
glandp Then she proclaimed day OF
prayer to Almighty God, and In an
Swer to the prayers Of the whole civil
fed world the prince got well. Was
Sebastopol to be taken and the thou
sands of bereaved homes of soldiers to
be comforted, she called her nation to
its knees, and the prayer was answered.
Bee her walking through the hospitals
like an angel of mercy! Was there
ever an explosion Of Gre damp in the
mines OF Sheffield or Wales ard her