The Yale expositor., 1897-06-25

national and inter-
national reclamation? What wilt thou,
the Queen of the nineteenth century!
The seven miles of procession through
the streets of London day after tomor-
row will be small part OF the CON
gratulatory procession whose multi
tudinous tramp will encircle the earln.
The celebrative anthems that WIN
sound up from Westminster Abbey anu
st. Pauls Cathedral IN London Will NC
less than the vibration OF one harp-
string as compared with the doxolosies
which this hour roll up from all ma
tions in praise to God for the peautl-
full life and the glorious reign OF TINS
Oldest Queen amid many centuries.
From five o'clock in the morning OF
1897, when the Archbishop or Canter-
bury addressed the embarrassed ana
weeping and almost anrighted girl OF
eighteen years with the startling
words, "Your Majesty" until this SIX
tieth anniversary Of her enforcement,
the prayer of all good people on all
sides of the seas, whether that prayer
be offered by the three hundred MIL
lions Of her subjects or the larger num-
Der or millions who are not her SUD-
jects, whether that prayer be solem-
nized in church, or rolled from great
orchestras, or poured forth by military
bands from forts and battlements and
in front of triumphant armies all
around the world, has been and is now
God save the Queen!" Amid the In
Vulnerable columns that have been
printed in eulogy Of this Queen at the
approaching anniversary - columns
which, put together. would be literally
miles long-it seems to me that the
chief cause of congratulation to her
and of praise to God has not yet been
properly emphasized. and in many
cases the chief keynote has not been
struck at all. We have been told 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 indi-
viduals 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
l do not suppose that she at all helpel
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
religion, or helped to inspire the en-
chanted sentiments of George Eliot and
Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Browning.
or helped to invent any of George
Cruikshank's healthful cartoons, or
helped George Grey In founding a
British South African Empire, or
kindled the patriotic fervor 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 railroadlng
and ocean voyaging. One is not to be
credited or discredited for the virtue
or the vice. the brilliance or the stu
pidity, of his or her contemporaries.
While Queen Victoria has been the
friend of all art, all literature. all
science, 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 morning. in
Kensington Palace, where she asked
the Archbishop of Canterbury to pray
for her, and they knelt down, imploring
Divine guidance, until this hour, not
only in the sublime Liturgy Of her Es-
tablished church but on all occasions.
she has directly or indirectly declared.
81 believe in God the Father Almighty.
Maker of heaven and earth, and in
Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son"
declare 1t, fearless of contradiction.
that the mightiest champion of Chris
tianity today is the throne OF England
The Queens book, so much criticised
at the time of its appearance. some
saying 1t was not skilfully done, and
some saying that the private affairs of
a household ought not so to have been
exposed, was nevertheless a book of
VAST uSCAulhCoo lAOui lut ldCI lnaL IL
showed that God was acknowledged 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 that baf-
fed the greatest doctors of England?
Then she proclaimed a day of prayer
to Almighty God. and in answer to the
prayers of the whole civilized world
the Prince got well. Was Sebastopol
to be taken and the thousands of be-
reaved homes OF soldiers 10 be COM
forted, she called her nation to it's
knees, and the prayer was answered.
See her walking through the hospitals
like an angel Of mercy Was there
ever an expioGicn of fire damp in the
mines of Sheffield or Wales and her
telegram was not the first to arrive
with help and Christian sympathy? Is |
p, esident Garfield dying at Long
Branch. and Is not the. cable under the |
sea, reaching to Balmoral Castle, kept !,
busy in announcing the symptoms of |
the sufferer?t