The Monitor-register., 1897-06-25

ell, "What wilt thou, Queen Esther?'
A Noble Life.
Another thing 1 call to your attention
in this illustrious woman's career is
that she is a specimen of high life un-
corrupted. Would she have lived to Gel
citrate the sixtieth anniversary OF her
coronation and the seventy-eighth AMI
versary Of her birthday, had she not
been an example of good principles and
good habits? While there have been bad
men and women i'll exalted station and
humble station who have carried their
vices clear ON into the seventies and
eighties and even the nineties OF their
lifetime, such persons are very rare.
The majority of the vicious die i'll their
tbirties and fewer reach the ~forties, and
they are exceedingly scarce in the fifties.
Longevity has not been the character
istic of the most of those who have
reached high places in that or this
country. In many cases their wealth
leads them into indulgences, or their
| honors make them reckless, or their OPP
portunities of doing wrong are multi
| piled into the overwhelming, and it is
| as true now as when the Bible first pre-
| sented it, 1.-The wicked live not out half
their days" Longevity is not a positive
proof of goodness, but it is prima facie
| evidence in that direction. A loose life
| has killed hundreds of eminent Amerl-
! cans. A loose life is now killing hun-
dreds of eminent Americans and Euro
| peans. The doctors are very kind and
the certificate given after the distin-
guished man of dissipation is dead,
| says, "Died of congestion of the BRAIN"
although it was delirium tremens, or
"Died of cirrhosis of the liver" al
though it was a round of libertinlsm,
or "Died of heart failure" although it
was the vengeance of outraged law that
slew him. Thanks, doctor, for you are
right in saving the feelings of the bereft
household by not being more specific.
Look, all ye who are in high places of
the earth, and see one who has been piled
by all the temptations which wealth
and honor and the secret place of pal
aces could produce, and yet next Tues
day she will ride along in the presence
of 1000, 900 people, if they can get
within sight Of her chariot, i'll a vigor-
Gus old age, no more hurt by the SPLEEN
doris that have surrounded her for IS
years than is the plain country woman
come down from her mountain home in
an oxcart to attend the Saturday mar
keting.
The temptations of social life among
the successful classes have been so great
that every winter is a holocaust of hui
tossing sea of high life are constantly
strewn with physical and mental and
moral shipwreck. Beware, all ye sue
cessful ones. Take a good look at the
venerable queen as she rides through
Regent street, and along the Strand,
and through Trafalgar square, and by
the Nelson monument. What is the use
of your dying at 40 when you may just
as well live to be so? If you are doing
nothing for God or the race, the soone
you quit the better, but if you are
worth anything for the worlds better
ment, in the strength of God and
through good habits, lay out a plan for
a life that will reach through most of a
century. How many people are prac-
tically suicides from the fact that their
commanding or their recklessness Or
their defiance of dietetics and plain
sanitary laws cuts short their days. In
deed, SO great is the temptation of those
who have bountiful tables and full wine
closets that Solomon suggests that in
stead of putting the knife into the meat
on their plate they direct the edge of it
across their throat. Proverbs xiii, /,
"When thou sittest to eat with a ruler,
consider diligently what is before thee
and put a knife to thy throat if thou be
a man given to appetite" / believe
more people die of improper eating than
die of strong drink. The former causes
no delirium or violence and works more
gradually, but none the less fatally.
Queen Victoria's habits, self denying
and almost a%scetic, under a good Prov.
idence, account for her magnificent Ion
gevity. 1t may be a homely lesson for a
sexagesimal anniversary in British pal
aces, but it is worth all the millions of
dollars the celebration will cost, and
the laborlous convocation of the repre-
sentatives from all the zones of the
planet, if the nations will learn the san
itary lesson of good hours, plain food,
outdoor exercise, reasonable abstinence
and common sense habits. That which
Paul said to the jailer is just as appro-
pirate for you and for me-"Do thyself
no harm" And here let me say no peo-
pie outside of Great Britain ought to
be more interested in this queens jubi-
lee than our nation. The cradles of
most of our ancestors were rocked in
Great Britain. They played in child
hood on the banks of the Thames or the
Clyde or the Shannon. Take from my
veins the Welsh blood and the Scotch
blood, and the streams of my life would
be a shallow. Great Britain is our
grandmother.
We have read in the family records
that without our grandmother's consent,
her daughter, our mother, left home and
married the genius of American indie
pendence, and for awhile there was bit
ter estrangement, but the family quar-
rel has ended and all has been forgiven,
and we shake hands every day across
the seas. At this queenly anniversary
our authorized representatives will offer
greeting in Buckingham palace and our
warshlps will thunder congratulation
in English waters. They are, over there.
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
1t is our John Bunyan, our Wilberforce,
our Coleridge, our De Quincy, our John
Milton, our John Wesley, our John
Knox, our Thomas Chalmers, our Bish-
OPP Charnock, our Latimer, our Ridley,
our Walter Scott, our Daniel O'Connell,
our Robert Emmett, our Havelock, our
Henry Lawrence, our William E. Glad
stone, our Queen Victoria. Long live
the daughter of the Duchess of Kent!
A Long Reign.
Again, this international occasion
impresses me with the fact that woman
is competent for political government
when God calls her to it. Great fears
have been experienced in this county
that woman would get the right of suf-
rage, and as a consequence after awhile
woman might get into congressional
chair and perhaps after awhile reach
the chief magistracy. Awful! Well, bet
ter quiet your p~erturbations, as you look
across the sea, i'll this anniversary time,
and behold a woman who for 80 years
has ruled over the mightiest empire of
all time and ruled well. In approval of
her government the hands of all nations
are %clapping, the flags of all nations
waving, the batteries of all nations
booming. Look here! Men have not
made such a wonderful success of gov
eminent that they need be afraid that
women should ever take a turn at power.
The fact is that men have made a bad
mess of it. The most damnably corrupt
thing on earth is American p~olitics after