St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-07-24
A CHRISTIAN EMPRESS,

"A CHRISTIAN EMPRESS.
Rev. DR.. Talmaso's Victorian Jubi-
lee Discourse.
The Tally Life Of Victoria Her Most Con-
spicuous Service to Humanity
Has Been the Friend of AL
that 10 Good and Noble.
The following Victorian jubilee dis
course was delivered by Rev. T. De-
Witt Talmage at the Beatrice (Neb.)
Chautauqua. 1t is based on the text:
What wilt thou. Queen Esther:-Esther. v, 3
This question, which was asked of .
queen thousands of years ago, all civil
lied nations are this day asking Of
Queen Victoria: "What wilt thou have
| of honor, of reward, or reverence, or
service, of national and international
acclamation? What wilt thou, the
queen of the nineteenth century?" The
seven miles of procession through the
streets of London day after tomorrow
will be q 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 queen
amid many centuries From S 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 sixtieth anniversary of her
enthronement the prayer OF all
good people on all sides of
the seas, whether that prayer be Of
fered by the 800, 900, 600 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
battlements and in front of triumph
ant armies all around the world, has
been and is now 'tiod save the queenw
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 lit 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 1t 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 individ-
uals andevents 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 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-
ligion, or helped to inspire the en-
chanted sentiments of George Eliot
and Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Brown
ing, or helped to invent any of George
Cruikshank's healthful cartoons, or
helped George Grey in founding
British South African empire. or kim
died the patriotic fervor with which
John Bright stirred the masses, or had
anything to do with the invention of
the telephone or phonograph, 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
ence, all invention, all reform, her
reign will be most remembered for all
time and all eternity IS the reign of
Christianity. Beginning with that
scene at five o'clock in the moaning, in
Kensington palace, where she asked
the archbishop Of Canterbury to pray
for her. and they knelt down, implor-
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-
elared: Il believe in God the Father
Almighty. maker of Heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ His only begotten
Son." Ldeclare it, fearless of any con-
tradiction, that the mightiest cham
pion of Christianity to-day is the
throne of England. The queens book,
% much criticised 1T the time of its
appearance, some saying it was not
skillfully done, and some saying
that the private affairs Of .
household ought not SO to have
been exposed, was nevertheless .
book Of vast usefulness from the fact
that it showed that God was acknowl-
edged in al 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 bal1ed the greatest doctors of En-
gland? Then she proclaimed day of
prayer to Almighty God, and in an
ower to the prayers Of the whole civil
ized world the prince got well. Was
6ebastopol to be taken and the thou
sands Of bereaved homes of soldiers to
b comforted. she called her nation to
its knees, and the prayer was answered.
See her walking through the hospitals
like m angel Of mercy. Was there
ever N explosion Of fire damp in the
mines OF Shefield or Wales and her
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