The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-06-22

Queen Victorin's Jubilee.
The praises Of the womanly purity CT
Queen VICTORIA, with which the pulpit,
and moro especially the Episcopal pulpit,
resounded last Sunday, were undoubtedly
justified by the life of that good woman
and exemplary mother; but TO judge by the
emphasis laid on that particular virtue in
her we should infer that the preachers re-
gard such n specimen of womanhood as UNI
usual and extraordinary. Else why did
they all dwell on it and make 1t the cen
trail theme of their laudatory scrmonsl Is
womanly purity SO rare hat an cxem-
plar of the virtue is distinguished among
women and must be celebrated loudly as
singular In her moral eleTation2
II these preachers had lauded the blame.
~lcssucss of Queen NICTonIA's life. her spot.
icss maidenhood. and her chaste and de-
voted matronhood, rs n conspicuous illus.
tratiun of virtues which glorify the woman.
~ character, they would net have passed
beyond the bounds Of the praise Justly due
to womanhood. If they had said that the
9ucenliness most deserving of honor and
reverence in her is tho intrinsic purity and
moral education which she shares in COM
mon with the great multitude of women,
high and low, and in all ages and countries,
they would have expressed n sentiment
which millions of wives, mothers, and
daughters in this republic inspire in the
hearts of men. A material crown makes
a queen artificially; the real crown and
sceptre are the nobility and grandeur of
womanhood.
10 us republicans Queen VIcToRIA's
truest royalty consists in her possession
and eXempliication Of the virtues and
graces which adorn all womanhood in its
normal type; and the low type may be dis
missed from consideration as abnormal and
morbid. 1t is so rare that it is an insult to
praise a woman on her chastity simply.
or course she is pure; she could not be
Otherwise; and she resents praise for a
quality which is first of all inherent in her.
Hou might as we'll praise a man for not
being a thief.
The womanly self-respect which Queen
VlCroRIA has always displayed in her high
place, moreover, is not now unusual among
queens, and the women of royal families
generally. The moral tone of the women
Of the royal houses of Russia, Germany,
Austria, Italy, Sweden, and the rest is as
high as that of Queen VIcToRIA's own
household. DIR. PARKER MORGAN could as
fifty have bestowed on them all the praises
which he showered on her especially. In
times past in the French Court of both the
kingdom and the empire there have been
instances of moral laxity and debasement,
but the last Empress, EUGENE, was, like
Queen VICTORIA, of blameless life as a wife
and mother.
The celebration of Queen VIcToRIA's ju-
bilee is interesting to us, not as a tribute to
her personally and as a nominal sovereign,
but simply as affording a n occasion for the
English people to give expression to their
eHultation over the progress, unexampled
in their history, which they nave made
during the sixty years of her reign as their
titular monarch. Really they are celebrat-
ing themselves and not her. She has con-
tributed nothing directly to that progress,
but she has not interfered with it. She
could not have offered any Instructions to it
and remained on her throne. She has served
we'll the only purpose the English have in
maintaining a monarchy, and that is to
keep up the fiction of an individual SOY.
ereign at the head of the State. The actual
Government has gone on without regard to
her. She has accepted the varying policies
of the Governments as they have been
changed by popular opinion, having no
more powcrto thwart or modify them than
If she were a wooden figure instead of a
live woman. Really she is a slave, u slave
of the conventions surrounding her royal
dignity and of the actual masters of the
English Government, whose will she must
do. The English throne has not yet been
carted away to the junk shop, but 1t bears
no longer the sovereignty it typifies that is
in the English people. Virtually England
Is II democracy, and it keeps an individual
sovereign as n theatrical accessory, as a
sort of traditional fetch.
Hence Queen VIcTORIA's Jubilee Ia i'm
portant simply as a celebration of the dc
velopnient of British power during the las,
sixty years. Personally, as the diary pub
lished by her revealed her individuality
she is II woman peculiarly without any o.
the qualities which give distinction. Sh,
is merely n type OF the conventional Guc
steady-goipg English woman. She is Il fig
urc in no wise romantic and IN no way
stimulating to the imagination.
British Exhaustion