Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-06-30
RBv. DR.. TALMA MACR.
The Eminent Divine's SUNDAY
Oisc0urS.,

|
| The Eminent Divine's SUNDAY
| Oisc0urs.
| Queen victoria's Jubilee Was tho Subject
OF the Minister'S Discourse, and 1t Wa
Delivered Before the Chautsuqua q,
beatrice. Neb.-An Eloquent Tribute
TEXT: "What wilt thou, Queen Esther?'
Esther W. 8.
This question which was asked Of q queen
thousands OF years ago, all civilized ma
tions are this day asking OF Queen Victoria
what wilt thou have Of honor, of reward
or reverence or service, OF national and In
ternational acclamation? What wilt thou
the queen of the nineteenth century,
The seven miles Of procession through the
streets OF London will be a small part OF
the congratuiatory procession whose null
titudinous tramp will encircls the earth,
Ihe peiebrat1v6 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
O'Clock of the morning of 1887, when the
Archbishop Of Canterbury addressed the
embarrassed and weeping and almost az
frighted girl of eighteen 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 offered by
the 300 OO0 900 Of her subjects or the larger
number of millions who are not her sub
jects, whether that prayer be solemnized in
church or rolled from great orehestras 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 innumerable columns that have
been printed in eulogy of this queen at the
approaching anniversary-columns which
put together, would bs literally miles long
1T seems to me that the chief cause Of con-
graduation to her and of praise OF God has
not yet been properly emphasized and in
many cases the chief key note has not been
struck at all We have been told over and
over again what has occurred in the Victo.
rian era. The mightiest thing she has done
has been almost ignored, while she has
been honored by having her name attached
to individuals 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 woman who have
lived during her reign, but do not suppose
that she at all helped Thomas Carlyle in
twisting his Involved and mighty satires,
or helped Disraeli in issuance of his cpl
grammatic wit, or helped Cardinal New
man 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 Cruik-
shank's healthful cartoons. or helped
George Grey in founding 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 bac-
teriology, or the directing of the Roentgen
rays which have revolutionized surgery, or
helped In the inventions for facilitating
printing and railroading and ocean voyax-
ing. One is not to be credited or discredited
for the virtue or the vice, the brilliance or
the stupidity of his or her contemporaries.
While Queen Victoria has been the friend
of all art, all literature, all science, all in
vention, all reform, her reign will be most
remembered for all time and all eternity as
the reign of Christianity.
innine-r-'th that scene at s O'Clock In
-.ife a ssu Il Of Canterbury to
pray for her. and they knslt down, implor.
ing divine guidance until this hour, not
only in the sublime liturgy of her estab-
directly or Indirectly declared, Il believe in
God the Father Almighty, maker Of heaven
and earth, and In Jesus Christ, his only be-
gotten Son. l declare it, fearless of con-
tradiction,- that the mightiest champion Of
Christianity to-day is the throne Of Eng
land. The queens book, so much criticised
at the time of its appearance. some saying
it was not skillfuliy done and some saying
that the private affairs of q household
ought not so to have been exposed, was
nevertheless a book of vast usefulness
from the fact that 1t showed that
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]ed the greatest
doctors of England? Then she proclaimed
II day of prayer to Almighty God, and in
world the Prince got well. Was Sevastopol
to be taken and the thousands of bereaved
homes of soldiers to be comforted, she
called her nation to its knees, and the
prayer was answered. See her walking
through the hospitals like an angel Of
mercy. Was there ever an explosion Of
tire damp in the mines of Sheffield or
Wales and her telegram was not the first to
arrive with help and Christian sympathy?
Is President Garfield dying at Long Branch
and Is not the cable under the sea reaching
to Balmorai Castle kept busy in announcing
the symptoms of the sufferer?
1 believe that no throne since the throne
of David and the throne of HezekiAh and
the throne of Esther has been In such con-
slant touch with the throne OF heaven as
the throne of Victoria. From what know
of her habits she reads the Bible more than
she does Shakespeare. She admires the
hymns of Horatio Bonar more than she
does Byron's "Corsair" She has not know
inSiy admitted into her presence a corrupt
man or dissolute woman. To very distin-
gulshed novelists and very celebrate ed
prima donnas she has declined reception
because they We're immoral. All the COM
ing centuries of time cannot revoke the
a aiyAnfauaG af HAVING haA Siyfu -
Christian womanhood enthroned in the
palaces of England. Compare her court
surroundings with what We're the court
in the time of Henry VIII,
or what were the court surroundings
in the time of Napoleon in the time of Louis
NVl., In the times Of men and women whose
names may not be mentioned in decent so
ciety. Alasi for the revelries and the worse
than Belshazzar feasts and the more than
Herodian dances. and the scenes from
which the veil must not be lifted. You
need, however, in order to appreciate the
purity and virruOus spiendor of Victorias
reign to contrast it somewhat with the
SehennaS and the pandemoniumS of many
OF the throne rooms of the past and some
of the thronerooms Of the present. 1 call
the roll of the queens of the earth, not that
L would have them come up or cone back,
but that may make them the background
of picture in which can better present
the present septuagenarian, so soon to be
an octogenarian, now on the throne of Eng
lands her example so thoroughly on the
right side that all the scandal mongers in
all the nations in six decades have not
been able to manufacture an evil suspicion
in regard to her that could be made to
stick; Maria of Portugal, Isabella and
Eleanor and Joanna of Spain, Catherine Of
Russia, Mary of Scotland, Maria Theresa of
Germany, Marie Antoinette of France and
all the e'queens of England as Miss Strick-
land has put them before US in her charm
ing twelve volumes, and while some queen
may surpass our modern queen in learning,
and another in attractiveness of feature
and another in gracefuiness of form, and
another in romance of history, Victoria
surpasses them all in nobility and grandeur
and thoroughness OF Christian character /
hail her, the Christian daughter, the Chris
tian wife, the Christian mother, the Chris