The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-01-28
VICTORIA'S MEMORY.


boast, created by fatterers; it was a ter
rible fact. Nations were considered to
exist only that kings might rule, and peo-
pies were created only that kings might
live. The English alone maintained and
cherished the inalienable rights of man
hood, and when the infatuation of George
III and the folly of his courtiers led them
TO believe THAI the exotic ideas of his
brother kings was his divine right, he
wrecked the unity of the English race.
For, mark you, the tea tax was not
tyrannous burden; it was as the size of
his little finger compared with Louis
loins, $500 or $500 per year was all he
hoped for from il, but it was the violation
of principle won by long struggling
against tyranny, and the Newer England
maintained it. Every people has an ideal
more or less Consciously pursued. The
English ideal is that every man is free
within the limits of the Laws Divine.
This penetrates every fiber of our being.
it is the charter of our national life,
kings, rakes and insolent tyrants some
times fall upon the rock, but the rock
falls upon them and grinds them to pow
der
THE success of the American colonies
caused the English genius for government,
to develop along two somewhat dissimilar
lines. The inherited principle was the
same in both but environment was to
modify the forms.
The early decades of the nineteenth
century were formative and critical; the
destinies of both branches were trembling
Ia the balance. But the blow which had
freed the United States, gave a fatal
wound to the ideas of the Georges aud
they persisted with the House of Hanover.
The nineteenth century was to be domi-
mated by English ideas. The United
States closed the eighteenth with her
starry banner flung to the breeze to be-
come the model and mightiest republic. 70
be followed early in the nineteenth with
the Jack of the Union of Britain, which
was to become the mightiest and model
monarchy. The troubled night departed.
and in the dawn the star of peace re-
turned.
"A Queen, IS years of age, ascended the
throne of England. The scepter waA
grasped in a maideRs gentle hand The
nursing Queen, raised up by God is q
guileless girl. His agent for the accom-
phshment of His work is not to be the
buster of might and forcefulness of bat
tie power but the gentleness and males
ty of purity of heart. Her work was to
be upon the characters of the empire
builders, justice and mercy, humanity and
purity, were to be the line and the plum
nit by which they were to build This
inspiration came at a time and to PEG
pie to whom such a glory and spiendor
was as mockery. 1t must have appeared
to many as a vision, a mirage, while the
leaders were corrupt and their land de-
! filed.
the throne, Edward Gibbon Wakefield,
the father of England's colonial system,
was, at the age of 80, a felon in Newgate
| prison. The political atmosphere also
was as corrupt as the most corrupt to
be found in the United States to-day. The
leaders appeared to be hopelessly I'M
worthy of trust and incapable of the
task of empire building. The people them
| selves were disconnected; rebellion seemed
10 be about to break from their sullen
looks. Roads were bad, corn rotted in
one village while people died for the wan,
of il, thirty miles away. The first rail-
way from Liverpool to Manchester was
just opened, but ii was the beginning or
the work which was to bind the nations
with commercial chains and the people
with thong ht-aashing wires.
In order to make ready a people to be
worthy of these gifts and to use them for
their own good, to bring forth right 10
the awakening world, He gave to the
waiting people a princess, true-hearted,
| sincere and modest, in whose days the
righteous should flourish.
1T has been cynically said that when
men reign women rule and when women
reign, men rule. This may be partially
! demonstrated. The Victorian era is mark
ed by the rising of woman to reign glo-
riously in her sphere, and. the rule of man
has been more worthy thereby. Victoria
began to reign, and the political and So
cial life of England came under the OBJ
| legation of purity and truth. Whatever
may have been the private life
OF her councillors, their public
acts were clean. The pubic con-
science demanded national duty to be
practiced in virtu e. The young Queen
created an atmosphere in her court in
which the corruption of a loose age soon
persisted The local seats of the nascent
colonial empires were thus established in
righteousness and the empire is to-day
great, vast free and beneficient because
It's nursing mother was pure-an empire
in which a census of it's millions fails to
express It's power and the measure of its
lands, its greatness.
1T is not the glory of empire not the
amazing progress of the English race
that we eXalt at this time The world is
DONG reverence ara homage to the
memory of a woman, who has left us a
lovely and venerable pattern of Christian
| nobility. The pride and glory of power
is forgotten in the beautiful humility of
her greatness.
1--WE are men of faith-faith in our
God, our countries and ourselves. We do
not believe that Gcd has been standing
aloof while our race has been achieving
world-dominating victories. Such things
do not grow out Of dry ground. We be-
leve the Providence Of God is work ng in
our history and that the phi osophy Of
history is the theology of history.
ITO many, history appears to be but a
course of events, without system and
without guidance. shaping themselves by
chance circumstances ana producing
kingdoms and powers which change and
decay because there is no helper. no guild
ing hand. But we believe the wisdom of
God can be discerned everything and shap-
ing events to subserve His ends,
and in all the world Is realized the mar
wells of His wisdom.
THE perfe state-unit Is not the in
'divdual, but the home. Home Is at once
the unit and the type, the nucleus of es-
sential existence. There was a danger
therefore, that In the rapid development
OF the race In power and wealth. the in
dlvidual would dsplace the home. If the
English, therefore, are to BE- the colo
nists, the dominators in the nine eenth
and succeed ng centuries. the home ideal
must be preserved II was therefore. en-
trenched In the heart of the empire. Had
Engl nd heccme a republic Wien the
American colonies did, woman never
could have been the Inspiring ruler. Wo-
mans part IN colon zing has heen equal to