The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-02-11

mortal sermon was impreSSively deliv-
cred from the pulpit by Bishop Willis.
At the close of the sermon the choir
sang "And the City Was Pure Cold"
and the benediction was pronounced by
Bishop Willis. HandePs Dead March
in Saul closed the services, the organ
notes dying away as the congregation
left the church.
Bishop Willis sermon was as fol-
lows:
days. riches and honor: and Solomon,
his son, reigned in his stead.-1 Chron.
xxix:2S.
The occasion on which we are assem-
bled in the house of God is one of pro-
found solennity. Who is there in this
assembly who can recall an event which
has touched the heart--not only of that
empire on which the sun never sets, but
of all peoples and languages in every
part of the earth-as the departure from
it of Queen Victoria. Round what event
in the memory of this generation have
such mighty issues gathered such cher
ished memories of a glorious past, such
hopeful anticipations of a yet more glo-
rious future, as those which circle round
the succession to the throne of Great
Britain?
| To do justice to an occasion so mo-
lmentous, to give adequate expression to
4 the sorrow, praise and hope that vibrate
| in every heart, sorrow for the loss of a
Queen SO great and so universally be-
| loved, praise to Almighty God for the
example of her life, hope for the fruit
| that the seed of that example will yield
in the coming time; this is more than
/ / dare hope, yet you would not have me
| silent. Let me ask you to suffer the
richness and greatness of the occasion
to atone for the poverty and feebIeness
of the words I shall address you.
| On the evening of January %, when
the mournful intelligence was flashed to
every capital in the civilized world that
/ the longest reign in English history was
ended, that Queen Victoria was dead,
there fell upon all hearts an indefinable
sense of great loss, the weight of a
| great bereavement. A light the beams
/ of which had so long been diffused to
every part of the earth, that the person
who was its source had come to be re-
garded as a fixed star in the armament
of earth, was gone. And not the British
Empire only, but every land and the
islands of the sea mourned. But when
in less than twenty-four hours it be-
came known that Edward VII reigned
In her stead, firmly seated on the throne
of his ancestors, all that the succession
to the throne involved having been ac-
Icomplished in that short space of time,
with due observance of each time-honor-
ed precedent, men once more breathed
freely, and though the loss the world
had sustained was not diminished, ii
was felt that the light men mourned
had not vanished to be seen no more, but
would continue to be reflected from the
I British throne, as when the setting sun
dips into the ocean, and before its glory
has faded from the western sky, the ris-
ing moon once more illumines the face
of nature with the light of the departed
sun.
Was not that the case in the history
OF the chosen race when thirty centuries
ago, after reign Of forty years, the IL.
lustrious David was gathered to his ia.
Tiers? But so far from the light and
glory that had shone around his throne
being extingufshed by his death, it shont
forth with greater brilliance under Sol
omon, his son. According to the sacred
record there was no Intervening dark
ness, not even twilight between the