The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-23

the Ffe sag o. ...t..- -.-
LEM. pi5r1i-s e.oiutIon which gave
England constitutional monarchy. The
buildings remained, but the old spirit was
gone. The city officials. the guardsmen,
The attendants here and there, were
clothed in costumes handed down from
the Middle Ages but the soul of the Mid
die Ages was no more there. The beacons
blazed on all the hills. as night fell over
the city, and a chain of fire ran round
the world, linking the jewels of empire
from West TO East and West again, just
as chain of fire was wont to be seen
on the hills of Britain when savages
painted blue and clothed in skins of wild
beasts wished TO celebrate a victory or
warn of the approach of danger The
shell of all the life of the past was
there, but the spirit Of today moved
within. The central figure of the whole
gorgeous. bejeweIed flashing psgent was
little. tired-looking. sad-faced woman
dressed in black-not blazing with jewels
and clothed in gay colors. as were the
queens of the Middle Ages; no longer
beautiful; no longer delighting m power,
rut. Tor all that. the outward sign Of the
Empire of England That is ;he heart
OF the analogy. The power of today moves
silently; 1t does not need great pomp and
commotion; and there was more power in
that one quiet figure than in all the
clanking majesty OF some provincial king
who might have made his royal progress
through the narrow. unclean streets of
the diminutiye London of eight hundred
years ago.
The rller of England today yields a
power not personal in the sense of being
exerted for merely selfish ends. The es-
tablishment OF constitutional monarchy
made despotism impossible, and no ca
price. or intrigue, or false step of SOW
ereign can today destroy the liberty of
England. But in another sense the power
of such a sovereign is personal. for upon
the character of the Queen, as has been
seen in this review of her reign, much
of the prosperity of her realm depended.
One need only consider what would have
happened had she been less conscientious
less tactful, less true woman than she
was, to see that any bad influence ex-
erted by her must have sunk into the
character of her people like a poison.
Her example as a wife and motho- her
devotion to the affairs of her people and
of her family, have been an uplifting
force through all the sixty years of her
extraordinary reign. Her interest in
progress, in education. moral and social
reforms, schemes for promoting the well
fare o. the people, have tended toward
the upbuilding of prosperous nation:
England has made blunders in public
matters and in foreign policy. they have
been the mistakes of the officers of the
Government, or of popular sentiment, and,
not of the Queen.
OF the progress Of literature. and of re-
forms of various kinds. during the reign
of Victoria, IL would be possible 10 write
a volume; for the nineteenth century has
been proverbial for its great and most
quietly effected changes in all lines of
thought. In 1897, Darwins theory of evo-
luton was not formulated; Biblical crIti-
cism was unheard OF: people in general
believed that the world was made in six
days by magic, just six thousand years
ago and that all but a very small minority
OF the human race were destined to ever
lasting torment. Medical science was
pretty much where it was In the time of
Gaicn; there were no teiegraphs stage