erial conflict the heroic fashion in which both those
Commonwealths rallied for the defence of our Imperial flag is one of
the most hopeful facts in modern history. "Waterloo," said Wellington,
"did more than any other battle I know of toward the true object of
all battles--the peace of the world." A similar comment both by
victors and vanquished may possibly hereafter be made concerning this
deplorable Boer war. But that can come to pass only provided we as a
united people strive to cherish more fully the spirit embodied in
Kipling's Diamond Jubilee Recessional:

God of our fathers, known of old,--
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,--
Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine,--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

* * *

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard,--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!--AMEN.

[Sidenote: _Prince Christian Victor._]

To Dr Macgregor the Queen is reported to have said at Balmoral in
November 1900, "My heart bleeds for these terrible losses. The war
lies heavy on my heart." And Lord Wantage assures us that her
Majesty's very last words, spoken only a few weeks later, were "Oh
that peace may come!" Both assertions may well find credence; so
characteristic are they of her whom all men revered and loved. As the
head and representative of the whole empire, every bereavement caused
by the war had in it for her a kind of personal element. But her
sympathies and sufferings were destined to become more than merely
vicarious. As in connection with one of our petty West African wars
she was compelled to mourn the death of Prince Henry of Battenberg, so
in the course of this South African war death again invaded her own
immediate circle. The griefs that hastened her end were strongly
personal as well as representative, and so made her all the more the
true representative of those she ruled.

It was in the early days of that dull November, tidings reached her
and us of the dangerous illness of Prince Christian Victor. Not alone
in name was he Christian; and not alone in name was he Victor. On the
voyage o