His love unseen, but felt, o'ershadow thee;
The love of all thy sons encompass thee,
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
The love of all thy people comfort thee:
_Till God's love set thee at his side again_."

The day she ceased to breathe was to her as a new, a nobler bridal
day. The wife has found her long-lost consort; the mother is at home!

II. Queen Victoria was not merely a model mother in the narrow circle
of her own household. _She was emphatically the mother of her
people_--a people multitudinous as the stars of the midnight sky. One
fourth of the inhabitants of the entire globe gladly submitted to her
gentle sway. The vastest sovereignties of the ancient world were mere
satrapies compared with the length and breadth of her domain, and
to-day east, west, north and south bow down beneath a common sorrow
beside her bier. In synagogue and mosque and temple, in kirk and
church of every class and creed, men render thanks for one "who
wrought her people lasting good," and humbly own before their God that

"A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her, as mother, wife, and queen."

Almost as a matter of course this monarch and mother of many nations
became more and more liberal-minded and large-hearted. For her to have
become a bigot would have been a very miracle of perverseness. She
rejoiced in all true progress in all places, and made the sorrows of
the whole world her own. Famine in the East Indies, or a desolating
hurricane in the West, called forth from her an instant telegram of
queenly sympathy or, it may be, a queenly gift. Every effort for the
betterment of her people awoke her liveliest interest. The east end of
London, only less well than the west, was known to her. From Windsor
to Woolwich she recently went in midwinter, that with her own hand she
might distribute flowers among her wounded soldiers, and with her own
lips speak to them words of solace. At that same inclement season she
crossed the Irish Channel to show her vulnerable face once more among
her Irish people, and I should not marvel if for such a queen some
would even dare to die!

It was ever with the simplicity of a sister of the people rather than
with the symbolic splendours of a sovereign, she went in and out among
us. In the full pomp and pageantry of her high position she seemed to
find no special pleasure. Even on Jubilee Day, when her presen