ars and ten, but four score years and
two, have been the days of the years of her life, and now that the
inevitable end has come, no voice of complaining is heard in our
streets. Such a death we commemorate with thankful song!

IV. _The Queen's whole reign was frankly based on the fear of God_;
and to find such in English history I fear we shall have to travel
back a full thousand years to the days of Alfred the Great, who was
also Alfred the Good, and whose favourite saying was

"Come what may come,
God's will be welcome!"

When Victoria was still a girl of fifteen she was solemnly confirmed
in the Chapel Royal, and in her case that impressive service
manifestly meant--what alas, it does not always imply--a life
henceforth wholly given to God.

At two o'clock in the morning of June 21st, 1837, she was roused from
her slumbers in old Kensington Palace, and hastily flinging a shawl
over her nightdress, she presently stood in the presence of the Lord
Chamberlain and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to learn from their lips
that her royal uncle had given up the ghost, and that she, a trembling
maid of just eighteen, was Queen. Thereupon, so we are told, her eyes
filled with tears, her lips quivered, and turning to the Archbishop
she said, "Pray for me!" So that instant all three lowly bowed
imploring heaven's help. The Queen began her reign upon her knees.
Her first act of conscious royalty was thus to render heartfelt homage
to "The Prince of the kings of the earth." Hence came it to pass

"Her court was pure, her life sincere."

Her favourite recreations were consequently not those provided by the
ballroom, the card-table, the racecourse, or even the theatre. Music,
the simple charms of country life, and, manifold ministries of mercy,
were the pastimes that became her best; and she never appeared in the
eyes of her people more truly royal than when seen sitting by the
bedside of a Highland cottager, reading to the sick out of God's own
Gospel the wonderful words of life.

We are here at liberty to use a scriptural phrase and to add that she
"married in the Lord." Royal etiquette required that the Queen should
herself select the lover destined to share the pleasures and
responsibilities of her high position, and her choice fell not on one
renowned for gaiety, for wealth or wit, but on one in whom she
recognised the double gift of abounding good sense and the grace of
our Lord Jesu