affection
exhibited towards her dear son and herself, from the highest down
to the lowest, on the long progress through the Capital, and she
would earnestly wish to convey her warmest and most heartfelt
thanks to the whole nation for this great demonstration of loyalty.
The Queen, as well as her son and dear daughter-in-law, felt that
the whole nation joined with them in thanking God for sparing the
beloved Prince of Wales's life."

Perhaps the most beautiful and effective presentations of popular
feeling and hopes in connection with this now historic sickness of the
Heir Apparent were the sermons preached by Dean Stanley. No one has ever
been closer in friendship and in personal knowledge to the Prince of
Wales than had this eloquent and saintly ecclesiastic. No one has been
more admired and respected in the Church of England in modern days than
he; nor has any of its clergy possessed a wider view or more generous
heart. Speaking in Westminster Abbey on December 10th, 1871, when the
nation was awaiting in deep anxiety the issue of a struggle which seemed
to be almost fatally and surely decided, he embodied the popular feeling
in beautiful and appropriate words: "On a day like this when there is
one topic in every household, one question on every lip, it is
impossible to stand in this place and not endeavour to give some
expression to that of which every heart is full. We all press, as it
were, round one darkened chamber, we all feel that with the mourning
family, mother, wife, brothers, sisters, who are there assembled, we are
indeed one. The thrill of their fears or hopes passes through and
through the differences of rank and station; we feel that, while they
represent the whole people they also represent and are that which each
family and each member of each family, is separately. In the fierce
battle between life and death, for the issues of which we are all
looking with such eager expectation, we see the likeness of what will
befall every individual soul amongst us; and the reflection which this
struggle, with all its manifold uncertainties suggests, concerns us all
alike."

The sermon which followed was a skillful presentation of thoughts
suggested by the text, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." It
concluded with an earnest hope that the Royal life which might so
greatly influence the national destinies might still be preserved--"a
life which, if duly appreciated and fitly