nheritors of the noble
qualities of their father, and for the doom which took from us one
whom we had loved to call "our future king"; we deplored the other
bereavements which darkened her advancing years; we have lamented
great men taken from us, some, like the conqueror of Waterloo, "the
great world-victor's victor," in the fulness of age and honour,
others with their glorious work seemingly half done, their career of
usefulness mysteriously cut short; we have shuddered when the hateful
terrorism, traditional pest of Ireland through centuries of wrong and
outrage, has once and again lifted its head among ourselves; we have
suffered--though far less severely than other lands, even than some
under our own rule--from plague, pestilence, and famine, from dearth
of work and food. But what are these woes compared to those that
other peoples have endured, when it has been said to the sword,
"Sword, go through the land," and the dread word has been obeyed;
when war has slain its thousands, and want its tens of thousands; or
when terrible convulsions of nature have shaken down cities, and
turned the fruitful land into a wilderness?

Events have moved fast since the already distant day when the
Colonial and Industrial Exhibition was ministering exultation to many
a British heart by its wonderful display of the various wealth of our
distant domains and their great industrial resources. We were even
then tempted--as have been nations that are no more--to pride
ourselves on having reached an unassailable height of grandeur. Since
then our territory has expanded and our wealth increased; but with
them have increased the evils and the dangers inseparable from great
possessions, and the responsibilities involved in them. We can only
"rejoice with trembling" in this our second year of Jubilee.
Remembering with all gratitude how we have been spared hitherto, and
mindful of the perils that wait on power and prosperity, let it be
ours to offer such sacrifices of thanksgiving as can be pleasing to
the almighty Ruler of the ways of men, whom too often in pride of
power, in selfish satisfaction with our own achievements, we forget.

Many are the works of mercy, well pleasing in His sight, with which
we can associate ourselves, even in this favoured land, whose ever
increasing wealth is balanced by terrible poverty, and its affluence
of intellectual and spiritual light by grossest heathen darkness. Day
by day, as our brief account has s