“Not mine, not mine the choice
In things or great or small;
Be thou my Guide, my Strength,
My Wisdom and my All.”
The Queen’s piety was of a simple and fervent nature, and ostentatious or decorative ritual never met with her sympathy or approval. The private chapel at Osborne is as simple as a mission house, and if her Majesty had any preference for a devotional service other than that of the Church of England, it was for the Presbyterian form, which she always adopted when at Balmoral. The religious side of her character, as displayed through her whole life, was a direct contradiction to the statement rashly made in certain quarters that she favoured the idea of what Leo XIII calls “the conversion of England,” that is, the retrogression of England to Rome. Never did she warrant such a report; never did she give the slightest ground for even a suspicion of the accusation, though she was broad-minded and tolerant of all shades of religious belief, as indeed every true Christian worthy of the name should be, provided he is not asked to entertain the wolf of money-grubbing and self-aggrandizement under the sheep’s clothing of a Creed. The Queen was not a bigot; she was in herself the representative of England and England’s freedom, and she would have been the last to approve of any form of religious intolerance or persecution. Once in long years back she was told by the then Bishop of London that two members of the Royal band who were Wesleyans had refused to attend Sunday rehearsals. “These men,” said the Bishop, “have since been dismissed from the Service for their scruples.” “What,” exclaimed her Majesty, “two of my men dismissed for conscience sake! They shall be immediately reinstated. I will have no more persecution in my service on account of religious belief, and I will have no more Sunday rehearsals.” And she kept her word.
By numberless little anecdotes such as this, many of which will be quoted for years and years to come, we recognize the steadfast simplicity and candour of the Queen’s religious faith, and we know that the angry quarrels of sects, the intolerant pride of precedence in forms and rituals, the wrangling, the bitterness and malice which have recently and regrettably disturbed the equanimity of some of those ministers of Him whose New Commandment was “Love one another,” could not have been otherwise than lamentable to the mind of that crowned Defender of the Faith whose woman’s weakness made her stronger than many armed hosts, and more potent than all other rulers of the kingdoms of this world. Her devotion to the highest ideal of sovereignty—namely, “Queen, by the Grace of God!”—enabled her to hold the delicate balance of things aright, and to maintain the equilibrium of national policy by the mere fact of her existence. Not only will the British Empire miss Her, who, as the King has said, “united the virtues of a supreme domestic guide with the affection and patriotism of a wise and peace-loving Monarch,” but all Europe will be the poorer for lacking her gentle counsel. True, she fulfilled a more than ordinary length of days,—true, her reign extended beyond that of all our other Monarchs,—but the fact that the blessing of her presence and influence was vouchsafed to us so long does but little to console us for its withdrawal. She was our Mother as well as our Queen,—and a mother’s place can never be filled.
There is a deep melancholy in the thought that the nation begins its first year of the Twentieth Century clad in “the trappings and the suits of woe.” The sombre black under which the Ship of State sets sail again upon the uncertain ocean of life strikes a dismal hue against the arching azure of the sky, and many there are of us who deem it un-Christian to wear mourning robes if truly we believe in Heaven. Unfortunately, however, at this time of day thousands of us do not believe in Heaven—will not believe, no, not for all our preachers and teachers, and would not, if an angel brought us the assurance straight from God! We believe in the dark grave because we see it with our finite eyes, and we put on the sable colour of the earth to match the dimness of our sight. What we see, or what we think we see with our limited and doubtful vision we accept as actual; but what we feel in the innermost recesses of our souls, when we are alone to think, alone to realize in the deep silence that we are not alone, this we put aside hastily, sometimes with a careless laugh or nervous shudder calling it “imagination,” “fancy,” or “morbidness.” It is “morbid” some people will tell us to believe that there is a Divine Intelligence from whose observation no smallest thing escapes; and yet if the conscience be clear how far from “morbid,” how healthy, how reasonable, how comforting is such belief!—for, no matter how evilly we are spoken of, how vilely we are slandered,—no matter what sorrows we suffer or what losses we endure, all will be righted by that Eternal Justice at the end, when, “through the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.”
The great thing, therefore, is to live here and now, the daily life of simplicity and self-denial such as our late glorious Queen lived. For if by the rule of courts we must wear outward black as a sign of mourning for her loss, let us in our hearts inwardly rejoice that God found her so pure, so ready for the highest bliss of Heaven. Sixty-three years of the most exalted position in the world, sixty-three years of undisputed sovereignty over millions of human beings, neither spoilt the earthly Woman nor the heavenly Soul which God had made our Queen. Shall we not be grateful for this? Shall we not give hearty thanks amid our lamentation? There is cause for very profound rejoicing that the Queens of the earth to-day are proverbially of simple tastes and gentle characters, and we may be proud that our Queen was the simplest of them all. Remembering her, and cherishing her memory as we shall ever do, it may be we shall help ourselves to measure things rightly by the standard she has left us, so that we may be no longer deceived by false appearances. We shall learn to recognize extravagance and ostentation as mere vulgarity,—materialism and atheism as the action of diseased brains, and social “swagger” as bad manners. We shall demand of women that the matrons deserve our homage and the maidens our respect,—that the aged command our reverence, and the young our tenderness. We shall perhaps learn by-and-bye that paint and dyed hair are not beautifiers of any woman’s face, and we shall give the wearers of such the kindly compassionate cold shoulder. We may even ask—who knows!—that certain of our “ladies” shall give up smoking and the use of stable slang. This would be a great concession, no doubt, but perhaps it will come. The memory of the great Queen who has passed from our midst without a stain upon her character as a woman, or a flaw in her wisdom as a Monarch, may exercise a softening charm and refining influence upon us through the chastening sorrow we feel at her irreparable loss. But that there are breakers ahead for England, who shall deny? Who can refuse to see the gathering clouds? Who that is not wilfully deaf cannot hear the ominous rising of the storm-wind?
“We live in a time of sorrow,
A time of doubt and storm,