THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL.
London and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and by the officers of her household, who were already waiting for her. With the Prince of Wales on her right hand and the Princess of Wales on her left, the Queen, leaning on the Prince’s arm, walked up the nave in a procession which was marshalled by the Lancaster and Somerset Heralds. The special service began at one o’clock with the Te Deum, which was arranged by Mr. Goss for the occasion, and sung by a choir of two hundred and fifty voices. The voice of the Archbishop of Canterbury was inaudible, but the choral part of the ritual was listened to reverently. The words of special thanksgiving were:—“O Father of Mercies and God of all Comfort, we thank Thee that Thou hast heard the prayers of this nation in the day of our trial. We praise and magnify Thy glorious name for that Thou hast raised Thy servant, Albert Edward Prince of Wales, from the bed of sickness. Thou castest down and Thou liftest up, and health and strength are Thy gifts; we pray Thee to perfect the recovery of Thy servant, and to crown him day by day with more abundant blessings, both for body and soul, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Here there was a long pause, during which the dead silence of that vast hushed congregation was described by those present as being almost painful to the ear. Archbishop Tait having pronounced the benediction delivered a sermon which was striking for its brevity and its simple unadorned eloquence. He took for his text the words “Every one members one of another,” and illustrated in a few apt sentences the Divine origin of family life and of the State and of the Church, which, he said, was but the family and the State in relation to God. The illness of the Prince had given a fresh meaning to this conception. Hence “such a day,” observed the Archbishop in his concluding sentence, “makes us feel truly that we are all members one of another.” The religious ceremony ended at two o’clock, and the Royal procession returned to Buckingham Palace amid thunders of artillery from the guns of the Tower and the Park.
With one exception the decorations were successful. That exception—which was noted as curious at the time by the Queen—was at Ludgate Circus, where the triumphal arch, which ought to have been one of the grandest in the metropolis was, by reason of backward preparation, almost a failure. It was not till the procession was nearly within sight that the scaffoldings were taken down, and the scene of confusion as the distracted workmen removed the poles, delighted the mob amazingly.[36] Unfortunately in the hurry, so much damage was done to the gorgeous gold mouldings of the arch, that it presented the appearance of an ancient but freshly gilded ruin. As for the illuminations at night, they were not general—probably because many people did not regard a religious thanksgiving day as a fit occasion for illuminating. The centres of attraction were the dome and west front of St. Paul’s, the dome being picked out by a treble row of coloured ship’s lanterns. The cathedral itself stood out in lurid splendour when transient shafts of lime-light, and the fitful glow of the red light on the gilded ball fell on the building. Two days after the ceremony the following letter was published in the London Gazette:—
“Buckingham Palace, February 29, 1872.
“The Queen is anxious, as on a previous occasion, to express publicly her own personal very deep sense of the reception she and her dear children met with on Tuesday, February 27th, from millions of her subjects, on her way to and from St. Paul’s.
“Words are too weak for the Queen to say how very deeply touched and gratified she has been by the immense enthusiasm and 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 her dear daughter-in-law, felt that the whole nation joined with them in thanking God for sparing the beloved Prince of Wales’s life.
“The remembrance of this day and of the remarkable order maintained throughout, will for ever be affectionately remembered by the Queen and her family.”
On the very day on which this letter was dated a strange attack was made on the Queen. When she returned from her afternoon drive in the Park, she passed along by Buckingham Palace wall, and drove to the gate at which she usually alighted. The carriage had hardly halted when a lad rushed to its left side, and bending forward presented a pistol at the Queen, while he flourished a petition in his hand. He then rushed round the carriage and threw himself into a similar attitude on the other side. The Queen remained calm and unmoved, and the boy’s pistol was taken from him, when it was discovered that it was unloaded. The petition was a poor scrawl, demanding the release of the Fenian prisoners, and the lad gave the name of Arthur O’Connor, and stated his age to be seventeen.[37]