The last days of the half-century are fleeting fast as we write, and we are yet at peace with Europe, as when Victoria's reign began. How long that peace shall last, who shall say? who can say how long it may be ere the elements of internal discord that have threatened to wreck the prosperity of the empire, shall be composed to a lasting peace, and leave the nation free to follow its better destiny? But foes within and foes without have many times assailed us in vain in past years; many times has the political horizon been shadowed with clouds portending war and strife no less gloomily than those which now darken it, and as yet the Crimean war is the only war on which we have entered that can be called European; many times have grave discontents broken our domestic peace, but wise statesmanship has found a timely remedy. We need not, if we learn the lessons of the past aright, fear greatly to confront the future. Not to us the glory or the praise, but to a merciful overruling Providence, ever raising up amongst us noble hearts in time, that we are found to-day
"A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled,"
"A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled,"
"A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled,"
not quite bankrupt in heart or hope or faith, but possessing
"Some sense of duty, something of a faith,Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,Some patient force to change them when we will;"
"Some sense of duty, something of a faith,Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,Some patient force to change them when we will;"
"Some sense of duty, something of a faith,Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,Some patient force to change them when we will;"
and we may justly acknowledge, in thankfulness not vainglorious, the happier fate that has been ours above many another land, that may still be ours, "if England to itself do rest but true."
We have seen during these sixty years the map of Europe remodelled to an undreamed of extent. Fair Italy, though still possessing her fatal gift of beauty, though still suffering many things, is no longer the prey of foreign unloved rulers, but has become a nation, a mere "geographical expression" no longer; Germany, whose many little princedoms were once a favourite theme of British mockery, is now one great and formidable empire; the power of Russia has, despite the Crimean check, continued to expand, while desperate internal struggles have shaken that half-developed people, proving fatal to the gentle successor of Nicholas, the emancipator of the Russian serfs, and often threatening the life ofhissuccessors; and the once formidable American slave-system has been swept away, with appalling loss of human life; a second President of the United States has fallen by the hand of an assassin; and new difficulties, scarce inferior to those connected with slavery, have followed on its abolition. Our record shows no calamity comparable to the greatest of these, if we set aside the Indian horrors so terribly avenged at the moment, but by their teaching resulting ultimately in good rather than evil.
Besides the furious strife and convulsion that have rent other lands, how inconsiderable seem the disturbances that disfigure our home annals, how peaceful the changes in our constitutional system, brought about orderly in due form of law, how purely domestic the saddest events of our internal history! We wept with our Sovereign in her early widowhood, a bereavement to the people as well as to the Queen; we trembled with her when the shadow of death hung over her eldest son, rejoicing with her when it passed away; we shared her grief for two other of her children, inheritors 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 shown, are increasing efforts put forth by our Christian men and women to overcome these evils; and through such agencies our country may yet be saved, and may not perish like other mighty empires, dragged down by its own over-swollen greatness, and by neglect of the eternal truth that "righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."
Footnote 1:Life of Norman Macleod, D.D. vol. ii.(return)
Footnote 1:
Life of Norman Macleod, D.D. vol. ii.(return)
Footnote 2:C. C. F. Greville:A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria(return)
Footnote 2:
C. C. F. Greville:A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria(return)
Footnote 3:Greville Memoirs, Third Part, vol. i.(return)
Footnote 3:
Greville Memoirs, Third Part, vol. i.(return)
Footnote 4:Inscription on the cairn on Craig Lorigan(return)
Footnote 4:
Inscription on the cairn on Craig Lorigan(return)
Footnote 5:Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings. London: 1887(return)
Footnote 5:
Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings. London: 1887(return)
Footnote 6:The writer desires to acknowledge special obligation to the Rev. J. Wesley Davies for invaluable aid rendered by him in collecting and arranging the material embodied in this chapter.(return)
Footnote 6:
The writer desires to acknowledge special obligation to the Rev. J. Wesley Davies for invaluable aid rendered by him in collecting and arranging the material embodied in this chapter.(return)
Footnote 7:"Methodism in all its branches" must be understood ofallbodies bearing the name of Methodist, including the New Connexion and the Primitive Methodists. The membership of Wesleyan Methodism alone throughout the world, according to theMinutes of Conferencefor 1839, was 1,112,519; and the total ministry, including 335 missionaries, 4,957.(return)
Footnote 7:
"Methodism in all its branches" must be understood ofallbodies bearing the name of Methodist, including the New Connexion and the Primitive Methodists. The membership of Wesleyan Methodism alone throughout the world, according to theMinutes of Conferencefor 1839, was 1,112,519; and the total ministry, including 335 missionaries, 4,957.(return)