PITT STREET WESLEY AN.

Auckland Star, Issue 23, 28 January 1901, Page 2

PITT STREET WESLEY AN.

The services at Pitt-street 'Wesleyan Church were well attended both morning and evening. Great taste was displayed in the arrangement ot memorial drapings. The pulpit was covered with dark hangings, and from the reading desk depended the Lnion Jack, surrounded with crape. lne !< communion rails and lintels of the Idoors at each side of the pulpit were lalso draped in black. The arch at the eastern end of the Church was j surrounded with the quotation, "She wrought her people lasting good. 'The morning service was attended by Lieutenant-Colonel White and a numjber of volunteers. The Key. W. Ready conducted the service. He commenced Iby delivering a few eloquent remarks : about the nation's loss and the virtues of the deceased monarch. Mr. ;\V. Forbes then played the "Dead March," during which the congregation remained' standing. During the loffertory the choir sang "Vital sSpar.k." At the close of the service Itlio hymn, "God "Bless Our Native I Land,'" followed by "God Save the alving," was sung-. In the evening the llvev. Vv. J. Williams preached from ■Proverbs xxxi., 29, "Many daughters Shave done virtuously, but thou excelflest them all." He said the world had j been touched with sorrow as it never {was before. One woman had ceased ito live, and hundreds of millions of I people were plunged in mourning. SThis was not the mere result of the Igolden sceptre, or even of intellectual aabiHty. Tt was goodness. It was a I commanding tribute to the excellence |of the Queen's personal character. It 5 was when they met in the House of God that they discovered the source jof the strength and charm that made I beautiful the life of England's Queen. and made England, with Victoria at i its head, the envy of all the nations of the earth. Thank God for a Queen ! whose outstanding attribute ■ was, j goodness! Queen Victoria was good; ] because she lived day by day in huiri- ] ble, prayerful dependence on Almighty God. The Word of God was her constant companion; prayer was I the most familiar habit of her life; in ! all her many joys and many sorrows ! she confessed Christ as her Saviour j md Lord. England has had statelier queens, queens that have more strik-

ingly impressed the public eye with! the outward habiliments of majesty, but for the more sterling qualities of i goodness of heart, purity of life, and nobleness of character, England had never been so grandly served by; !a Sovereign as by her around whose (bier the millions of the Empire stand and weep to-day. Her court was pure. How pure, and at. what a cost of. moral firmness, only those eon Id realise who arc aware, of the. possibilities of corruption in the life oi: a/ Royal Court. To have presided over a Royal Court for nearly 04 years, 'through which the breath of scandal 'never once swept, is one of the grandest tributes to the majesty and worth of personal character ever paid to. a, human being- since the world began. In the palace and in the cottage she herself had often spoken words of 'sympathy to those who were stricken with the sadness of bereavement. Now she herself had gone, and millions all the world over mourn her death as aj personal sorrow.