NEW KING AND QUEEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW KING AND QUEEN.

A CHUBCEMAX'S TRIBUTE.

At the beginning of January there appeared in the "Christian World Pulpit" a sermon by Dr. Archibald Fleming, of St. Columba's, London, in which he made reference to King George and Queen Mary, their eldest son, and hia brother who, with his equally _ lo Z* d wife, are to be crowned next «•*. The •reference (abbreviated) was as follows, and is appropriate with the Coronation so close at hand. "We were content with our King (George the Fifth), and more than proud of him. But then there were rumours that his thread of life was wearing thin, that the strain of life was telling on him, and there was the sad premonition that the blessed and comforting reign of King George and Queen Mary could not last for ever. Such foreboding weighed on our hearts and made us apprehensive. A steady improvement of trade duly came to us, but who would have guessed that in a few short weeks not only would the beloved King be dead, but that ere the' New Year was over another reign would have commenced and finished, and that we should be living tinder another King George—one who, thank God, bids fair to walk in the footsteps of his namesake and father; and a Scottish Queen beginning a career of not less promise than that of Queen Mary. "The curtain had fallen in. the interval on a short reign of the uncrowned, illstarred King, of whom we had hoped so much. Recrimination now were as much out of place as it would be distasteful. We only express regretful displeasure of the way of life of which he is by no means the only exponent. We must remember that. We would remember, rather, the charming, assiduous prince who seemed never to grow weary and never to grow old.

"We close the year with broken hopes, hut with spirits unbroken. We take new heart from the example that our new King and Queen have set us in refusing to regard the ideal of monarchy as less surely founded than before, and who recognise what its foundation must be. They have accepted their destiny, and the obligations of their birth; and they tell us as plainly as words can tell that they mean to go on, by the grace of God, following the same path of duty that was pursued by King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. The demands that will be made upon them will be endless, and even sometimes irksome: but we know they will meet them unflinchingly. God has been good to us in setting before this nation and Empire examples such as theirs."