SQUIRE AND KING

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 21, 25 January 1936, Page 9

SQUIRE AND KING

AS PEOPLE SAW HIM

FIRMLY-HELD RELIGIOUS

FAITH

LONDON, January 23.

"King George left home for the last time in the character in which he lived there, as 'The Squire of Sandringham'," says "The Times" in an editorial.

"His life there was the life of a country gentleman among his own people, who saw in him the squire first and the King second. So it was at Balmoral, where he was the laird, and at his residence he was so much the natural thing that strangers were surprised at the apparent indifference with which people of the estate treated his presence among them. King George was happiest in the country, living with his family, on his own place, and among his own people.

"When the train arrived in London those assembled were awaiting not the Squire of Sandringham but King George of England. Not yet had the full pomp of State and Empire claimed him. It was the King of England passing through the capital of England, where were Kings of England long before there was a British Empire, and King George was proud of his kingly office and his birthright as an Englishman." A PRAYER ANSWERED. In an editorial tribute to the late King's religion, "The Times" comments on Parliament's prayer, written in 1662—"0ur Most Religious ' and Gracious King." "If loyalty rather than veracity were applied in the first adjective to the King then reigning, veracity no less than loyalty finds in it a true description of the Monarch we mourn today," it says. ''Tributes would draw a false portrait if they ascribed his characteristics chiefly to inherited tradition or, indeed, to any other source than his firmly-held religious faith and the utter self-forget-fulness with which he set himself his daily task. The unwearied search for opportunities of showing kindness was a direct consequence of his religion. All who, less than a month ago, heard the King's Christmas message, will recall that 'God help me' as he spoke of himself in impressive sincerity. Who can but feel today that that prayer has been answered? The help which strengthened him throughout his reign did not fail him at the end. It spared him what he alone dreaded, another long illness or the disabilities of old age. A happy Christmas with his family in the setting he loved best, a swift passage through the shadow, and so home to the God who helped him."