THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1901. A GREAT AND GOOD QUEEN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 5, 31 January 1901, Page 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1901. A GREAT AND GOOD QUEEN.

§HE day after we had gone to press with our hist issue a telegraphic despatch announced the sad intelligence of the death of the great and good Sovereign who for over three-and-sixty years graced the throne of England. The late Em-press-Queen Victoria was, perhaps — with the possible exception of ' Good King Edward ' — the most beloved of the long line of sovereigns — whether Norman or Plantagenet, Lancastrian or York, Tudor, Stuart, or Hanoverian — that have worn the diadem of the Britains.

Happily for her people, and for the stability of her House, the late Queen was blessed with length of years far beyond the span that usually falls to the lot of those who bear the thorny burden of a royal crown. Her long lifetime saw the introduction of the ocean steamer, the Morse telegraph , the railway, the telephone, the electric light, and the thou-sand-and-one wonders of science and invention that made the story of the nineteenth century read like the Eastern tale of Aladdin. During her long reign the late Queen saw many thrones in Europe overturned ; the others vacated many times. ' Many monarchies,' says Justin McCarthy, * and even some republics, have gone down within that time. The French Republic of 1848 was upset by Louis NapoLEOn, and the Empire of Louis Napoleon went down on

the battlefield of Sedan. A German Empire has been founded, although not exactly on the ruins of the Holy Roman Empire ; and Austria has been driven outside the sphere of Germany. Italy has become one single kingdom, and Greece is at the present moment thrilling to complete what she not unnaturally thinks her national destiny. The Empire of Brazil is gone, and a sort of Republican Government works along its way in the place of the deposed sovereignty,* While the late Queen held the sceptre, a procession of seventeen Presidents succeeded each other in the United States ; there were ten Viceroys in Canada and fifteen in India ; and France was successively ruled by a King, an Emperor, and seven Presidents of a Republic. She witnessed the transformation of her own country from an oligarchy in which only one in fifty of the population was permitted to vote, into a democracy in which those who are entitled to exercise the franchise number one in six of the total population. And, in brief, she saw the oncoming of such changes in the domestic and national life as were never witnessed in any equal period of British history. But to her wisdom as a constitutional monarch, and to the affectionate reverence in which she was held by her people, is due the signal fact that, amidst all this shifting change, 'never once during her time has the strength of the [English] monarchy been shaken, or even threatened.'

Practically every human success has, of course, its shadow side. And even the purview of the record reign reveals its chequered spots. As a constitutional Sovereign the late Queen naturally played no prominent part in the domestic or international politics of her long reign. Her chief glory is of a quieter and more sacred order than that which is associated with the intrigues of Courts and Cabinets. Every man who respects that virtue which is the brightest adornment of true womanhood should treasure with deep veneration the memory of her who, while still a sweet young Queen of less than twenty summers, cleansed a Court that was noted, even in a loose period, for its loose ways ; who made it the model Court of Europe ; and who throughout the long years that God spared her to her people set them an example of pure and wholesome domestic life that was, as it were, a living sermon preached to them, simply and without vain ostentation, from the highest and greatest pulpit in the land. Few things were more beautiful in the late Queen's reign than the sweet and evergreen freshness of her home affections ; and few things more tenderly touching than the final parting between her — the ' lubes Frailchen ' ('the dear little woman'), the 'gutes Weibchen ' (' the good little wife ') — and the man she loved. Her domestic virtues were the best glory of her life. They gave a new national meaning to the word ' Home.' The deep religious spirit and the example of their beloved Queen undoubtedly gave, at a critical time, a vogue to that decency of home relations which is, perhaps, one of the best characteristics of the British nation in our day.

The long reign which was closed last week by death witnessed the practically complete emancipation of Catholics under the British flag. It is no secret that from her early years the late Queen favored the extension of religious liberty. In the days when she was a blithe and winsome young Princess, those who plotted to debar her by armed violence from the succession to the throne, alleged as a chief ground of their conspiracy her known leanings towards a broad-minded tolerance of other creeds. She entertained a friendly feeling towards the present aged and illustrious Pontiff from the far-off days when he was Papal Nuncio at Brussels ; and time and again — as on the occasion of their jubilees — kindly greetings passed between the Vatican and Windsor. In Catholic nuns the departed Sovereign displayed a kindly and even affectionate interest. Herself a woman of deep religious feeling, she knew the better how to appreciate the splendid heights of self-sacrifice to which Catholic charity, especially in our religious Orders, has soared.

In an age marked by frivolity, by the loosening of conjugal bonds, by the shirking of the most sacred domestic cares, it was no small thing that the late Queen chose her part wisely : it was the part of the ' valiant woman ' who

looked well to her household ; whose hand was, so to speak, upon the distaff ; who swerved not to left or right from the divinely-traced path of wifely and maternal duty ; and who, during all her long public career, showed a deep consciousness of the serious side of life and of the grave social and moral responsibilities of the queenly office. We speak her highest panegyric when we say that that she was a good and great Woman. And now, her earthly career ended, she goes down to th*» gravp amidst a nation's fpnrs Her life, her virtues — her whole personality — won not merely the loyalty, but the deep reverence and eulhusia&lic luve of her people. And to her high personal character it is, perhaps, chiefly due that the throne of England remained firm and unshaken amidst the many political upheavals that tossed the crowns from so many royal heads on Continental Europe.