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diff --git a/old/13103.txt b/old/13103.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6d310e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13103.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6069 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Britain and Her Queen, by Anne E. +Keeling + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Great Britain and Her Queen + +Author: Anne E. Keeling + +Release Date: August 3, 2004 [eBook #13103] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT BRITAIN AND HER QUEEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Roy Brown + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 13103-h.htm or 13103-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/0/13103/13103-h/13103-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/0/13103/13103-h.zip) + + + + + +GREAT BRITAIN AND HER QUEEN + +by + +ANNE E. KEELING + +Author of "General Gordon: Hero and Saint," "The Oakhurst +Chronicles," "Andrew Golding," etc. + +Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged, 1897 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Queen Victoria] + + + +[Illustration: Claremont] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I. +THE GIRL QUEEN AND HER KINGDOM + +CHAPTER II. +STORM AND SUNSHINE + +CHAPTER III. +FRANCE AND ENGLAND + +CHAPTER IV. +THE CRIMEAN WAR + +CHAPTER V. +INDIA + +CHAPTER VI. +THE BEGINNINGS OF SORROWS + +CHAPTER VII. +CHANGES GOOD AND EVIL + +CHAPTER VIII. +OUR COLONIES + +CHAPTER IX. +INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL PROGRESS + +CHAPTER X. +PROGRESS OF THE EMPIRE FROM 1887 TO 1897 + +CHAPTER XI. +PROGRESS OF WESLEYAN METHODISM UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA, 1837-1897 + +CONCLUSION + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + +Queen Victoria +Claremont +The Coronation of Queen Victoria +Kensington Palace +Duchess of Kent +Elizabeth Fry +Rowland Hill +Father Mathew +George Stephenson +Wheatstone +St. James's Palace +Prince Albert +The Queen in Her Wedding-Dress +Sir Robert Peel +Daniel O'Connell +Richard Cobden +John Bright +Lord John Russell +Thomas Chalmers +John Henry Newmann +Balmoral +Buckingham Palace +Napoleon III +The Crystal Palace, 1851 +Lord Ashley +Earl of Derby +Duke of Wellington +Florence Nightingale +Lord Canning +Sir Colin Campbell +Henry Havelock +Sir John Lawrence +Windsor Castle +Prince Frederick William +Princess Royal +Charles Kingsley +Lord Palmerston +Abraham Lincoln and his son +Princess Alice +The Mausoleum +Dr. Norman Macleod +Prince of Wales +Princess of Wales +Osborne House +Sir Robert Napier +Mr. Gladstone +Lord Beaconsfield +Lord Salisbury +General Gordon +Duke of Albany +Duchess of Albany +Sydney Heads +Robert Southey +William Wordsworth +Alfred Tennyson +Robert Browning +Charles Dickens +W. M. Thackeray +Charlotte Bronte +Lord Macaulay +Thomas Carlyle +William Whewell, D.D. +Sir David Brewster +Sir James Y. Simpson +Michael Faraday +David Livingstone +Sir John Franklin +John Ruskin +Dean Stanley +"I was sick, and ye visited me" +Duke of Connaught +The Imperial Institute +Duke of Clarence +Duke of York +Duchess of York +Princess Henry of Battenberg +Prince Henry of Battenberg +The Czarina of Russia +H. M. Stanley +Dr. Fridtjof Nansen +Miss Kingsley +J. M. Barrie +Richard Jefferies +Rev. J. G. Wood +Dean Church +Professor Huxley +Professor Tyndall +C. H. Spurgeon +Dr. Horatius Bonar +Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A. +Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A. +Wesley preaching on his father's tomb +Group of Presidents:--No. 1 +Centenary Meeting at Manchester +Key to Centenary Meeting +Wesleyan Centenary Hall +Group of Presidents:--No. 2 +Sir Francis Lycett +The Methodist Settlement, Bermondsey. London, S.E. +Theological Institution, Richmond +Theological Institution, Didsbury +Theological Institution, Headingley +Theological Institution, Handsworth +Kingswood School, Bath +The North House, Leys School, Cambridge +Queen's College, Taunton +Wesley College, Sheffield +Children's Home, Bolton +Westminster Training College and Schools +Group of Presidents:--No. 3 + +[Illustration: The Coronation of Queen Victoria] + + + +GREAT BRITAIN AND HER QUEEN. + +[Illustration: Kensington Palace] + +CHAPTER I. + +THE GIRL-QUEEN AND HER KINGDOM. + +Rather more than one mortal lifetime, as we average life in these +later days, has elapsed since that June morning of 1837, when +Victoria of England, then a fair young princess of eighteen, was +roused from her tranquil sleep in the old palace at Kensington, and +bidden to rise and meet the Primate, and his dignified associates the +Lord Chamberlain and the royal physician, who "were come on business +of state to the Queen"--words of startling import, for they meant +that, while the royal maiden lay sleeping, the aged King, whose +heiress she was, had passed into the deeper sleep of death. It is +already an often-told story how promptly, on receiving that summons, +the young Queen rose and came to meet her first homagers, standing +before them in hastily assumed wrappings, her hair hanging loosely, +her feet in slippers, but in all her hearing such royally firm +composure as deeply impressed those heralds of her greatness, who +noticed at the same moment that her eyes were full of tears. This +little scene is not only charming and touching, it is very +significant, suggesting a combination of such qualities as are not +always found united: sovereign good sense and readiness, blending +with quick, artless feeling that sought no disguise--such feeling as +again betrayed itself when on her ensuing proclamation the new +Sovereign had to meet her people face to face, and stood before them +at her palace window, composed but sad, the tears running unchecked +down her fair pale face. + +That rare spectacle of simple human emotion, at a time when a selfish +or thoughtless spirit would have leaped in exultation, touched the +heart of England deeply, and was rightly held of happy omen. The +nation's feeling is aptly expressed in the glowing verse of Mrs. +Browning, praying Heaven's blessing on the "weeping Queen," and +prophesying for her the love, happiness, and honour which have been +hers in no stinted measure. "Thou shalt be well beloved," said the +poetess; there are very few sovereigns of whom it could be so truly +said that they _have_ been well beloved, for not many have so well +deserved it. The faith of the singer has been amply justified, as +time has made manifest the rarer qualities joyfully divined in those +early days in the royal child, the single darling hope of the nation. + +Once before in the recent annals of our land had expectations and +desires equally ardent centred themselves on one young head. Much of +the loyal devotion which had been alienated from the immediate family +of George III. had transferred itself to his grandchild, the Princess +Charlotte, sole offspring of the unhappy marriage between George, +Prince of Wales, and Caroline of Brunswick. The people had watched +with vivid interest the young romance of Princess Charlotte's happy +marriage, and had bitterly lamented her too early death--an event +which had overshadowed all English hearts with forebodings of +disaster. Since that dark day a little of the old attachment of +England to its sovereigns had revived for the frank-mannered sailor +and "patriot king," William IV; but the hopes crushed by the death +of the much-regretted Charlotte had renewed themselves with even +better warrant for Victoria. She was the child of no ill-omened, +miserable marriage, but of a fitting union; her parents had been +sundered only by death, not by wretched domestic dissensions. People +heard that the mortal malady which deprived her of a father had been +brought about by the Duke of Kent's simple delight in his baby +princess, which kept him playing with the child when he should have +been changing his wet outdoor garb; and they found something touching +and tender in the tragic little circumstance. And everything that +could be noticed of the manner in which the bereaved duchess was +training up her precious charge spoke well for the mother's wisdom +and affection, and for the future of the daughter. + +It was indeed a happy day for England when Edward, Duke of Kent, the +fourth son of George III, was wedded to Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, the +widowed Princess of Leiningen--happy, not only because of the +admirable skill with which that lady conducted her illustrious +child's education, and because of the pure, upright principles, the +frank, noble character, which she transmitted to that child, but +because the family connection established through that marriage was +to be yet further serviceable to the interests of our realm. Prince +Albert of Saxe-Coburg was second son of the Duchess of Kent's eldest +brother, and thus first cousin of the Princess Victoria--"the +Mayflower," as, in fond allusion to the month of her birth, her +mother's kinsfolk loved to call her: and it has been made plain that +dreams of a possible union between the two young cousins, very nearly +of an age, were early cherished by the elders who loved and admired +both. + +[Illustration: Duchess of Kent. From an Engraving by Messrs. P. & D. +Colnaghi & Co., Pall Mall East.] + +The Princess's life, however, was sedulously guarded from all +disturbing influences. She grew up in healthy simplicity and +seclusion; she was not apprised of her nearness to the throne till +she was twelve years old; she had been little at Court, little in +sight, but had been made familiar with her own land and its history, +having received the higher education so essential to her great +position; while simple truth and rigid honesty were the very +atmosphere of her existence. From such a training much might be +hoped; but even those who knew most and hoped most were not quite +prepared for the strong individual character and power of +self-determination that revealed themselves in the girlish being so +suddenly transferred "from the nursery to the throne." It was quickly +noticed that the part of Queen and mistress seemed native to her, and +that she filled it with not more grace than propriety. "She always +strikes me as possessed of singular penetration, firmness, and +independence," wrote Dr. Norman Macleod in 1860; acute observers in +1837 took note of the same traits, rarer far in youth than in full +maturity, and closely connected with the "reasoning, searching" +quality of her mind, "anxious to get at the root and reality of +things, and abhorring all shams, whether in word or deed." [Footnote] + +[Footnote: "Life of Norman Macleod, D.D." vol. ii.] + +It was well for England that its young Sovereign could exemplify +virile strength as well as womanly sweetness; for it was indeed a +cloudy and dark day when she was called to her post of lonely +grandeur and hard responsibility; and to fill that post rightly would +have overtasked and overwhelmed a feebler nature. It is true that the +peace of Europe, won at Waterloo, was still unbroken. But already, +within our borders and without them, there were the signs of coming +storm. The condition of Ireland was chronically bad; the condition of +England was full of danger; on the Continent a new period of +earth-shaking revolution announced itself not doubtfully. + +It would be hardly possible to exaggerate the wretched state of the +sister isle, where fires of recent hate were still smouldering, and +where the poor inhabitants, guilty and guiltless, were daily living +on the verge of famine, over which they were soon to be driven. Their +ill condition much aggravated by the intemperate habits to which +despairing men so easily fall a prey. The expenditure of Ireland on +proof spirits alone had in the year 1829 attained the sum of +L6,000,000. + +In England many agricultural labourers were earning starvation wages, +were living on bad and scanty food, and were housed so wretchedly +that they might envy the hounds their dry and clean kennels. A dark +symptom of their hungry discontent had shown itself in the strange +crime of rick-burning, which went on under cloud of night season +after season, despite the utmost precautions which the luckless +farmers could adopt. The perpetrators were not dimly guessed to be +half-famished creatures, taking a mad revenge for their wretchedness +by destroying the tantalising stores of grain, too costly for their +consumption; the price of wheat in the early years of Her Majesty's +reign and for some time previously being very high, and reaching at +one moment (1847) the extraordinary figure of a hundred and two +shillings per quarter. + +There was threatening distress, too, in some parts of the +manufacturing districts; in others a tolerably high level of wages +indicated prosperity. But even in the more favoured districts there +was needless suffering. The hours of work, unrestricted by law, were +cruelly long; nor did there exist any restriction as to the +employment of operatives of very tender years. "The cry of the +children" was rising up to heaven, not from the factory only, but +from the underground darkness of the mine, where a system of pitiless +infant slavery prevailed, side by side with the employment of women +as beasts of burden, "in an atmosphere of filth and profligacy." The +condition of too many toilers was rendered more hopeless by the +thriftless follies born of ignorance. The educational provision made +by the piety of former ages was no longer adequate to the needs of +the ever-growing nation; and all the voluntary efforts made by clergy +and laity, by Churchmen and Dissenters, did not fill up the +deficiency--a fact which had only just begun to meet with State +recognition. It was in 1834 that Government first obtained from +Parliament the grant of a small sum in aid of education. Under a +defective system of poor-relief, recently reformed, an immense mass +of idle pauperism had come into being; it still remained to be seen +if a new Poor Law could do away with the mischief created by the old +one. + +Looking at the earliest years of Her Majesty's rule, the first +impulse is to exclaim: + +"And all this trouble did not pass, but grew." + +It seemed as if poverty became ever more direful, and dissatisfaction +more importunate. A succession of unfavourable seasons and failing +crops produced extraordinary distress; and the distress in its turn +was fruitful first of deepened discontent, and then of political +disturbances. The working classes had looked for immediate relief +from their burdens when the Reform Bill should be carried, and had +striven hard to insure its success: it had been carried triumphantly +in 1832, but no perceptible improvement in their lot had yet +resulted; and a resentful feeling of disappointment and of being +victims of deception now added bitterness to their blind sense of +misery and injury, and greatly exasperated the political agitation of +the ten stormy years that followed. + +No position could well be more trying than that of the inexperienced +girl who, in the first bloom of youth, was called to rule the land in +this wild transitional period. Her royal courage and gracious tact, +her transparent truthfulness, her high sense of duty, and her +precocious discretion served her well; but these young excellences +could not have produced their full effect had she not found in her +first Prime Minister a faithful friend and servant, whose loyal and +chivalrous devotion at once conciliated her regard, and who only used +the influence thus won to impress on his Sovereign's mind "sound +maxims of constitutional government, and truths of every description +which it behoved her to learn." The records of the time show plainly +that Lord Melbourne, the eccentric head of William IV's last Whig +Administration, was not generally credited with either the will or +the ability to play so lofty a part. His affectation of a lazy, +trifling, indifferent manner, his often-quoted remonstrance to +impetuous would-be reformers, "Can't you let it alone?" had earned +for him some angry disapproval, and caused him to be regarded as the +embodiment of the detested _laissez-faire_ principle. But under his +mask of nonchalance he hid some noble qualities, which at this +juncture served Queen and country well. + +Considered as a frivolous, selfish courtier by too many of the +suffering poor and of their friends, he was in truth "acting in all +things an affectionate, conscientious, and patriotic part" towards +his Sovereign, "endeavouring to make her happy as a woman and popular +as a Queen," [Footnote] telling her uncourtly truths with a blunt +honesty that did not displease her, and watching over her with a +paternal tenderness which she repaid with frank, noble confidence. He +was faithful in a great and difficult trust; let his memory have due +honour. + +[Footnote: C. C. F. Greville: "A Journal of the Reign of Queen +Victoria."] + +Under Melbourne's pilotage the first months of the new reign went by +with some serenity, though the political horizon remained threatening +enough, and the temper of the nation appeared sullen. "The people of +England seem inclined to hurrah no more," wrote Greville of one of +the Queen's earliest public appearances, when "not a hat was raised +nor a voice heard" among the coldly curious crowd of spectators. But +the splendid show of her coronation a half-year later awakened great +enthusiasm--enthusiasm most natural and inevitable. It was youth and +grace and goodness, all the freshness and the infinite promise of +spring, that wore the crimson and the ermine and the gold, that sat +enthroned amid the ancient glories of the Abbey to receive the homage +of all that was venerable and all that was great in a mighty kingdom, +and that bowed in meek devotion to receive the solemn consecrating +blessing of the Primate, according to the holy custom followed in +England for a thousand years, with little or no variation since the +time when Dunstan framed the Order of Coronation, closely following +the model of the Communion Service. Some other features special to +_this_ coronation heightened the national delight in it. Its +arrangements evidently had for their chief aim to interest and to +gratify the people. Instead of the banquet in Westminster Hall, +which could have been seen only by the privileged and the wealthy, a +grand procession through London was arranged, including all the +foreign ambassadors, and proceeding from Buckingham Palace to +Westminster Abbey by a route two or three miles in length, so that +the largest possible number of spectators might enjoy the magnificent +pageant. And the overflowing multitudes whose dense masses lined the +whole long way, and in whose tumultuous cheering pealing bells and +sounding trumpets and thundering cannon were almost unheard as the +young Queen passed through the shouting ranks, formed themselves the +most impressive spectacle to the half-hostile foreign witnesses, who +owned that the sight of these rejoicing thousands of freemen was +grand indeed, and impossible save in that England which, then as now, +was not greatly loved by its rivals. An element which appealed +powerfully to the national pride and the national generosity was +supplied by the presence of the Duke of Wellington and of Marshal +Soult, his old antagonist, who appeared as French ambassador. Soult, +as he advanced with the air of a veteran warrior, was followed by +murmurs of admiring applause, which swelled into more than murmurs +for the hero of Waterloo bending in homage to his Sovereign. A touch +of sweet humanity was added to the imposing scene within the Abbey +through what might have been a painful accident. Lord Rolle, a peer +between seventy and eighty years of age, stumbling and falling as he +climbed the steps of the throne, the Queen impulsively moved as if to +aid him; and when the old man, undismayed, persisted in carrying out +his act of homage, she asked quickly, "May I not get up and meet +him?" and descended one or two steps to save him the ascent. The +ready natural kindliness of the royal action awoke ecstatic applause, +which could hardly have been heartier had the applauders known how +true a type that act supplied of Her Majesty's future conduct. She +has never feared to peril her dignity by descending a step or two +from her throne, when "sweet mercy, nobility's true badge," has +seemed to require such a descent. And her queenly dignity has never +been thereby lessened. "She never ceases to be a Queen," says +Greville _a propos_ of this scene, "and is always the most charming, +cheerful, obliging, unaffected Queen in the world." + +[Illustration: Elizabeth Fry] + +That "the people" were more considered in the arrangements for this +coronation than they had been on any previous occasion of the sort +was a circumstance quite in harmony with certain other signs of the +times. "The night is darkest before the dawn," and amid all the gloom +which enshrouded the land there could be discerned the stir and +movement that herald the coming of the day. Men's minds were turning +more and more to the healing of the world's wounds. Already one great +humane enterprise had been carried through in the emancipation of the +slaves in British Colonies; already the vast work of prison reform +had been well begun, through the saintly Elizabeth Fry, whose life of +faithful service ended ere the Queen had reigned eight years. The +very year of Her Majesty's accession was signalised by two noteworthy +endeavours to put away wrong. We will turn first to that which +_seems_ the least immediately philanthropic, although the injustice +which it remedied was trivial in appearance only, since in its +everyday triviality it weighed most heavily on the most numerous +class--that of the humble and the poor. + +[Illustration: Rowland Hill] + +How would the Englishman of to-day endure the former exactions of the +Post Office? The family letters of sixty years ago, written on the +largest sheets purchasable, crossed and crammed to the point of +illegibility, filled with the news of many and many a week, still +witness of the time when "a letter from London to Brighton cost +eightpence, to Aberdeen one and threepence-halfpenny, to Belfast one +and fourpence"; when, "if the letter were written on more than one +sheet, it came under the operation of a higher scale of charges," and +when the privilege of franking letters, enjoyed and very largely +exercised by members of Parliament and members of the Government, had +the peculiar effect of throwing the cost of the mail service exactly +on that part of the community which was least able to bear it. The +result of the injustice was as demoralising as might have been +expected. The poorer people who desired to have tidings of distant +friend or relative were driven by the prohibitory rates of postage +into all sorts of curious, not quite honest devices, to gratify their +natural desire without being too heavily taxed for it. A brother and +sister, for instance, unable to afford themselves the costly luxury +of regular correspondence, would obtain assurance of each other's +well-being by transmission through the post at stated intervals of +blank papers duly sealed and addressed: the arrival of the postman +with a missive of this kind announced to the recipient that all was +well with the sender, so the unpaid "letter" was cheerfully left on +the messenger's hands. Such an incident, coming under the notice of +Mr. Rowland Hill, impressed him with a sense of hardship and wrong in +the system that bore these fruits; and he set himself with strenuous +patience to remedy the wrong and the hardship. His scheme of reform +was worked out and laid before the public early in 1837; in the third +year of Her Majesty's reign it was first adopted in its entirety, +with what immense profit to the Government we may partly see when we +contrast the seventy-six or seventy-seven millions of _paid_ letters +delivered in the United Kingdom during the last year of the heavy +postage with the number exceeding a thousand millions, and still +increasing--delivered yearly during the last decade; while the +population has not doubled. That the Queen's own letters carried +postage under the new regime was a fact almost us highly appreciated +as Her Majesty's voluntary offer at a later date to bear her due +share of the income tax. + +It is well to notice how later Postmasters General, successors of +Rowland Hill in that important office, have striven further to +benefit their countrymen. In particular, Henry Fawcett's earnest +efforts to encourage and aid habits of thrift are worthy of +remembrance. + +Again, it is during the first year of Her Majesty's reign that we +find Father Mathew, the Irish Capuchin friar, initiating his vast +crusade against intemperance, and by the charm of his persuasive +eloquence and unselfish enthusiasm inducing thousands upon thousands +to forswear the drink-poison that was destroying them. In two years +he succeeded in enrolling two million five hundred thousand persons +on the side of sobriety. The permanence of the good Father's +immediate work was impaired by the superstitions which his poor +followers associated with it, much against his desire. Not only were +the medals which he gave as badges to his vowed abstainers regarded +as infallible talismans from the hand of a saint, but the giver was +credited with miraculous powers such as only a Divine Being could +exercise, and which he disclaimed in vain--extravagances too likely +to discredit his enterprise with more soberly judging persons than +the imaginative Celts who were his earliest converts. But, +notwithstanding every drawback, his action was most important, and +deserves grateful memory. We may see in it the inception of that +great movement whose indirect influence in reforming social habits +and restraining excess had at least equalled its direct power for +good on its pledged adherents. Though it is still unhappily true that +drunkenness slays its tens of thousands among us, and largely helps +to people our workhouses, our madhouses, and our gaols, yet the fiend +walks not now, as it used to do, in unfettered freedom. It is no +longer a fashionable vice, excused and half approved as the natural +expression of joviality and good-fellowship; peers and commoners of +every degree no longer join daily in the "heavy-headed revel" whose +deep-dyed stain seems to have soaked through every page of our +last-century annals. And it would appear as though the vice were not +only held from increasing, but were actually on the decrease. The +statistics of the last decade show that the consumption of alcohol is +diminishing, and that of true food-stuffs proportionally rising. + +[Illustration: Father Mathew] + +There were other enterprises now set on foot, by no means directly +philanthropic in their aim, which contemplated utility more than +virtue or justice--enterprises whose vast effects are yet +unexhausted, and which have so modified the conditions of human +existence as to make the new reign virtually a new epoch. As to the +real benefit of these immense changes, opinion is somewhat divided; +but the majority would doubtless vote in their favour. The first +railway in England, that between Liverpool and Manchester, had been +opened in 1830, the day of its opening being made darkly memorable by +the accident fatal to Mr. Huskisson, as though the new era must be +inaugurated by a sacrifice. Three years later there was but this one +railway in England, and one, seven miles long, in Scotland. But in +1837 the Liverpool and Birmingham line was opened; in 1838 the London +and Birmingham and the Liverpool and Preston lines, and an Act was +passed for transmitting the mails by rail; in 1839 there was the +opening of the London and Croydon line. The ball was set fairly +rolling, and the supersession of ancient modes of communication was a +question of time merely. The advance of the new system was much +accelerated at the outset by the fact that railway enterprise became +the favourite field for speculation, men being attracted by the +novelty and tempted by exaggerated prospects of profit; and the mania +was followed, like other manias, with results largely disastrous to +the speculators and to commerce. But through years of good fortune +and of bad fortune the iron network has continued to spread itself, +until all the land lies embraced in its ramifications; and it is +spreading still, like some strange organism the one condition of +whose life is reproduction, knitting the greatest centres of commerce +with the loneliest and remotest villages that were wont to lie far +out of the travelled ways of men, and bringing _Ultima Thule_ into +touch with London. + +[Illustration: George Stephenson] + +Meanwhile the steam service by sea has advanced almost with that by +land. In 1838 three steamships crossed the Atlantic between this +country and New York, the _Great Western_, sailing from Bristol, and +_Sirius_, from Cork, distinguished themselves by the short passages +they made,--of fifteen days in the first case, and seventeen days in +the second,--and by their using steam power _alone_ to effect the +transit, an experiment that had not been risked before. It was now +proved feasible, and in a year or two there was set on foot that +regular steam communication between the New World and the Old, which +ever since has continued to draw them into always closer connection, +as the steamers, like swift-darting shuttles, weave their multiplying +magic lines across the liquid plain between. + +The telegraph wires that run beside road and rail, doing the office +of nerves in transmitting intelligence with thrilling quickness from +the extremities to the head and from the head to the extremities of +our State, are now so familiar an object, and their operations, such +mere matters of every day, that we do not often recall how utterly +unfamiliar they were sixty years ago, when Wheatstone and Cooke on +this side the Atlantic, and Morse on the other, were devising their +methods for giving signals and sounding alarms in distant places by +means of electric currents transmitted through metallic circuits. +Submarine telegraphy lay undreamed of in the future, land telegraphy +was but just gaining hearing as a practicable improvement, when the +crown was set on Her Majesty's head amid all that pomp and ceremony +at Westminster. A modern English imagination is quite unequal to the +task of realising the manifold hindrances that beset human +intercourse at that day, when a journey by coach between places as +important and as little remote from each other as Leeds and Newcastle +occupied sixteen mortal hours, with changes of horses and stoppages +for meals on the road, and when letters, unless forwarded by an +"express" messenger at heavy cost, tarried longer on the way than +even did passengers; while some prudent dwellers in the country +deemed it well to set their affairs in order and make their wills +before embarking on the untried perils of a journey up to town. These +days are well within the memory of many yet living; but if the newer +generations that have arisen during the present reign would +understand what it is to be hampered in their movements and their +correspondence as were their fathers, they must seek the remoter and +more savage quarters of Europe, the less travelled portions of +America or of half-explored Australia; they must plunge into Asian or +African wilds, untouched by civilisation, where as yet there runs not +the iron horse, worker of greater marvels than the wizard steeds of +fairy fable, that could, transport a single favoured rider over wide +distances in little time. The subjugated, serviceable nature-power +Steam, with its fellow-servant the tamed and tutored Lightning, has +wonderfully contracted distance during these fifty years, making the +earth, once so vast to human imagination, appear as a globe shrunken +to a tenth of its ancient size, and bringing nations divided by half +the surface of that globe almost within sound of each other's speech. + +[Illustration: Wheatstone.] + +That there is damage as well as profit in all these increased +facilities of intercourse must be apparent, since there is evil as +well as good in the human world, and increased freedom of +communication implies freer communication of the evil as of the good. +But we may well hope that the cause of true upward progress will be +most served by the vast inevitable changes which, as they draw all +peoples nearer together, must deepen and strengthen the sense of +human brotherhood, and, as they bring the deeds of all within the +knowledge of all, must consume by an intolerable blaze of light the +once secret iniquities and oppressions abhorrent to the universal +conscience of mankind. The public conscience in these realms at least +is better informed and more sensitive than it was in the year of +William IV's death and of Victoria's accession. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +STORM AND SUNSHINE. + +[Illustration: St. James's Palace.] + +The beneficent changes we have briefly described were but just +inaugurated, and their possible power for good was as yet hardly +divined, when the young Queen entered into that marriage which we may +well deem the happiest action of her life, and the most fruitful of +good to her people, looking to the extraordinary character of the +husband of her choice, and to the unobtrusive but always advantageous +influence which his great and wise spirit exercised on our national +life. + +The marriage had been anxiously desired, and the way for it +judiciously prepared, but it was in no sense forced on either of the +contracting parties by their elders who so desired it. Prince Albert +of Saxe-Coburg, second son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the +Queen's maternal uncle, was nearly of an age with his royal cousin; +he had already, young as he was, given evidence of a rare superiority +of nature; he had been excellently trained; and there is no doubt +that Leopold, king of the Belgians, his uncle, and the Queen's, did +most earnestly desire to see the young heiress of the British throne, +for whom he had a peculiar tenderness, united to the one person whose +position and whose character combined to point him out as the fit +partner for her high and difficult destinies. What tact, what +patience, and what power of self-suppression the Queen of England's +husband would need to exercise, no one could better judge than +Leopold, the widowed husband of Princess Charlotte; no one could more +fully have exemplified these qualities than the prince in whom +Leopold's penetration divined them. + +The cousins had already met, in 1836, when their mutual attraction +had been sufficiently strong; and in 1839, when Prince Albert, with +his elder brother Ernest, was again visiting England, the impression +already produced became ineffaceably deep. The Queen, whom her great +rank compelled to take the initiative, was not very long in making up +her mind when and how to act. Her favoured suitor himself, writing to +a dear relative, relates how she performed the trying task, inviting +him to render her intensely happy by making "the _sacrifice_ of +sharing her life with her, for she said she looked on it as a +sacrifice. The joyous openness with which she told me this enchanted +me, and I was quite carried away by it." This was on October 15th; +nearly six weeks after, on November 23rd, she made to her assembled +Privy Council the formal declaration of her intended marriage. There +is something particularly touching in even the driest description of +this scene; the betrothed bride wearing a simple morning dress, +having on her arm a bracelet containing Prince Albert's portrait, +which helped to give her courage; her voice, as she read the +declaration clear, sweet, and penetrating as ever, but her hands +trembling so excessively that it was surprising she could read the +paper she held. It was a trying task, but not so difficult as that +which had devolved on her a short time before, when, in virtue of her +sovereign rank, she had first to speak the words of fate that bound +her to her suitor. + +[Illustration: Prince Albert.] + +Endowed with every charm of person, mind, and manner that can win and +keep affection, Prince Albert was able, in marrying the Queen, who +loved him and whom he loved, to secure for her a happiness rare in +any rank, rarest of all on the cold heights of royalty. This was not +all; he was the worthy partner of her greatness. Himself highly +cultivated in every sense, he watched with keenest interest over the +advance of all cultivation in the land of his adoption, and +identified himself with every movement to improve its condition. His +was the soul of a statesman--wide, lofty, far-seeing, patient; +surveying all great things, disdaining no small things, but with +tireless industry pursuing after all necessary knowledge. Add to +these intellectual excellences the moral graces of ideal purity of +life, chivalrous faithfulness of heart, magnanimous self-suppression, +and fervent piety, and we have a slight outline of a character which, +in the order of Providence, acted very strongly and with a still +living force on the destinies of nineteenth-century England. The +Queen had good reasons for the feeling of "confidence and comfort" +that shone in the glance she turned on her bridegroom as they walked +away, man and wife at last, from the altar of the Chapel Royal, on +February 10th, 1840. The union she then entered into immeasurably +enhanced her popularity, and strengthened her position as surely as +it expanded her nature. Not many years elapsed before Sir Robert Peel +could tell her that, in spite of the inroads of democracy, the +monarchy had never been safer, nor had any sovereign been so beloved, +because "the Queen's domestic life was so happy, and its example so +good." Only the Searcher of hearts knoweth how great has been the +holy power of a pure, fair, and noble example constantly shining in +the high places of the land. + +[Illustration: The Queen in her Wedding-Dress. _After the Picture by_ +Drummond.] + +It was hinted by the would-be wise, in the early days of Her +Majesty's married life, that it would be idle to look for the royally +maternal feeling of an Elizabeth towards her people in a wedded +constitutional sovereign. The judgment was a mistake. The formal +limitations of our Queen's prerogative, sedulously as she has +respected them, have never destroyed her sense of responsibility; +wifehood and motherhood have not contracted her sympathies, but have +deepened and widened them. The very sorrows of her domestic life have +knit her in fellowship with other mourners. No great calamity can +befall her humblest subjects, and she hear of it, but there comes the +answering flash of tender pity. She is more truly the mother of her +people, having walked on a level with them, and with "Love, who is of +the valley," than if she had chosen to dwell alone and aloof. + +[Illustration: Sir Robert Peel.] + +For some years after her marriage the Queen's private life shows like +a little isle of brightness in the midst of a stormy sea. Within and +without our borders there was small prospect of settled peace at the +very time of that marriage. We have said that Lord Melbourne was +still Premier; but he and his Ministry had resigned office in the +previous May, and had only come back to it in consequence of a +curious misunderstanding known as "the Bedchamber difficulty." Sir +Robert Peel, who was summoned to form a Ministry on Melbourne's +defeat and resignation, had asked from Her Majesty the dismissal of +two ladies of her household, the wives of prominent members of the +departing Whig Government; but his request conveyed to her mind the +sense that he designed to deprive her of all her actual attendants, +and against this imagined proposal she set herself energetically. +"She could not consent to a course which she conceived to be contrary +to usage, and which was repugnant to her feelings." Peel on his part +remained firm in his opinion as to the real necessity for the change +which he had advocated. From the deadlock produced by mere +misunderstanding there seemed at the time only one way of escaping; +the defeated Whig Government returned to office. But Ministers who +resumed power only because, "as gentlemen," they felt bound to do so, +had little chance of retaining it. In September 1841, Lord Melbourne +was superseded in the premiership by Sir Robert Peel, and then gave a +final proof how single-minded was his loyal devotion by advising the +new Prime Minister as to the tone and style likely to commend him to +their royal mistress--a tone of clear straightforwardness. "The +Queen," said Melbourne--who knew of what he was speaking, if any +statesman then did--"is not conceited; she is aware there are many +things she cannot understand, and likes them explained to her +elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and clearly." +The counsel was given and was accepted with equal good feeling, such +as was honourable to all concerned; and the Sovereign learned, as +years went on, to repose a singular confidence in the Minister with +whom her first relations had been so unpropitious, but whose real +honesty, ability, and loyalty soon approved themselves to her clear +perceptions, which no prejudice has long been able to obscure. + +We are told that in later years Her Majesty referred to the +disagreeable incident we have just related as one that could not have +occurred, if she had had beside her Prince Albert "to talk to and +employ in explaining matters," while she refused the suggestion that +her impulsive resistance had been advised by any one about her. "It +was entirely my own foolishness," [Footnote] she is said to have +added--words breathing that perfect simplicity of candour which has +always been one of her most strongly marked characteristics. + +[Footnote: "Greville Memoirs," Third Part, vol. i.] + +Though the matter caused a great sensation at the time, and gave rise +to some dismal prophesyings, it was of no permanent importance, and +is chiefly noted here because it throws a strong light on Her +Majesty's need of such an ever-present aid as she had now secured in +the husband wise beyond his years, who well understood his +constitutional position, and was resolute to keep within it, avoiding +entanglement with any party, and fulfilling with equal impartiality +and ability the duties of private secretary to his Sovereign-wife. + +The Melbourne Ministry had had to contend with difficulties +sufficiently serious, and of these the grimmest and greatest remained +still unsettled. At the outset of the reign a rebellion in Canada had +required strong repression; and we had taken the first step on a bad +road by entering into those disputes as to our right to force the +opium traffic on China, which soon involved us in a disastrously +successful war with that country. On the other hand, our Indian +Government had begun an un-called-for interference with the affairs +of Afghanistan, which, successful at first, resulted in a series of +humiliating reverses to our arms, culminating in one of the most +terrible disasters that have ever befallen a British force--the +wholesale massacre of General Elphinstone's defeated and retreating +army on its passage through the terrible mountain gorge known as the +Pass of Koord Cabul. It was on January 13th, 1842, that the single +survivor of this massacre appeared, a half-fainting man, drooping +over the neck of his wearied pony, before the fort of Jellalabad, +which General Sale still held for the English. He only was "escaped +alone" to tell the hideous tale. The ill-advised and ill-managed +enterprise which thus terminated had extended over more than three +years, had cost us many noble lives, in particular that of the +much-lamented Alexander Burnes, had condemned many English women and +children to a long and cruel captivity among the savage foe, and had +absolutely failed as to the object for which it was undertaken--the +instalment of Shah Soojah, a mere British tool, as ruler of +Afghanistan, in place of the chief desired by the Afghan people, Dost +Mahomed. When the disasters to our arms had been retrieved, as +retrieved they were with exemplary promptness, and when the surviving +prisoners were redeemed from their hard captivity, it was deemed +sound policy for us to attempt no longer to "force a sovereign on a +reluctant people," and to remain content with that limit which +"nature appears to have assigned" to our Indian empire on its +north-western border. Later adventures in the same field have not +resulted so happily as to prove that these views were incorrect. Our +prestige was seriously damaged in Hindostan by this first Afghan war, +and was only partially re-established in the campaign against the +Sikhs several years later, despite the dramatic grandeur of that +"piece of Indian history" which resulted in our annexation of the +Punjaub in 1846--a solid advantage balanced by the unpleasant fact +that English soldiers had been proved not invincible by natives. + +It will thus appear that there was not too much that was glorious or +encouraging in our external affairs in these early years; but the +internal condition of the country was never less reassuring. The +general discontent of the English lower orders was taking shape as +Chartism--a movement which could not have arisen but for the fierce +suspicion with which the working classes had learnt to regard those +who seemed their superiors in wealth, in rank, or in political power, +and which the higher orders retaliated in dislike and distrust of the +labouring population, whom they considered as seditious enemies of +order and property. The demon of class hatred was never more alive +and busy than in the decade which terminated in 1848. + +"The Charter," which was the watchword of hope to so many, and the +very war-note of discord to many more, comprised six points, of which +some at least were sufficiently absurd, while others have virtually +passed into law, quietly and naturally, in due course of time; and if +the universal Age of Gold which ignorant Chartists looked for has not +ensued, at least the anarchy and ruin which their opponents +associated with the dreaded scheme are equally non-existent. So fast +has the time moved that there is now a little difficulty in +understanding the passionate hopes with which the Charter was +associated on the one side, and the panic which it inspired on the +other; and there is much to move wondering compassion in the profound +ignorance which those hopes betrayed, and the not inferior misery +amid which they were cherished. Few persons are now so credulous as +to expect that annual Parliaments or stipendiary members would insure +the universal reign of peace and justice; the people have already +found that vote by ballot and suffrage all but universal have neither +equalised wealth nor abrogated greed and iniquity; and though there +be some dreamers in our midst to-day who look for wonderful +transformations of society to follow on possible reforms, there is +not even in these dreamy schemes the same amazing disproportion of +means to be employed and end to be attained as characterised the +Chartist delusion. + +[Illustration: Daniel O'Connell.] + +In Ireland men were reposing unbounded faith in another sort of +political panacea for every personal and social evil--the Repeal of +the Union with England, advocated by Daniel O'Connell, with all the +power of his passionate Celtic eloquence, and supported by all his +extraordinary personal influence. Apparently he hoped to carry this +agitation to the same triumphant issue as that for Catholic +emancipation, in which he had taken a conspicuous part; but the new +movement did not, like the old one, appeal immediately and plausibly +to the English sense of fair play and natural justice. A competent +and not unfriendly observer has remarked that O'Connell's "theory and +policy were that Ireland was to be saved by a dictatorship entrusted +to himself." Whether any salvation for the unhappy land did lie in +such a dictatorship was a point on which opinion might well be +divided. English opinion was massively hostile to it; but for years +all the political enthusiasm of Ireland centred in O'Connell and the +cause he upheld. The country might be on the brink of ruin and +starvation, but the peril seemed forgotten while the dream lasted. +The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant +loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his +followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may +appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among +Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated +orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be +injured, and not advanced, by such outrages as before and since his +day have too often disgraced party warfare in Ireland. His favourite +maxim was that "the man who commits a crime gives strength to the +enemy." This opinion was not heartily endorsed by all his followers. +When it became clear that his dislike of physical force was real, +when he did not defy the Government, at last stirred into hostile +action by the demonstrations he organised, there was an end of his +power over the fiercer spirits whom he had roused against the rule of +"the Saxon"--luckless phrase with which he had enriched the +Anglo-Irish controversy, and misleading as luckless. O'Connell died, +a broken and disappointed man, on his way to Rome in 1847; but the +spirit he had raised and could not rule did not die with him, and the +younger, more turbulent leaders, who had outbid him for popular +approval, continued their anti-English warfare with growing zeal +until the year of fate 1848. + +Even the Principality of Wales had its own peculiar form of +agitation, sometimes accompanied by outrage, during these wild +opening years. The farmers and labourers in Wales were unprosperous +and poor, and in the season of their adversity they found turnpikes +and tolls multiplying on their public roads. They resented what +appeared a cruel imposition with wrathful impatience, and ere long +gave expression to their anger in wild deeds. A text of Scripture +suggested to them a fantastic form of riot. They found that it was +said of old to Rebecca, "Let thy seed possess the gate of those which +hate them," and ere long "Rebecca and her children," men masking in +women's clothes, made fierce war by night on the "gates" they +detested, destroying the turnpikes and driving out their keepers. +These raids were not always bloodless. The Government succeeded in +repressing the rioting, and then, finding that a real grievance had +caused it, did away with the oppressive tolls, and dealt not too +hardly with the captured offenders; leniency which soon restored +Wales to tranquillity. + +[Illustration: Richard Cobden.] + +[Illustration: John Bright.] + +A peaceful, strictly constitutional, and finally successful agitation +ran its steady course in England for several years contemporaneously +with those we have already enumerated. The Anti-Corn-Law League, with +which the names of Cobden and Bright are united as closely as those +two distinguished men were united in friendship, had in 1838 found a +centre eminently favourable to its operations in Manchester. Its +leaders were able, well-informed, and upright men, profoundly +convinced that their cause was just, and that the welfare of the +people was involved in their success or failure. They were men of the +middle class, acquainted intimately with the needs and doings of the +trading community to which they belonged, and therefore at once +better qualified to argue on questions affecting commerce, and less +directly interested in the prosperity of agriculture, than the more +aristocratic leaders of the nation. Both persuasive and successful +speakers, one of them supremely eloquent, they were able to interest +even the lowest populace in questions of political economy, and to +make Free Trade in Corn the idol of popular passion. Their mode of +agitation was eminently reasonable and wise; but it _was_ an +agitation, exciting wild enthusiasm and fierce opposition, and must +be reckoned not among the forces tending to quiet, but among those +that aroused anxious care in the first nine years of the reign. And +it was a terrible calamity that at last placed victory within their +grasp. The blight on the potato first showed itself in 1845--a new, +undreamed-of disaster, probably owing to the long succession of +unfavourable seasons. And the potato blight meant almost certainly +famine in Ireland, where perhaps three-fourths of the population had +no food but this root. The food supply of a whole nation seemed on +the point of being cut off. A loud demand was made for "the opening +of the ports." By existing laws the ports admitted foreign grain +tinder import duties varying in severity inversely with the +fluctuating price of home-grown grain; thus a certain high level in +the cost of corn was artificially maintained. These regulations, +though framed for the protection of the native producer, did not bear +so heavily on the consumer as the law of 1815 which they replaced; +and the principle represented by them had a large following in the +country. But now the argument from famine proved potent to decide the +wavering convictions of some who had long been identified with the +cause of Protection. The champions of Free Trade were sure of triumph +when Sir Robert Peel became one of their converts; and the Corn Bill +which he carried in the June of 1846, granting with some little +reserve and delay the reforms which the Anti-Corn-Law League had been +formed to secure, brought that powerful association to a quiet end. +But the threatening Irish famine and the growing Irish disturbances +remained, to embarrass the Ministry of Lord John Russell, which came +into power within less than a week of that great success of the Tory +Minister, defeated on a question of Irish polity on the very day when +his Corn Bill received the assent of the House of Lords. + +[Illustration: Lord John Russell.] + +We must not omit, as in passing we chronicle this singular fortune of +a great Minister, to notice the grief with which Her Majesty viewed +this turn of events. Amid all the anxiety of the period, amid her +distress at the cruel sufferings of her servants in India, in +Britain, in Ireland, and her care for their relief, she had had two +sources of consolation: the pure and simple bliss of her home-life, +and the assistance of two most valued counsellors--her husband and +her Prime Minister. One was inseparably at her side, but one must now +leave it; and she and the Prince met their inevitable loss with the +dignified outward acquiescence that was fitting, but with sorrow not +less real. The Queen would have bestowed on Peel as distinguished an +honour as she could confer--the Order of the Garter; Peel deemed it +best to decline it gratefully. "He was from the people and of the +people," and wished so to remain, content if his Queen could say, +"You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty to the +country and to myself." + +In hapless Ireland, torn by agitation and scourged by pestilence and +famine, the general misery had reached a point where no fiscal +measures, however wise, could at once alleviate it. The potato famine +held on its dreadful way, and the darkest moment of Irish history +seemed reached in the year when one hundred and seventy thousand +persons perished in that island by hunger or hunger-bred fever. The +new plague affected Great Britain also; but its suffering was +completely overshadowed by the enormous bulk of Irish woe, which the +utmost lavishness of charity seemed scarcely to lessen. That there +should be turbulence and even violence accompanying all this +wretchedness was no way surprising; but in most men's minds the +wretchedness held the larger place, and deservedly so, for the +sedition, when ripe enough, was dealt with sharply, though not +mercilessly, in such a way that ere long all reasonable dread of a +civil war being added to the other horrors, had passed away; and the +country had leisure for such recovery as was possible to a land so +desolate. + +[Illustration: Thomas Chalmers.] + +There was contemporaneous distress enough and to spare in Great +Britain: failures in Lancashire alone to the amount of L16,000,000; +failures equally heavy in Birmingham, Glasgow, and other great towns; +capital was absorbed by the mad speculations in railway shares; and +even Heaven's gift of an abundant harvest, by at once lowering the +price of corn, helped to depress commerce. Many banks stopped +payment, and even the Bank of England seemed imperilled, saving +itself only by adopting a bold line of policy advised by Government. +At the same time, the Chartist movement was gathering the strength +which was to expend itself in the futile demonstrations of 1848. + +[Illustration: John Henry Newman. _From a photograph by_ Mr. H. J. +Whitlock, _Birmingham_.] + +But as if it were not enough for every department of political or +commercial life to be so seriously affected, there was now arising +within the English National Church itself a singular movement, +destined to affect the religious history of the land as powerfully, +if not as beneficially, as did the Evangelical revival of the last +century; and the National Kirk of Scotland, after long and stern +contention on the crucial point of civil control in things spiritual, +was ready for that rending in twain from which arose the Free Kirk; +while other religious bodies were torn by the same keen spirit of +strife, the same revolt against ancient order, as that which was +distracting the world of politics. The bitterness of the disruption +in Scotland is well-nigh exhausted, though the controversy enlisted +at the time all the fervid power of a Chalmers; men honour the memory +of the champions, while hoping to see the once sharp differences +composed for ever. But the "Catholic Revival," initiated under the +leadership of Newman, Pusey, and Keble, has proved to be no transient +disturbance: and no figure has in relation to the Church history of +the half-century the same portentous importance as that of John Henry +Newman, whose powerful magnetism, as it attracted or repelled, drew +men towards Romanism or drove them towards Rationalism, his logical +art, made more impressive by the noble eloquence with which he +sometimes adorned it, seeming to leave those who came under his spell +no choice between the two extremes. When he finally decided on +withdrawing himself from the Anglican and giving in his adhesion to +the Roman communion, he set an example that has not yet ceased to be +imitated, to the incalculable damage of the English Establishment. +Happily the massive Nonconformity of the country was hardly touched +either by his influence or his example. + +It is pleasant to turn from scenes of doubt and discord, of strife +and sorrow, to that bright domestic life which was now vouchsafed to +the Sovereign, as if in direct compensation for the storms that raved +and beat outside her home--a home now brightened by the presence of +five joyous, healthy children. It is a charming picture of the royal +pair and of the manner of life in the palace--styled by one foreigner +"the one really pleasant, comfortable English house, in which one +feels at one's ease "--that is given us by the finely discerning +Mendelssohn, invited by the Prince to "come and try his organ" before +leaving England in 1842, on which occasion the Queen joined her +husband and his guest at the instrument, enjoying and aiding in their +musical performance, and singing, "quite faultlessly and with +charming feeling and expression," a song written by the great master +who was now paying a farewell visit, with nothing of ceremony in it, +to English royalty. With a few touches Mendelssohn makes us see the +delightful ease and comfort of this royal interior, the Queen +gathering up the sheets of music strewn by the wind over the +floor--the Prince cleverly managing the organ-stops so as to suit the +master while he played--the mighty rocking-horse and the two +birdcages beside the music-laden piano in the Queen's own +sitting-room, beautiful with pictures and richly-bound books--the +pretty difficulty about her finding some of Mendelssohn's own songs +to sing to him, since her music was packed up and taken away to +Claremont--her naive confession that she had been "so frightened" at +singing before the master,--all are chronicled with not less zest and +affection than the graceful gift of a valuable ring "as a +remembrance" to the artist from the Queen, through Prince Albert. It +is a much more pleasing impression that we thus obtain than can be +given by details of State ceremonial and visits from other +sovereigns. Of these last there was no lack, and the princely +visitors were entertained with all due pomp and splendour; but +neither on account of these costly entertainments nor on behalf of +the royal children did the Sovereign ask the nation for so much as a +shilling, the Civil List sufficing for every unlooked-for outlay, now +that Prince Albert, by dint of persevering effort, had succeeded in +putting the arrangements of the royal household on a satisfactory +footing, sweeping away a vast number of time-honoured, thriftless +expenses, and rendering a wise and generous economy possible. + +[Illustration: Balmoral.] + +Formerly the great officers of the Crown were charged with the +oversight of the commonest domestic business of the palace. Being +non-resident, these overseers did no overseeing, and the actual +servants were practically masterless. Hence arose numberless +vexations and extravagant hindrances. In 1843 this objectionable form +of the division of labour was brought to an end, and one Master of +the household who did his work replaced the many officials who, by a +fiction of etiquette, had been formerly supposed to do everything +while they did and could do nothing. The long-needed reform could not +but be pleasing to the Queen, being quite in harmony with the upright +principles that had always ruled her conduct, she having begun her +reign by paying off the debts of her dead father--debts contracted +not in her lifetime nor on her account, and which a spirit less +purely honourable might therefore have declined to recognise. + +[Illustration: Osborne House.] + +Thanks to the Prince's able management, the royal pair found it in +their power to purchase for themselves the estate of Osborne, in the +Isle of Wight--a charming retreat all their own, which they could +adorn for their delight with no thought of the thronging public; +where the Prince could farm and build and garden to his heart's +content, and all could escape from the stately restraints of their +burdensome rank, and from "the bitterness people create for +themselves in London." Before very long they found for themselves +that Highland holiday home of Balmoral which was to be so peculiarly +dear, and in which Her Majesty--whose first visit to the _then_ +discontented Scotland was deemed quite a risky experiment--was so +completely to win for herself the admiring love of her Scottish +subjects. + +At Balmoral Mr. Greville saw them some little time after their +acquisition of the place, and witnesses to the "simplicity and ease" +with which they lived, to the gay good humour that pervaded their +circle--"the Queen running in and out of the house all day long, +often going out alone, walking into the cottages, sitting down and +chatting with the old women," the Prince free from trammels of +etiquette, showing what native charm of manner and what high, +cultivated intelligence were really his. The impression is identical +with that conveyed by Her Majesty's published Journal of that +Highland life; and, though lacking the many graceful details of that +record, the testimony has its own value. Happy indeed was the +Sovereign for whom the black cloud of those years showed such a +silver lining! Other potentates were less happy, both as regarded +their private blessings and their public fortunes. + +It would be agreeable to English feelings, but not altogether +consonant with historic truth, if we could leave unnoticed the +scandalous attempts on the Queen's life which marked the earliest +period of her reign and have been renewed in later days. The first +attacks were by far of the most alarming character, but Her Majesty, +whose escape on one occasion seemed due only to her husband's prompt +action, never betrayed any agitation or alarm; and her dauntless +bearing, and the care for others which she manifested by dispensing +with the presence of her usual lady attendants when she anticipated +one of these assaults, immensely increased the already high esteem in +which her people held her. The first assailant, a half-crazy lad of +low station named Oxford, was shut up in a lunatic asylum. For the +second, a man named Francis, the same plea could not be urged; but +the death-sentence he had incurred was commuted to transportation for +life. Almost immediately a deformed lad called Bean followed the +example of Francis. Her Majesty, who had been very earnest to save +the life of the miserable beings attacking her, desired an alteration +in the law as to such assaults; and their penalty was fixed at seven +years' transportation, or imprisonment not exceeding three years, to +which the court was empowered to add a moderate number of +whippings--punishments having no heroic fascination about them, like +that which for heated and shallow brains invested the hideous doom of +"traitors." The expedient proved in a measure successful, none of the +later assaults, discreditable as they are, betraying a really +murderous intention. It has been remarked as a noteworthy +circumstance that popular English monarchs have been more exposed to +such dangers than others who were cordially disliked. It is not +hatred that has prompted these assassins so much as imbecile vanity +and the passion for notoriety, misleading an obscure coxcomb to think + + "His glory would be great + According to _her_ greatness whom he quenched." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FRANCE AND ENGLAND. + +[Illustration: Buckingham Palace.] + +It is necessary now to look at the relations of our Government with +other nations, and in particular with France, whose fortunes just at +this time had a clearly traceable effect on our own. + +For several years the Court of England had been on terms of +unprecedented cordiality with the French Court. The Queen had +personally visited King Louis Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu--an event +which we must go back as far as the days of Henry VIII to +parallel--and had contracted a warm friendship for certain members of +his family, in particular for the Queen, Marie Amelie, for the +widowed Duchess of Orleans, a maternal cousin of Prince Albert, and +for the perfect Louise, the truthful, unselfish second wife of +Leopold, King of the Belgians, and daughter of the King of the +French. It was a rude shock to all the warm feelings which our Queen, +herself transparently honest, had learnt to cherish for her royal +friends when the French King and his Minister, Guizot, entered into +that fatal intrigue of theirs, "the Spanish marriages." Isabella, the +young Queen of Spain, and her sister and heiress presumptive, Louisa, +were yet unmarried at the time of the visit to the Chateau d'Eu; and +about that time an undertaking was given by the French to the English +Government that the Infanta Louisa should not marry a French prince +until her sister, the actual Queen, "should be married and have +children." The possible union of the crowns of France and Spain was +known for a dream of French ambition, and was equally well known to +be an object of dislike and dread to other European Powers. The +engagement which the French King had now given seemed therefore well +calculated to disarm suspicion and promote peace; but the one was +reawakened and the other endangered when it became known that he had +so used his power over the Spanish court as to procure that the royal +sisters of Spain should be married on one day--Isabella, the Queen, +to the most unfit and uncongenial of all the possible candidates for +her hand; Louisa to King Louis Philippe's son, the Duke of +Montpensier. The transaction on the face of it was far from +respectable, since the credit and happiness of the young Spanish +Queen seemed to have hardly entered into the consideration of those +who arranged for her the _mariage de convenance_ into which she was +led blindfold; but when regarded as a violation of good faith it was +additionally displeasing. Queen Victoria, to whom the scheme was +imparted only when it was ripe for execution, through her personal +friend Louise, Queen of the Belgians, replied to the communication in +a tone of earnest, dignified remonstrance; but apparently the King +was now too thoroughly committed to his scheme to be deterred by any +reasoning or reproaches, and the tragical farce was played out. It +had no good results for France; England was chilled and alienated, +but the Spanish crown never devolved on the Duchess of Montpensier. +Within two little years from her marriage that princess and all the +French royal family fled from France, so hastily that they had +scarcely money enough to provide for their journey, and appeared in +England as fugitives, to be aided and protected by the Queen, who +forgot all political resentment, and remembered only her personal +regard for these fallen princes. + +The overthrow of the Orleans dynasty in 1848 was a complete surprise, +and men have never ceased to see something disgraceful in its amazing +suddenness. Here was a great king, respected for wisdom and daring, +and supposed to understand at every point the character of the land +he ruled, his power appearing unshaken, while it was known to be +backed with an army one hundred thousand strong. And almost without +warning a whirlwind of insurrection against this solid power and this +able ruler broke out, and in a few wild hours swept the whole fabric +into chaos. Nothing caused more surprise at the moment than the +extreme bitterness of animosity which the insurgents manifested +towards the king's person, unless it were the tameness with which he +submitted to his fate and the precipitancy of his flight. There was +something rotten in the state of things, men said, which could thus +dissolve, crushed like a swollen fungus by a casual foot. And indeed, +whether with perfect justice or not, Louis Philippe's Administration +had come to be deemed corrupt some time ere his fall. The free-spoken +Parisians had openly flouted it as such: witness a mock advertisement +placarded in the streets: "_A nettoyer, deux Chambres et une Cour_": +"Two _Chambers_ and a _Court_ to clean." A French Government that had +been crafty, but not crafty enough to conceal the fact, that was +rather contemned for plotting than dreaded for unscrupulous energy, +was already in peril. The still unsubdued revolutionary spirit, +working under the smooth surface of French society, was the element +which accomplished the destruction of this discredited Government. + +The outbreak in France acted like a spark in a powder magazine; ere +long great part of Europe was shaken by the second great +revolutionary upheaval, when potentates seemed falling and ancient +dynasties crumbling on all sides--a period of eager hope to many, +followed by despair when the reaction set in, accompanied in too many +places by repressive measures of pitiless severity. The contemptuous +feeling with which many Englishmen were wont to view such Continental +troubles is well embodied in the lines which Tennyson put into the +mouth of one of his characters, speaking of France: + + "Yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat, + The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, + The king is scared, the soldier will not fight. + The little boys begin to shoot and stab, + A kingdom topples over with a shriek + Like an old woman, and down rolls the world + In mock-heroics-- + Revolts, republics, revolutions, most + No graver than a schoolboy's barring out; + Too comic for the solemn things they are, + Too solemn for the comic touches in them." + +In this wild year 1848, which saw Revolution running riot on the +Continent, England too had its share of troubles not less painfully +ridiculous; the insurrection headed by Smith O'Brien, a chief of the +"Young Ireland" party, coming to an inglorious end in the affray +that took place at "the widow McCormick's cabbage-garden, +Ballingarry," in the month of July; the greatly dreaded Chartist +demonstration at Kennington Common on April 10th by its conspicuous +failure having done much to damp the hopes and spirits of the party +of disorder generally. + +It would be easy now to laugh at the frustrated designs of the +Chartist leaders and at the sort of panic they aroused in London: the +vast procession, which was to have marched in military order to +overawe Parliament, resolving itself into a confused rabble easily +dispersed by the police, and the monster petition, that should have +numbered six million signatures, transported piecemeal to the House, +and there found to have but two million names appended, many +fictitious; the Chartist leader, completely cowed, thanking the Home +Office for its lenient treatment; or, on the other hand, London and +its peaceful inhabitants, distracted with wild rumours of combat and +bloodshed, apprehending a repetition of Parisian madnesses, and +unaware how thoroughly the Duke of Wellington, entrusted with the +defence of the capital and its important buildings, had carried out +all needful arrangements. The two hundred thousand special constables +sworn in to aid in maintaining law and order on that day were visible +enough, and had their utility in conveying a certain impression of +safety; the troops whom the veteran commander held in readiness were +kept out of sight till wanted. These rebellious spirits imagining +themselves formidable and free, when caught in an invisible iron +network--these terrified citizens, protected all unconsciously to +themselves against the impotent foe whom they dreaded--might furnish +food for mirth if we did not remember the real, deep, and widespread +misery which found inarticulate but piteous expression in the +movement now coming to confusion under the firm assertion of +necessary authority. The disturbances must needs be quieted; but +hitherto it has been the glory of our Victorian statesmen to have +understood that the grievances which caused them must also be dealt +with. Now that all which could be deemed wise and good in Chartist +demands has been conceded, orderly and quietly, the name "Chartism" +has utterly lost its dread significance. + +[Illustration: Napoleon III.] + +No cruelly vindictive measures of reprisal followed the collapse of +the agitation; none indeed were needed. The revolutionary epidemic, +which had spread hitherward from France, found our body politic in +too sound a condition, and could not fasten on it; and the subsequent +convulsions which shook our great neighbour hardly called forth an +answering thrill in England. The strange transactions of December +1851, by means of which Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince-President of +the new French republic, succeeded in overthrowing that republic and +replacing it by an empire of which he was the head, did indeed excite +displeasure and distrust in many minds; and though it was believed +that his high-handed proceedings had averted much disorder, the +English Government was not prepared at once to accept all the +proffered explanations of French diplomacy; but the then foreign +Secretary, Lord Palmerston, by the rash proclamation of his +individual approval, committed the Ministry of which he was one to a +recognition of the _de facto_ Monarch of France. This step was but +the last of many instances in which Palmerston had acted without due +reference to the premier's or the Sovereign's opinion--a course of +conduct which had justly displeased the Queen, and had drawn from her +grave and pointed remonstrances. The final transgression led to his +resignation; but its effects on our relations with France remained. + +Meanwhile the Emperor's consistent and probably sincere display of +goodwill towards England, the apparent complacency with which the +French nation acquiesced in his rule, and the outward prosperity +accompanying it, did their natural work in conciliating approval, and +in making men willing to forget the obscure and tortuous steps by +which he had climbed to power. One day he and France were to pay for +these things; but meanwhile he was a popular ruler, accepted and +approved by the nation he governed, anxious for its prosperity, and +earnest in keeping it friendly with Great Britain, which he had found +a hospitable home in the days of his obscurity, which was again to +offer an asylum to him in a day of utter disaster and overthrow, and +where his life, chequered by vicissitudes stranger than any known to +romance, was to come to a quiet close. It has been the singular +fortune of Her Majesty to receive into the sacred shelter of her +realm two dethroned monarchs, two fallen fortunes, two dynasties cast +out from sovereign power, while her own throne, "broad-based upon her +people's will, and compassed by the inviolate sea," has stood firm +and unshaken, even by a breath. And it has been her special honour to +cherish with affection, even warmer in their adversity, the friends +who had gained her regard when their prosperity seemed as bright and +their great position as assured as her own. Visiting the Emperor +Napoleon in his splendid capital, feted and welcomed by him and his +Empress with every flattering form of honour that his ingenuity could +devise or his power enable him to show, she did not forget the +Orleans family and their calamities, but frankly urged on her host +the injustice of the confiscations with which he had requited the +supposed hostility of those princes, and endeavoured to persuade him +to milder measures. She visited in his company the tomb of the +lamented Duke of Orleans; and her first care on returning to England +was to show some kindly attention to the discrowned royalties who +were now her guests. In the same spirit, in after years, she extended +a friendly hand to the exiled Empress Eugenie, escaping from new +revolutionary perils to English safety, and altogether declined to +consider her personal regard for the lady, whose attractions had +deservedly gained it in brighter days, as being in any sense +complicated with matters political. The resolute loyalty with which +she at once maintained her private friendships and kept them entirely +apart from her public action compelled toleration from the persons +most inclined to take umbrage at it. + +An instance of successful and courageous enterprise on Her Majesty's +part may well close this brief notice of the internal and external +convulsions which for a time shook, though they did not shatter, the +peace of our realm. In the late summer of 1849 a royal visit to +Ireland, now just reviving from its misery, was planned and carried +out with complete success; the wild Irish enthusiasm blazed up into +raptures of a loyal welcome, and the Sovereign, who played her part +with all the graceful perfection that her compassionate heart and +quick intelligence suggested, was delighted with the little tour, +from which those who shared in it prophesied "permanent good" for +Ireland. At least it had a healing, beneficial effect at the moment; +and perhaps more could not have been reasonably hoped. Later royal +visits to the sister isle have been less conspicuous, but all fairly +successful. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CRIMEAN WAR. + +[Illustration: The Crystal Palace, 1851.] + +The "Exhibition year," 1851, appears to our backward gaze almost like +a short day of splendid summer interposed between two stormy seasons; +but at the time men were more inclined to regard it as the first of a +long series of halcyon days. Indeed, the unexampled number and +success of the various efforts to redress injury and reform abuses, +which had signalised the new reign, might almost justify those +sanguine spirits, who now wrote and spoke as though wars and +oppression were well on their way to the limbo of ancient barbarisms, +and who looked to unfettered commerce as the peace-making civiliser, +under whose influence the golden age--in more senses than one might +revisit the earth. + +[Illustration: Lord Ashley.] + +We have already referred to certain of the new transforming forces +whose action tended to heighten such hopes; there are two reforms as +yet unnamed by us, distinguishing these early years, which are +particularly significant; though one at least was stoutly opposed by +a special class of reformers. We refer to the legislation dealing +with mines and factories and those employed therein, with which is +inseparably connected the venerable name of the late Lord +Shaftesbury; and to the abolition of duelling in the army, secured by +the untiring efforts of Prince Albert, who had enlisted on his side +the immense influence of the Duke of Wellington. + +That peculiar modern survival of the ancient trial by combat, the +duel, was still blocking the way of English civilisation when Her +Majesty assumed the sceptre. A palpable anachronism, it yet seemed +impossible to make men act on their knowledge of its antiquated and +barbarous character; legislation was fruitless of good against a +practice consecrated by false sentiment and false ideas of honour; +but when dislodged from its chief stronghold, the army, it became +quickly discredited everywhere, with the happy result noted by a +contemporary historian, that _now_ "a duel in England would seem as +absurd and barbarous as an ordeal by touch or a witch-burning." +Militarism, that mischievous counterfeit of true soldierly spirit, +could not thrive where the duel was discountenanced; and the friends +of peace might rejoice with reason. + +But those peaceful agitators, the sagacious, energetic Cobden and his +allies, resented rather sharply the interference of the Lord Ashley +of that day with the "natural laws" of the labour market--laws to +whose operation some of the party attributed the cruelly excessive +hours of work in factories, and the indiscriminate employment of all +kinds of labour, even that of the merest infants. Undeterred by +these objections, convinced that no law which sanctioned and promoted +cruelty did so with true authority, Lord Ashley persisted in the +struggle on which he had entered 1833; in 1842 he scored his first +great success in the passing of an Act that put an end to the +employment of women and children in mines and collieries; in 1844 the +Government carried their Factories Act, which lessened and limited +the hours of children's factory labour, and made other provisions for +their benefit. It was not all that he had striven for, but it was +much; he accepted the compromise, but did not slacken in his efforts +still further to improve the condition of the children. His career of +steady benevolence far outstretched this early period of battle and +endurance; but already his example and achievement were fruitful of +good, and his fellow-labourers were numerous. Nothing succeeds like +success: people had sneered at the mania for futile legislation that +possessed the "humanity-monger" who so embarrassed party leaders with +his crusade on behalf of mere mercy and justice; they now approved +the practical philanthropist who had taken away a great reproach from +his nation, and glorified the age in which they lived because of its +special humaneness, while they exulted not less in the brightening +prospects of the country. Sedition overcome, law and order +triumphant, the throne standing firm, prosperity returning--all +ministered to pride and hope. + +In 1850 there had been some painful incidents; the death by an +unhappy accident of Sir Robert Peel, and the turbulent excitement of +what are known as the "No Popery" disturbances, being the most +notable: and of these again incomparably the most important was the +untimely loss to the country of the great and honest statesman who +might otherwise have rendered still more conspicuous services to the +Sovereign and the empire. The sudden violent outburst of popular +feeling, provoked by a piece of rash assumption on the part of the +reigning Pope, was significant, indeed, as evidencing how little +alteration the "Catholic revival" had worked in the temper of the +nation at large; otherwise its historic importance is small. At the +time, however, the current of agitation ran strongly, and swept into +immediate oblivion an event which three years before would have had a +European importance--the 'death of Louis Philippe, whose strangely +chequered life came to an end in the old palace of Claremont, just +before the "papal aggressions"--rash, impolitic, and mischievous, as +competent observers pronounced it, but powerless to injure English +Protestantism--had thrown all the country into a ferment, which took +some months to subside. We are told that Her Majesty, though +naturally interested by this affair, was more alive to the quarter +where the real peril lay than were some of her subjects; but in the +universal distress caused by the death of Peel none joined more +truly, none deplored that loss more deeply, than the Sovereign, who +would willingly have shown her value for the true servant she had +lost by conferring a peerage on his widow--an honour which Lady Peel, +faithful to the wishes and sharing the feeling of her husband, felt +it necessary to decline. + +[Illustration: Earl of Derby.] + +Amid these agitations, inferior far to many that had preceded them, +the year 1850 ran out, and 1851 opened--the year in which Prince +Albert's long-pursued project of a great International Exhibition of +Arts and Industries was at last successfully carried out. The idea, +as expounded by himself at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor, was +large and noble. "It was to give the world a true test, a living +picture, of the point of industrial development at which the whole of +mankind had arrived, and a new starting-point from which all nations +would be able to direct their further exertions." The magnificent +success, unflawed by any vexatious or dangerous incident, with which +the idea was carried out, had made it almost impossible for us to +understand the opposition with which the plan was greeted, the +ridicule that was heaped upon it, the foolish fears which it +inspired; while the many similar Exhibitions in this and other +countries that have followed and emulated, but never altogether +equalled, the first, have made us somewhat oblivious of the fact that +the scheme when first propounded was an absolute novelty. It was a +fascination, a wonder, a delight; it aroused enthusiasm that will +never be rekindled on a like occasion. + +Paxton's fairy palace of glass and iron, erected in Hyde Park, and +canopying in its glittering spaces the untouched, majestic elms of +that national pleasure-ground as well as the varied treasures of +industrial and artistic achievement brought from every quarter of the +globe, divided the charmed astonishment of foreign spectators with +the absolute orderliness of the myriads who thronged it and crowded +all its approaches on the great opening day. Perhaps on that day the +Queen touched the summit of her rare happiness. It was the 1st of +May--her own month--and the birthday of her youngest son, the +godchild and namesake of the great Duke. She stood, the most justly +popular and beloved of living monarchy, amid thousands of her +rejoicing subjects, encompassed with loving friends and happy +children, at the side of the beloved husband whose plan was now +triumphantly realised; and she spoke the words which inaugurated that +triumph and invited the world to gaze on it. + +"The sight was magical," she says, "so vast, so glorious, so +touching...God bless my dearest Albert! God bless my dearest country, +which has shown itself so great to-day! One felt so grateful to the +great God, Who seemed to pervade all and to bless all. The only event +it in the slightest degree reminded me of was the coronation, but +this day's festival was a thousand times superior. In fact, it is +unique, and can bear no comparison, from its peculiar beauty and +combination of such striking and different objects. I mean the slight +resemblance only as to its solemnity; the enthusiasm and cheering, +too, were much more touching, for in a church naturally all is +silent." + +The Exhibition remained open from the 1st of May to the 11th of +October, continuing during all those months to attract many thousands +of visitors. It had charmed the world by the splendid embodiment of +peace and peaceful industries which it presented, and men willingly +took this festival as a sign bespeaking a yet longer reign of +world-tranquillity. It proved to be only a sort of rainbow, shining +in the black front of approaching tempest. When 1854 opened, the +third year from the Exhibition year, we were already committed to war +with Russia; and the forty years' peace with Europe, finally won at +Waterloo, was over and gone. + +[Illustration: Duke of Wellington.] + +In the interval another great spirit had passed away. The Duke of +Wellington died, very quietly and with little warning, at Walmer +Castle, on the 14th of September, 1852, "full of years and honours." +He was in his eighty-fourth year, and during the whole reign of Queen +Victoria he had occupied such a position as no English subject had +ever held before. At one time, before that reign began, his political +action had made him extraordinarily unpopular, in despite of the +splendid military services which no one could deny; now he was the +very idol of the nation, and at the same time was treated with the +utmost respect and reverent affection by the Sovereign--two +distinctions how seldom either attained or merited by one person! But +in Wellington's case there is no doubt that the popular adoration and +the royal regard were worthily bestowed and well earned. He had never +seemed stirred by the popular odium, he never seemed to prize the +popular praise, which he received; it was not for praise that he had +worked, but for simple duty; and his experience of the fickleness of +public favour might make him something scornful of it. To the honours +which his Sovereign delighted to shower on him--honours perhaps never +before bestowed on a subject by a monarch--he _was_ sensitive. The +Queen to him was the noblest personification of the country whose +good had ever been, not only the first, but the only object of his +public action: and with this patriotic loyalty there mingled +something of a personal feeling, more akin to romance in its paternal +tenderness than seemed consistent with the granite-hewn strength and +sternness of his general character. A thorough soldier, with a +soldier's contempt for fine-spun diplomacy, he had been led into many +a blunder when acting as a chief of party and of State; but his +absolute single-minded honesty had more than redeemed such errors; +"integrity and uprightness had preserved him," and through him the +land and its rulers, amid difficulties where the finest statecraft +might have made shipwreck of all. + +He had his human failings; yet the moral grandeur of his whole career +cast such faults into the shade, and justified entirely the universal +grief at his not untimely death. The Queen deplored him as "our +immortal hero"--a servant of the Crown "devoted, loyal, and faithful" +beyond all example; the nation endeavoured by a funeral of +unprecedented sumptuousness to show its sense of loss; the poet +laureate devoted to his memory a majestic Ode, hardly surpassed by +any in the language for its stately, mournful music, and finely +faithful in its characterisation of the dead hero-- + + "The man of long-enduring blood, + The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, + Whole in himself, a common good;... + ...The man of amplest influence, + Yet clearest of ambitious crime, + Our greatest yet with least pretence, + Great in council and great in war, + Foremost captain of his time, + Rich in saving common-sense. + And, as the greatest only are. + In his simplicity sublime;... + Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, + Nor paltered with Eternal God for power; + Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow + Through either babbling world of high and low; + Whose life was work, whose language rife + With rugged maxims hewn from life; + Who never spoke against a foe; + Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke + All great self-seekers trampling on the right: + Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named; + Truth-lover was our English Duke; + Whatever record leap to light + He never shall be shamed." + +When, within so short a period after Wellington's death, the nation +once more found itself drawn into a European war, there were many +whose regret for his removal was quickened into greater keenness. +"Had we but the Duke to lead our armies!" was the common cry; but +even _his_ military genius might have found itself disastrously +fettered, had he occupied the position which his ancient subordinate +and comrade, Lord Raglan, was made to assume. It may be doubted if +Wellington could have been induced to assume it. + +Whether there ever would have been a Crimean war if no special +friendliness had existed between France and England may be fair +matter for speculation. The quarrel issuing in that war was indeed +begun by France; but it would have been difficult for England to take +no part in it. The apple of discord was supplied by a long-standing +dispute between the Greek and Latin Churches as to the Holy Places +situated in Palestine--a dispute in which France posed as the champion +of the Latin and Russia of the Greek right to the guardianship of the +various shrines. The claim of France was based on a treaty between +Francis I and the then Sultan, and related to the Holy Places +merely; the Russian claim, founded on a treaty between Turkey and +Catherine II, was far wider, and embraced a protectorate over all +Christians of the Greek Church in Turkey, and therefore over a great +majority of the Sultan's European subjects. Such a construction of +the treaty in question, however, had always been refused by England +whenever Russia had stated it; and its assertion at this moment bore +an ominous aspect in conjunction with the views which the reigning +Czar Nicholas had made very plain to English statesmen, both when he +visited England in 1844 and subsequently to that visit. To use his +own well-known phrase, he regarded Turkey as "a sick man"--a +death-doomed man, indeed--and hoped to be the sick man's principal +heir. He had confidently reckoned on English co-operation when the +Turkish empire should at last be dismembered; he was now to find, not +only that co-operation would be withheld, but that strong opposition +would be offered to the execution of the plan, for which it had +seemed that a favourable moment was presenting itself. The delusion +under which he had acted was one that should have been dispelled by +plain English speech long before; but now that he found it to be a +delusion, he did not recede from his demands upon the Porte: he +rather multiplied them. The upshot of all this was war, in spite of +protracted diplomatic endeavours to the contrary; and into that war +French and English went side by side. Once before they had done so, +when Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion united their forces to +wrest the Holy Places from the Saracens; that enterprise had been +disgraced by particularly ugly scandals from which this was free; but +in respect to glory of generalship, or permanent results secured, the +Crimean campaign has little pre-eminence over the Fourth Crusade. + +Recent disclosures, which have shown that Lord Aberdeen's Ministry +was not rightly reproached with "drifting" idly and recklessly into +this disastrous contest, have also helped to clear the English +commander's memory from the slur of inefficiency so liberally flung +on him at the time, while it has been shown that his action was +seriously hampered by the French generals with whom he had to +co-operate. From whatever cause, such glory as was gained in the +Crimea belongs more to the rank and file of the allied armies than to +those highest in command. The first success won on the heights of the +Alma was not followed up; the Charge of the Six Hundred, which has +made memorable for ever the Russian repulse at Balaklava, was a +splendid mistake, valuable chiefly for the spirit-stirring example it +has bequeathed to future generations of English soldiers, for its +illustration of death-defying, disciplined courage; the great fight +at Inkerman was only converted from a calamitous surprise into a +victory by sheer obstinate valour, not by able strategy; and the +operations that after Lord Raglan's death brought the unreasonably +protracted siege of Sebastopol to a close did but evince afresh how +grand were the soldierly qualities of both French and English, and +how indifferently they were generalled. + +If the allies came out of the conflict with no great glory, they had +such satisfaction as could be derived from the severer losses and the +discomfiture at all points of the foe. The disasters of the war had +been fatal to the Czar Nicholas, who died on March 2nd, 1855, from +pulmonary apoplexy--an attack to which he had laid himself open, it +was said, in melancholy recklessness of his health. His was a +striking personality, which had much more impressed English +imaginations than that of Czar or Czarina since the time of Peter the +Great; and the Queen herself had regarded the autocrat, whose great +power made him so lonely, with an interest not untouched with +compassion at the remote period when he had visited her Court and had +talked with her statesmen about the imminent decay of Turkey. At that +time the austere majesty of his aspect, seen amid the finer and +softer lineaments of British courtiers, had been likened to the +half-savage grandeur of an emperor of old Rome who should have been +born a Thracian peasant. It proved that the contrast had gone much +deeper than outward appearance, and that his views and principles had +been as opposed to those of the English leaders, and as impossible of +participation by such men as though he had been an imperfectly +civilised contemporary of Constantine the Great. Since then he had +succeeded in making himself more heartily hated, by the bulk of the +English nation, than any sovereign since Napoleon I; for the war, +into which the Government had entered reluctantly, was regarded by +the people with great enthusiasm, and the foe was proportionately +detested. + +Many anticipated that the death of the Czar would herald in a +triumphant peace; but in point of fact, peace was not signed until +the March of 1856. Its terms satisfied the diplomatists both of +France and England; they would probably have been less complacent +could they have foreseen the day when this hard-won treaty would be +torn up by the Power they seemed to be binding hand and foot with +sworn obligations of perdurable toughness; least of all would that +foresight have been agreeable to Lord Palmerston, Premier of England +when the peace was signed, and quite at one with the mass of the +people of England in their deep dislike and distrust of Russia and +its rulers. + +The political advantages which can be clearly traced to this war are +not many. Privateers are no longer allowed to prey on the commerce of +belligerent nations, and neutral commerce in all articles not +contraband of war must be respected, while no blockade must be +regarded unless efficiently and thoroughly maintained. Such were the +principles with which the plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty of +Paris in 1856 enriched the code of international law; and these +principles, which are in force still, alone remain of the advantages +supposed to have been secured by all the misery and all the +expenditure of the Crimean enterprise. + +[Illustration: Florence Nightingale.] + +But other benefits, not of a political nature, arose out of the +hideous mismanagement which had disgraced the earlier stages of the +war. It is a very lamentable fact that of the 24,000 good Englishmen +who left their bones in the Crimea, scarce 5,000 had fallen in fair +fight or died of wounds received therein. Bad and deficient food, +insufficient shelter and clothing, utter disorganisation and +confusion in the hospital department, accounted for the rest. These +evils, when exposed in the English newspapers, called forth a cry of +shame and wrath from all the nation, and stirred noble men and women +into the endeavour to mitigate at least the sufferings of the unhappy +wounded. Miss Florence Nightingale, the daughter of a wealthy English +gentleman, was known to take a deep and well-informed interest in +hospital management; and this lady was induced to superintend +personally the nursing of the wounded in our military hospitals in +the East. Entrusted with plenary powers over the nurses, and +accompanied by a trained staff of lady assistants, she went out to +wrestle with and overcome the crying evils which too truly existed, +and which were the despair of the army doctors. Her success in this +noble work, magnificently complete as it was, did indeed "multiply +the good," as Sidney Herbert had foretold: we may hope it will +continue so to multiply it "to all time." The horrors of war have +been mitigated to an incalculable extent by the exertions of the +noble men and women who, following in the path first trodden by the +Crimean heroines, formed the Geneva Convention, and have borne the +Red Cross, its most sacred badge, on many a bloody field, in many a +scene of terrible suffering--suffering touched with gleams of human +pity and human gratitude; for the courageous tenderness of many a +soft-handed and lion-hearted nursing sister, since the days of +Florence Nightingale, has aroused the same half-adoring thankfulness +which made helpless soldiers turn to kiss that lady's shadow, thrown +by her lamp on the hospital wall. + +The horrors thus mitigated have become more than ever repugnant to +the educated perception of Christendom, because of the merciful +devotion which, ever toiling to lessen them, keeps them before the +world's eye. In every great war that has shaken the civilised world +since the strife in the Crimea broke out, the ambulance, its +patients, its attendants, have always been in the foreground of the +picture. Never have the inseparable miseries of warfare been so well +understood and so widely realised, thanks in part to that new +literary force of the Victorian age, the _war correspondent_, and +chiefly, perhaps, to the new position henceforth assumed by the +military medical and hospital service. To the same source we may +fairly attribute the great improvements wrought in the whole conduct +of that distinctively Christian charity, unknown to heathenism, the +hospital system: the opening of a new field of usefulness to educated +and devoted women of good position, as nurses in hospitals and out; +and the vast increase of public interest in and public support of +such agencies. Even the Female Medical Mission, now rising into such +importance in the jealous lands of the East, may be traced not very +indirectly to the same cause. + +The Queen, whose enthusiasm for her beloved army and navy was very +earnest, and frankly shown, who had suffered with their sufferings +and exulted in their exploits, followed with a keen, personal, +unfaltering interest the efforts made for their relief. "Tell these +poor, noble wounded and sick men that _no one_ takes a warmer +interest, or feels more for their sufferings, or admires their +courage and heroism more than their Queen. So does the Prince," was +the impulsive, heart-warm message which Her Majesty sent for +transmission through Miss Nightingale to her soldier-patients. Her +deeds proved that these words were words of truth. Not content with +subscribing largely to the fund raised on behalf of those left +orphaned and widowed by the war, she took part in the work of +providing fitting clothing for the men exposed to all the terrors of +a Russian winter; and her daughters, enlisted to aid in this pious +work, began that career of beneficence which two of them were to +pursue afterwards to such good purpose, amid the ravages of wars +whose colossal awfulness dwarfed the Crimean campaign in the memories +of men. + +Many of the injured being invalided home while the war was in +progress, Her Majesty embraced the opportunity to testify her +sympathy and admiration, giving to them in public with her own hands +the medals for service rendered at Alma, at Balaklava, and at +Inkerman. It would not be easy to say whether the Sovereign or the +soldiers were more deeply moved on this occasion. Conspicuous among +the maimed and feeble heroes was the gallant young Sir Thomas +Troubridge, who, lamed in both feet by a Russian shot at Inkerman, +had remained at his post, giving his orders, while the fight endured, +since there was none to fill his place. He appeared now, crippled for +life, but declared himself "amply repaid for everything," while the +Queen decorated him, and told him he should be one of her +aides-de-camp. Her own high courage and resolute sense of duty moved +her with special sympathy for heroism like this; and she obeyed the +natural dictates of her heart in conspicuously rewarding it. With a +similar impulse, on the return of the army, she made a welcoming +visit to the sick and wounded at Chatham, and testified the liveliest +appreciation of the humane services of Miss Nightingale, to whom a +jewel specially designed by the Prince was presented, in grateful +recognition of her inestimable work. The new decoration of the +Victoria Cross, given "for valour" conspicuously shown in deeds of +self-devotion in war time, further proved how keenly the Queen and +her consort appreciated soldierly virtue. It was the Prince who first +proposed that such a badge of merit should be introduced, the Queen +who warmly accepted the idea, and in person bestowed the Cross on its +first wearers, thereby giving it an unpurchasable value. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +INDIA. + +Lord Aberdeen, who did not hope very great things from the war which +had initiated during his Ministry, had yet deemed it possible that +Eastern Europe might reap from it the benefit of a quarter of a +century's peace. He was curiously near the mark in this estimate; but +neither he nor any other English statesman was unwary enough to risk +such a prophecy as to the general tranquillity of the Continent. In +fact, the peace of Europe, broken in 1853, has been unstable enough +ever since, and from time to time tremendous wars have shaken it. +Into none of these, however, has Great Britain been again entrapped, +though the sympathies of its people have often been warmly enlisted +on this side and that. A war with China, which began in 1857, and +cannot be said to have ended till 1860, though in the interim a +treaty was signed which secured just a year's cessation of +hostilities, was the most important undertaking in which the allied +forces of France and England took part after the Crimea. In this war +the allies were victorious, as at that date any European Power was +tolerably certain to be in a serious contest with China. The closing +act of the conflict--the destruction of the Summer Palace at Pekin, +in retaliation for the treacherous murder of several French and +English prisoners of distinction--was severely blamed at the time, +but defended on the ground that only in this way could any effectual +punishment of the offence be obtained. That act of vengeance and the +war which it closed have an interest of their own in connection with +the late General Gordon, who now entered on that course of +extraordinary achievement which lacks a parallel in this century, and +which began, in the interests of Chinese civilisation, shortly after +he had taken a subordinate officer's part in the work of destruction +at Pekin. + +From this date England did not commit itself to any of the singular +series of enterprises which our good ally, the French Emperor, set on +foot. A feeling of distrust towards that potentate was invading the +minds of the very Englishmen who had most cordially hailed his +successes and met his advances. "The Emperor's mind is as full of +schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits, his +schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism," +were the strong words of Lord Palmerston in a confidential letter of +1860; and when he could thus think and write, small wonder if calmer +and more unprejudiced minds saw need for standing on their guard. +Amid all the flattering demonstrations of friendship of which the +French court had been lavish, and which had been gracefully +reciprocated by English royality, the Prince Consort had retained an +undisturbed perception of much that was not quite satisfactory in the +qualifications of the despotic chief of the French State for his +difficult post. Thus it is without surprise that we find the Queen +writing in 1859, as to a plan suggested by the Emperor: "The whole +scheme is the often-attempted one, that England should take the +chestnuts from the fire, and assume the responsibility of making +proposals which, if they lead to war, we should be in honour bound to +support by arms." The Emperor had once said of Louis Philippe, that +he had fallen "because he was not sincere with England"; it looked +now as though he were steering full on the same rock, for his own +sincerity was flawed by dangerous reservations. + +England remained an interested spectator, but a spectator only, while +the French ruler played that curiously calculated game of his, which +did so much towards insuring the independence of Italy and its +consolidation into one free monarchy. It was no disinterested game, +as the cession of Nice and Savoy to France by Piedmont would alone +have proved. It was daring to the point of rashness; for as a French +general of high rank said, there needed but the slightest check to +the French arms, and "it was all up with the dynasty!" Yet the "idea" +which furnished the professed motive for the Emperor's warlike action +was one dear to English sympathies, and many an English heart +rejoiced in the solid good secured for Italy, though without our +national co-operation. There was a proud compensating satisfaction in +the knowledge that, when a crisis of unexampled and terrible +importance had come in our own affairs, England had perforce dealt +with it single-handed and with supreme success. + +Those who can remember the fearful summer of 1857 can hardly recall +its wild events without some recurrence of the thrill of horror that +ran through the land, as week after week the Indian news of mutiny +and massacre reached us. It was a surprise to the country at large, +more than to the authorities, who were informed already that a spirit +of disaffection had been at work among our native troops in Bengal, +and that there was good reason to believe in the existence of a +conspiracy for sapping the allegiance of these troops. Later events +have left little doubt that such a conspiracy did exist, and that its +aim was the total subversion of British power. Our advance in +Hindostan had been rapid, the changes following on it many, and not +always such as the Oriental mind could understand or approve. Early +in the reign, in 1847, an energetic Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, +went out to India, who introduced railways, telegraphs, and cheap +postage, set on foot a system of native education, and vigorously +fought the ancient iniquities of suttee, thuggee, and child-murder. +Perhaps his aggressive energy worked too fast, too fierily; perhaps +his peremptory reforms, not less than his high-handed annexations of +the Punjaub, Oude, and other native States, awakened suspicion in the +mind of the Hindoo, bound as he was by the immemorial fetters of +caste, and dreading with a shuddering horror innovations that might +interfere with its distinctions; for to lose caste was to be outlawed +among men and accursed in the sight of God. + +[Illustration: Lord Canning.] + +Lord Canning, the successor of Lord Dalhousie, entered on his +governor-generalship at a moment full of "unsuspected peril"; for the +disaffected in Hindostan had so misread the signs of the times as to +believe that England's sun was stooping towards its setting, and that +the hour had come in which a successful blow could be struck, against +the foreign domination of a people alien in faith as in blood from +Mohammedan and Buddhist and Brahmin, and apt to treat all alike with +the scorn of superiority. A trivial incident, which was held no +trifle by the distrustful Sepoys, proved to be the spark that kindled +a vast explosion. The cartridges supplied for use with the Enfield +rifle, introduced into India in 1856, were greased; and the end would +have to be bitten off when the cartridge was used. A report was +busily circulated among the troops that the grease used was cow's fat +and hog's lard, and that these substances were employed in pursuance +of a deep-laid design to deprive every soldier of his caste by +compelling him to taste these defiling things. Such compulsion would +hardly have been less odious to a Mussulman than to a Hindoo; for +swineflesh is abominable to the one, and the cow a sacred animal to +the other. Whoever devised this falsehood intended to imply a subtle +intention on the part of England to overthrow the native religions, +which it was hoped the maddened soldiery would rise to resist. The +mischief worked as was desired. In vain the obnoxious cartridges were +withdrawn from use; in vain the Governor-General issued a +proclamation warning the army of Bengal against the falsehoods that +were being circulated. Mysterious signals, little cakes of unleavened +bread called _chupatties_, were being distributed, as the spring of +1857 went on, throughout the native villages under British rule, +doing the office of the _Fiery Cross_ among the Scotch Highlanders of +an earlier day; and in May the great Mutiny broke out. + +Some of the Bengal cavalry at Meerut had been imprisoned for refusing +to use their cartridges; their comrades rose in rebellion, fired on +their officers, released the prisoners, and murdered some Europeans. +The British troops rallied and repulsed the mutineers, who fled to +Delhi, unhappily reached it in safety, and required and obtained the +protection of the feeble old King, the last of the Moguls, there +residing. Him they proclaimed their Emperor, and avowed the intention +of restoring his dynasty to its ancient supremacy. The native troops +in the city and its environs at once prepared to join them; and thus +from a mere mutiny, such as had occurred once and again before, the +rising assumed the character of a vast revolutionary war. For a +moment it seemed that our hard-won supremacy in the East was +disappearing in a sea of blood. The foe were numerous, fanatical, and +ruthless; we ourselves had trained and disciplined them for war; the +sympathies of their countrymen were very largely with them. Yet, with +incredible effort and heroism more than mortal, the small and +scattered forces of England again snatched the mastery from the hands +of the overwhelming numbers arrayed against them. + +[Illustration: Sir Colin Campbell.] + +One name has obtained an immortality of infamy in connection with +this struggle--that of the Nana Sahib, who by his hideous treachery +at Cawnpore took revenge on confiding Englishmen and women for +certain wrongs inflicted on him in regard to the inheritance of his +adopted father by the last Governor-General. But many other names +have been crowned with deathless honour, the just reward of +unsurpassed achievement, of supreme fidelity and valour, at a crisis +under which feeble natures would have fainted and fallen. Of these +are Lord Canning himself, the noble brothers John and Henry Lawrence, +the Generals Havelock, Outram, and Campbell, and others whom space +forbids us even to name. + +The Governor-General remained calm, resolute, and intrepid amidst the +panic and the rage which shook Calcutta when the first appalling news +of the Mutiny broke upon it. He disdained the cruel counsels of fear, +and steadily refused to confound the innocent with the guilty among +the natives; but he knew where to strike, and when, and how. On his +own responsibility he stayed the British troops on their way to the +scene of war in China, and made them serve the graver, more immediate +need of India, doing it with the concurrence of Lord Elgin, the envoy +responsible for the Chinese business; and he poured his forces on +Delhi, the heart of the insurrection, resolving to make an end of it +there before ever reinforcement direct from England could come. After +a difficult and terrible siege, the place was carried by storm on +September 20th, 1857--an achievement that cost many noble lives, and +chief among them that of the gallant Nicholson, a soldier whose mind +and character seem to have made on all who knew him an impression as +of supernatural grandeur. + +Five days later General Havelock and his little band of heroes--some +one thousand Englishmen who had marched with him from Allahabad, +recaptured by Neill for England, and on to ghastly Cawnpore--arrived +at Lucknow, and relieved the slender British force which since May +had been holding the Residency against the fierce and ever-renewed +assaults of the thousands of rebels who poured themselves upon it. He +came in time to save many a brave life that should yet do good +service; but the noblest Englishman of them all, the gentle, +dauntless, chivalrous Sir Henry Lawrence, Governor of Oude, had died +from wounds inflicted by a rebel shell many weeks before, and lay +buried in the stronghold for whose safe keeping he had continued to +provide in the hour and article of death. His spirit, however, seemed +yet to actuate the survivors. Havelock's march had been one +succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half +miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might +merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders of +Lucknow, but for the timely arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with five +thousand men more, to relieve in his turn the relieving force and +place all the Europeans in Lucknow in real safety. The news was +received in England with a delight that was mingled with mourning for +the heroic and saintly Havelock, who sank and died on November 24th. +A soldier whose military genius had passed unrecognised and almost +unemployed while men far his inferiors were high in command, he had +so more than profited by the opportunity for doing good service when +it came, that in a few months his name had become one of the dearest +in every English home, a glory and a joy for ever. It is rarely that +a career so obscured by adverse fortune through all its course blazes +into such sunset splendour just at the last hour of life's day. + +[Illustration: Henry Havelock.] + +Those months which made the fame of Havelock had been filled with +crime and horror. The first reports of Sepoy outrages which +circulated in England were undoubtedly exaggerated, but enough +remains of sickening truth as to the cruelties endured by English +women and children at the hand of the mutineers to account for the +fury which filled the breasts of their avenging countrymen, and +seemed to lend them supernatural strength and courage, and, alas! in +some instances, to merge that courage in ferocity. Delhi had been +deeply guilty, when the mutineers seized it, in respect of inhuman +outrage on the helpless non-combatants; but the story of Cawnpore is +darker yet, and is still after all these years fresh in our memories. +A peculiar blackness of iniquity clings about it. That show of amity +with which the Nana Sahib responded to the summons of Sir Hugh +Wheeler, the hard-pressed commanding officer in the city, only that +he might act against him; those false promises by which the little +garrison, unconquerable by any force, was beguiled to give itself up +to mere butchery; the long captivity of the few scores of women and +children who survived the general slaughter, only, after many dreary +days of painful suspense, to be murdered in their prison-house as +Havelock drew near the gates of Cawnpore: all these circumstances of +especial horror made men regard their chief instigator rather as one +of the lower fiends masquerading in human guise than as a +fellow-creature moved by any motives common to men. It was perhaps +well for the fair fame of Englishmen that the Nana never fell into +their hands, but saved himself by flight before the soldiers of +Havelock had looked into the slaughter-house all strewn with relics +of his victims and grimly marked with signs of murder, or had gazed +shuddering at the dreadful well choked up with the corpses of their +countrywomen. It required more than common courage, justice, and +humanity, to withstand the wild demand for mere indiscriminating +revenge which these things called forth. Happily those highest in +power did possess these rare qualities. Lord Canning earned for +himself the nickname of "Clemency Canning" by his perfect +resoluteness to hold the balance of justice even, and unweighted by +the mad passion of the hour. Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence, the +Chief Commissioner of the Punjaub, who, with his able subordinates, +had saved that province at the very outset, and thereby in truth +saved India, was equally firm in mercy and in justice. The Queen +herself, who had very early appreciated the gravity of the situation +and promoted to the extent of her power the speedy sending of aid and +reinforcement from England, thoroughly endorsed the wise and clement +policy of the Governor-General. Replying to a letter of Lord +Canning's which deplored "the rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness +abroad," Her Majesty wrote these words, which we will give ourselves +the pleasure to quote entire:-- + +[Illustration: Sir John Lawrence.] + +"Lord Canning will easily believe how entirely the Queen shares his +feelings of sorrow and indignation at the unchristian spirit, shown, +alas! also to a great extent here by the public, towards Indians in +general, and towards Sepoys _without discrimination!_ It is, however, +not likely to last, and comes from the horror produced by the +unspeakable atrocities perpetrated against the innocent women and +children, which make one's blood run cold and one's heart bleed! For +the perpetrators of these awful horrors no punishment can be severe +enough; and sad as it is, _stern_ justice must be dealt out to all +the guilty. + +"But to the nation at large, to the peaceable inhabitants, to the +many kind and friendly natives who have assisted us, sheltered the +fugitive, and been faithful and true, there should be shown the +greatest kindness. They should know that there is no hatred to a +brown skin--none; but the greatest wish on their Queen's part to see +them happy, contented, and flourishing." + +These words well became the sovereign who, by serious and cogent +argument, had succeeded in inducing her Ministers to strike strongly +and quickly on the side of law and order, they having been at first +inclined to adopt a "step-by-step" policy as to sending out aid, +which would not have been very grateful to the hard-pressed +authorities in India; while the Queen and the Prince shared Lord +Canning's opinion, that "nothing but a long continued manifestation +of England's might before the eyes of the whole Indian empire, +evinced by the presence of such an English force as should make the +thought of opposition hopeless, would re-establish confidence in her +strength." + +The necessary manifestation of strength was made; the reputation of +England--so rudely shaken, not only in the opinion of ignorant +Hindoos, but in that of her European rivals--was re-established +fully, and indeed gained by the power she had shown to cope with an +unparalleled emergency. The counsels of vengeance were set aside, in +spite of the obloquy which for a time was heaped on the true wisdom +which rejected them. We did not "dethrone Christ to set up Moloch"; +had we been guilty of that sanguinary folly, England and India might +yet be ruing that year's doing. On the contrary, certain changes +which did ensue in direct consequence of the Mutiny were productive +of undoubted good. + +It was recognised that the "fiction of rule by a trading company" in +India must now be swept away; one of the very earliest effects of the +outbreak had been to open men's eyes to the weak and sore places of +that system. In 1858 an "Act for the better Government of India" was +passed, which transferred to Her Majesty all the territories formerly +governed by the East India Company, and provided that all the powers +it had once wielded should now be exercised in her name, and that its +military and naval forces should henceforth be deemed her forces. The +new Secretary of State for India, with an assistant council of +fifteen members, was entrusted with the care of Indian interests +here; the Viceroy, or Governor-General, also assisted by a council, +was to be supreme in India itself. The first viceroy who represented +the majesty of England to the Queen's Indian subjects was the +statesman who had safely steered us through the imminent, deadly +peril of the Mutiny, and whom right feeling and sound policy alike +designated as the only fit wearer of this honour. Under the new +regime race and class prejudices have softened, education is +spreading swiftly, native oppression is becoming more difficult, as +improved communications bring the light of day into the remoter +districts of the immense peninsula. The public mind of England has +never quite relapsed into its former scornful indifference to the +welfare of India; rather, that welfare has been regarded with much +keener interest, and the nation has become increasingly alive to its +duty with regard to that mighty dependency, now one in allegiance +with ourselves. There was much of happy omen in the reception +accorded by loyal Hindoos to the Queen's proclamation when it reached +them in 1858. While the mass of the people gladly hailed the rule of +the "Empress," by whom they believed the Company "had been hanged for +great offences," there were individuals who were intelligent enough +to recognise with delight that noble character of "humanity, mercy, +and justice," which was impressed by the Queen's own agency on the +proclamation issued in her name. We may say that the joy with which +such persons accepted the new reign has been justified by events, and +that the same great principles have continued to guide all Her +Majesty's own action with regard to India, and also that of her +ablest representatives there. + +We may not leave out of account, in reckoning the loss and gain of +that tremendous year, the extraordinary examples of heroism called +forth by its trials, which have made our annals richer, and have set +the ideal of English nobleness higher. The amazing achievements and +the swiftly following death of the gallant Havelock did not indeed +eclipse in men's minds the equal patriotism and success of his noble +fellows, but the tragic completeness of his story and the antique +grandeur of his character made him specially dear to his countrymen; +and the fact that he was already in his grave while the Queen and +Parliament were busy in assigning to him the honours and rewards +which his sixty years of life had hitherto lacked, added something +like remorse to the national feeling for him. But the heart of the +people swelled high with a worthy pride as we dwelt on his name and +those of the Lawrences, the Neills, the Outrams, the Campbells, and +felt that all our heroes had not died with Wellington. + +Other anxieties and misfortunes had not been lacking while the fate +of British India still hung in the balance. The attitude of some +European Powers, whom the breaking forth of the Mutiny had encouraged +in the idea that England's power was waning, was full of menace, +especially in view of what the Prince Consort justly called "our +pitiable state of unpreparedness" for resisting attack. Prompted by +him, the Queen caused close inquiry to be made into the state of our +home defences and of the navy--the first step towards remedying the +deficiencies therein existing. Also a "cold wave" seemed to be +passing over the commercial community in England; the year 1857 being +marked by very great financial depression, which affected more or +less every department of our industries. In connection with this +calamity, however, there was at least one hopeful feature: the very +different temper which the working classes, then, as always, the +greatest sufferers by such depression, manifested in the time of +trial. They showed themselves patient and loyal, able to understand +that their employers too had evils to endure and difficulties to +surmount; they no longer held all who were their superiors in station +for their natural enemies: a happy change, testifying to the good +worked by the new, beneficent spirit of legislation and reform. + +It is under the date of this year that we find Mr. Greville, on the +authority of Lord Clarendon, thus describing the very thorough and +"eminently useful" manner in which the Queen, assisted by the Prince, +was exercising her high functions:-- + +"She held each Minister to the discharge of his duty and his +responsibility to her, and constantly desired to be furnished with +accurate and detailed information about all important matters, +keeping a record of all the reports that were made to her, and +constantly referring to them; _e.g._, she would desire to know what +the state of the navy was, and what ships were in readiness for +active service, and generally the state of each, ordering returns to +be submitted to her from all the arsenals and dockyards, and again, +weeks or months afterwards, referring to these returns, and desiring +to have everything relating to them explained and accounted for, and +so throughout every department....This is what none of her +predecessors ever did, and it is, in fact, the act of Prince Albert." + +We turn from this picture of the Sovereign's habitual occupations to +her public life, and we find it never more full of apparently +absorbing excitements--splendid hospitalities exchanged with other +Powers, especially with Imperial France, alternating with messages of +encouragement, full of cordiality and grace, to her successful +commander-in-chief in India, Sir Colin Campbell, with plans for the +conspicuous rewarding of the Indian heroes at large, with public +visits to various great English towns, and with preparations for the +impending marriage of the Princess Royal; and we realise forcibly +that even in those sunny days, when the Queen was surrounded with her +unbroken family of nine blooming and promising children, and still +had at her right hand the invaluable counsellor by whose aid England +was governed with a wisdom and energy all but unprecedented, her +position was so far from a sinecure that no subject who had his daily +bread to gain by his wits could have worked much harder. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE BEGINNINGS OF SORROWS. + +[Illustration: Windsor Castle.] + +IT has been the Queen's good fortune to see her own true-love match +happily repeated in the marriages of her children. One would almost +say that the conspicuous success of that union, the blessing that it +brought with it to the nation, had set a new fashion to royalty. +There is quite a romantic charm about the first marriage which broke +the royal home-circle of England--that of the Queen's eldest child +and namesake, Victoria, Princess Royal, with Prince Frederick +William, eldest son of the then Prince of Prussia, whose exaltation +to the imperial throne of Germany lay dimly and afar--if not +altogether undreamed of by some prophetic spirits--in the future. The +bride and bridegroom had first met, when the youth was but nineteen +and the maiden only ten, at the great Peace Festival, the opening of +the first Exhibition. Already the charming grace and rare +intelligence of the Princess had attracted attention; and it is on +record that at this early period some inkling of a possible +attraction between the two had entered one observer's mind, who also +notes that the young Prince, greatly interested by all he saw of free +England and its rulers, was above all taken with the "perfect +domestic happiness which he found pervading the heart, and core, and +focus of the greatest empire in the world." Four years later the +Prince was again visiting England, a guest of the royal family in its +Scottish retreat of Balmoral, where they had just been celebrating +with beacon fires and Highland mirth and music the glad news of the +fall of Sebastopol. He had the full consent of his own family for his +wooing, but the parents of his lady would have had him keep silence +at least till the fifteen-year-old maiden should be confirmed. The +ease and unconstraint of that mountain home-life, however, were not +very favourable to reserve and reticence; a spray of white heather, +offered and received as the national emblem of good fortune, was made +the flower symbol of something more, and words were spoken that +effectually bound the two young hearts, though the formal betrothal +was deferred until some time after the Princess, in the following +March, had received the rite of Confirmation; and "the actual +marriage," said the Prince Consort, "cannot be thought of till the +seventeenth birthday is past." "The secret must be kept _tant bien +que mal_," he had written, well knowing that it would be a good deal +of an open secret. + +[Illustration: Prince Frederick William.] + +[Illustration: Princess Royal.] + +The engagement was publicly announced in May, 1857, and though, when +first rumoured, it had been coldly looked on by the English public, +now it was accepted with great cordiality. The Prince was openly +associated with the royal family; he and his future bride appeared as +sponsors at the christening of our youngest Princess, Beatrice; he +rode with the Prince Consort beside the Queen when she made the first +distribution of the Victoria Cross, and was a prominent and heartily +welcomed member of the royal group which visited the Art Treasures +Exhibition of Manchester. The marriage, which was in preparation all +through the grim days of 1857, was celebrated with due splendour on +January 25th, 1858, and awakened a universal interest which was not +even surpassed when, five years later, the heir to the throne was +wedded. "Down to the humblest cottage," said the Prince Consort, "the +marriage has been regarded as a family affair." And not only this +splendid and entirely successful match, but every joy or woe that has +befallen the highest family in the land, has been felt as "a family +affair" by thousands of the lowly. This is the peculiar glory of the +present reign. + +[Illustration: Charles Kingsley. _From a Photograph by_ Elliott & +Fry.] + +Happy and auspicious as this marriage was, it was nevertheless the +first interruption to the pure home bliss that hitherto had filled +"the heart of the greatest empire in the world." The Princess Royal, +with her "man's head and child's heart," had been the dear companion +of the father whose fine qualities she inherited, and had largely +shared in his great thoughts. Nor was she less dear to her mother, +who had sedulously watched over the "darling flower," admiring and +approving her "touching and delightful" filial worship of the Prince +Consort, and who followed with longing affection every movement of +the dear child now removed from her sheltering care, and making her +own way and place in a new world. There she has indeed proved +herself, as she pledged herself to do, "worthy to be her mother's +child," following her parents in the path of true philanthropy and +gentle human care for the suffering and the lowly. So far the ancient +prophecy has been well fulfilled which promised good fortune to +Prussia and its rulers when the heir of the reigning house should wed +a princess from sea-girt Britain. But the wedding so propitious for +Germany seemed almost the beginning of sorrows for English royalty. +Other betrothals and marriages of the princes and princesses ensued; +but the still lamented death of the Prince Consort intervened before +one of those betrothals culminated in marriage. + +Another event which may be called domestic belongs to the year +following this marriage--the coming of age of the Prince of Wales, +fixed, according to English use and wont, when the heir of the crown +completes his eighteenth year. Every educational advantage that +wisdom or tenderness could suggest had been secured for the Prince. +We may note in passing that one of his instructors was the Rev. +Charles Kingsley, whom Prince Albert had engaged to deliver a series +of lectures on history to his son. This honour, as well as that of +his appointment as one of Her Majesty's chaplains, was largely due to +royal recognition of the practical Christianity, so contagious in its +fervour, which distinguished Mr. Kingsley, not less than his great +gifts; of his eagerness "to help in lifting the great masses of the +people out of the slough of ignorance and all its attendant suffering +and vice"--an object peculiarly dear to the Queen and to the Prince, +as had been consistently shown on every opportunity. + +When the time came that the youth so carefully trained should be +emancipated from parental control, it was announced to him by the +Queen in a letter characterised by Mr. Greville or his informant as +"one of the most admirable ever penned. She tells him," continues the +diarist, "that he may have thought the rule they adopted for his +education a severe one, but that his welfare was their only object; +and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would eventually +be exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind against +them; that he was now to consider himself his own master, and that +they should never intrude any advice upon him, although always ready +to give it him whenever he thought fit to seek it. It was a very long +letter, all in that tone; and it seems to have made a profound +impression on the Prince.... The effect it produced is a proof of the +wisdom that dictated its composition." + +We have chosen this as a true typical instance of the blended +prudence and tenderness that have marked the relations between our +Sovereign and her children. Aware what a power for good or evil the +characters of those children must have on the fortunes of very many +others, she and her husband sedulously surrounded them with every +happy and healthy influence, never forgetting the supreme need of due +employment for their energies. "Without a vocation," said the Prince +Consort, "man is incapable of complete development and real +happiness": his sons have all had their vocation. + +It was the same period, marked by these domestic passages of mingled +joy and sorrow, that became memorable in another way, through the +various troublous incidents which gave an extraordinary impetus to +our national Volunteer movement, which were not remotely connected +with the War of Italian Independence, and for a short time overthrew +the popular Ministry of Lord Palmerston, who was replaced in office +by Lord Derby. The futile plot of Felice Orsini, an Italian exile and +patriot, against the life of Louis Napoleon, provoked great anger +among the Imperialists of France against England, the former asylum +of Orsini. A series of violent addresses from the French army, +denouncing Great Britain as a mere harbour of assassins, did but give +a more exaggerated form to the representations of French diplomacy, +urging the amendment of our law, which appeared incompetent to touch +murderous conspirators within our borders so long as their plots +regarded only foreign Powers. The tone of France was deemed insolent +and threatening; Lord Palmerston, who, in apparent deference to it, +introduced a rather inefficient measure against conspiracy to murder, +fell at once to the nadir of unpopularity, and soon had no choice but +to resign; and the Volunteer movement in England--which had been +begun in 1852, owing to the sinister changes that then took place in +the French Government--now at once assumed the much more important +character it has never since lost. The immense popularity of this +movement and its rapid spread formed a significant reply to the +insensate calls for vengeance on England which had risen from the +French army, and which seemed worthy of attention in view of the vast +increase now made in the naval strength of France, and of other +preparations indicating that the Emperor meditated a great military +enterprise. That enterprise proved to be the war with Austria which +did so much for Italy, and which some observers were disposed to +connect with the plot of Orsini--a rough reminder to the Emperor, +they said, that he was trifling with the cause of Italian unity, to +which he was secretly pledged. But Englishmen were slow to believe in +such designs on the part of the French ruler. "How should a despot +set men free?" was their thought, interpreted for them vigorously +enough by an anonymous poet of the day; and they enrolled themselves +in great numbers for national defence. With this movement there might +be some evils mixed, but its purely defensive and manly character +entitles it on the whole to be reckoned among the better influences +of the day. + +[Illustration: Lord Palmerston.] + +Palmerston's discredit with his countrymen was of short duration, as +was his exile from office; he was Premier again in the June of 1859, +and was thenceforth "Prime Minister for life." His popularity, which +had been for some time increasing, remained now quite unshaken until +his death in 1865. Before Lord Derby's Government fell, however, a +reform had been carried which could not but have been extremely +grateful to Mr. Disraeli, then the Ministerial leader of the House of +Commons. The last trace of the disabilities under which the Jews in +England had laboured for many generations was now removed, and the +Baron Lionel de Rothschild was able quietly to take his seat as one +of the members for the City of London. The disabilities in question +had never interfered with the ambition or the success of Mr. +Disraeli, who at a very early age had become a member of the +Christian Church. But his sympathies had never been alienated from +the own people, with whom indeed he had always proudly identified +himself by bold assertion of their manifold superiority. There are +still, undoubtedly, persons in this country whose convictions lead +them to think it anything but a wholesome change which has admitted +among our legislators men, however able and worthy, who disclaim the +name of _Christian_. But the change was brought about by the +conviction, which has steadily deepened among us, that oppression of +those of a different faith from our own, either by direct severities +or by the withholding of civil rights, is a singularly poor weapon of +conversion, and that the adversaries of Christianity are more likely +to be conciliated by being dealt with in a Christlike spirit; +further, that religious opinion may not be treated as a crime, +without violation of God's justice. On the point as to the claim of +_irreligious_ opinion to similar consideration, the national feeling +cannot be called equally unanimous. In the case of the English Jews, +it may be said that the tolerant and equal conduct adopted towards +them has been well requited; the ancient people of God are not here, +as in lands where they are trampled and trodden down, an offence and +a trouble, the cause of repeated violent disturbance and the object +of a frenzied hate, always deeply hurtful to those who entertain it. + +Other changes and other incidents that now occurred engrossed a +greater share of the public attention than this measure of relief. +The rapid march of events in Italy had been watched with eager +interest, divided partly by certain ugly outbreaks of Turkish +fanaticism in Syria, and by our proceedings in the Ionian islands, +which finally resulted in the quiet transfer of those isles to the +kingdom of Greece. The commercial treaty with France effected, +through the agency of Mr. Cobden, on Free Trade lines, and Mr. +Gladstone's memorable success in carrying the repeal of the paper +duty, and thereby immensely facilitating journalistic enterprise, +were hailed with great delight as beneficial and truly progressive +measures. But events of a more gigantic character now took place, +which at the moment affected our prosperity more directly than +any fiscal reform, and appealed more powerfully to us than the +savagery of our Turkish _proteges_ or even than the union of +Italy under Victor Emmanuel into one free and friendly State. The +long-smouldering dissensions between the Northern and Southern States +of the American Union at last broke into flame, and war was declared +between them, in 1861. + +The burning question of slavery was undoubtedly at the bottom of this +contest, which has been truly described as a struggle for life +between the "peculiar institution" and the principles of modern +society. The nobler and more enthusiastic spirits in the Northern +States beheld in it a strife between Michael and Satan, the Spirit of +Darkness hurling himself against the Spirit of Light in a vain and +presumptuous hope to overpower him; and their irritation was great +when an eminent English man of letters was found describing it +scornfully as "the burning of a dirty chimney," and when English +opinion, speaking through very many journalists and public men, +appeared half hostile to the Northern cause. Indeed, it might have +been thought that opinion in England--England, which at a great cost +had freed its own slaves, and which had never ceased by word and deed +to attack slavery and the slave-trade--would not have faltered for a +moment as to the party it would favour, but would have declared +itself massively against the slave-holding South. But the contest at +its outset was made to wear so doubtful an aspect that it was +possible, unhappily possible, for many Englishmen of distinction to +close their eyes to the great evils championed by the Southern +troops. The war was not avowedly made by the North for the +suppression of slavery, but to prevent the Southern States from +withdrawing themselves from the Union: the Southerners on their side +claimed a constitutional right so to withdraw if it pleased them, and +denounced the attempt to retain them forcibly as a tyranny. + +[Illustration: Abraham Lincoln and his son.] + +This false colouring at first given to the contest had mischievous +results. English feeling was embittered by the great distress in our +manufacturing districts, directly caused up the action of the +Northern States in blockading the Southern ports, and thus cutting +off our supply of raw material in the shape of cotton. On its side +the North, which had calculated securely on English sympathy and +respect, and was profoundly irritated by the many displays of a +contrary feeling; and the exasperation on both sides more than once +reached a point which made war appear almost inevitable--a war above +all others to be deprecated. First came the affair of the +_Trent_--the English mail-steamer from which two Southern envoys +were carried off by an American naval commander, in contempt of the +protection of the British flag. The action was technically illegal, +and on the demand of the English Government its illegality was +acknowledged, and the captives were restored; but the warlike and +threatening tone of England on this occasion was bitterly resented at +the North, and this resentment was greatly increased when it became +known that various armed cruisers, in particular the notorious +_Alabama_, designed to prey on the Northern commerce, were being +built and fitted by English shipbuilders in English dockyards under +the direction of the Southern foe, while the English Government could +not decide if it were legally competent for Her Majesty's Ministers +to interfere and detain such vessels. The tardy action at last taken +just prevented the breaking out of hostilities. Out of these +unfortunate transactions a certain good was to ensue at a date not +far distant, when, after the restoration of peace, America and +England, disputing as to the compensation due from one to the other +for injuries sustained in this matter, gave to the world the great +example of two nations submitting a point so grave to peaceful +arbitration, instead of calling in the sword to make an end of it--an +example more nearly pointing to the possible extinction of war than +any other event of the world's history. + +Yet another hopeful feature may be noted in connection with this time +of trouble. While the Secession war lasted, "the cotton famine" had +full sway in Lancashire; unwonted and unwelcome light and stillness +replaced the dun clouds of smoke and the busy hum that used to tell +of fruitful, well-paid industry; and the patient people, haggard and +pale but sadly submissive, were kept, and just kept, from starving by +the incessant charitable effort of their countrymen. Never had the +attitude of the suffering working classes shown such genuine +nobility; they understood that the calamity which lay heavy on them +was not brought about by the careless and selfish tyranny of their +worldly superiors, but came in the order of God's providence; and +their conduct at this crisis proved that an immense advance had been +made in kindliness between class and class, and in true intelligence +and appreciation of the difficulties proper to each. It was +significant of this new temper that when at last peace returned, +bringing some gleam of returning prosperity, the workers, who greeted +with joyful tears the first bales of cotton that arrived, fell on +their knees around the hopeful things and sang hymns of thanksgiving +to the Author of all good. + +Such were the fruits of that new policy of care and consideration for +the toilers and the lowly which had increasingly marked the new +epoch, and which had been sedulously promoted by the Queen, in +association with her large-thoughted and well-judging husband. + +It was in the midst of the troubles which we have just attempted to +recall that a new and greater calamity came upon us, affecting the +royal family indeed with the sharpest distress, but hardly less felt, +even at the moment, by the nation. + +The year 1861 had already been darkened for Her Majesty by the death +in the month of March, of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to whose +wise guardianship of the Queen's youth the nation owed so much, and +who had ever commanded the faithful affection of this her youngest +but greatest child, and of all her descendants. This death was the +first stroke of real personal calamity to the Queen; it was destined +to be followed by another bereavement, even severer in its nature, +before the year had closed. The Prince Consort's health, though +generally good, was not robust, and signs had not been wanting that +his incessant toils were beginning to tell upon him. There had been +illnesses, transitory indeed, but too significant of "overwork of +brain and body." In addition to personal griefs, such as the death of +the Duchess of Kent and of a beloved young Coburg prince and kinsman, +the King of Portugal, which had been severely felt, there were the +unhappy complications arising out of "the affair of the _Trent_," +which the Prince's statesmanlike wisdom had helped to bring to a +peaceful and honourable conclusion. That wisdom, unhappily, was no +longer at the service of England when a series of negligences and +ignorances on the part of England's statesmen had landed us in the +_Alabama_ difficulty. + +All these agitations had told upon a frame which was rather +harmoniously and finely than vigorously constituted. "If I had an +illness," he had been known to say, "I am sure I should not struggle +for life. I have no tenacity of life." And in the November of 1861 an +illness came against which he was not able to struggle, but which +took all the country by surprise when, on December 14th, it +terminated in death. Very many had hardly been aware that there was +danger until the midnight tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's +startled men with an instant foreboding of disaster. _What_ disaster +it was that was thus knelled forth they knew not, and could hardly +believe the tidings when given in articulate words. + +At first it had been said, the Prince had a feverish cold; presently +the bulletin announced "fever, unattended with unfavourable +symptoms." It was gastric fever, and before long there _were_ +unfavourable symptoms--pallid changes in the aspect, hurried +breathing, wandering senses--all noted with heart-breaking anxiety by +the loving nurses, the Queen and Princess Alice--the daughter so +tender and beloved, the "dear little wife," the "good little wife," +whose ministerings were so comfortable to the sufferer overwearied +with the great burden of life. He was released from it at ten minutes +to eleven on the night of Saturday, December 14th; and there fell on +her to whom his last conscious look had been turned, his last caress +given, a burden of woe almost unspeakable, and for which the heart of +the nation throbbed with well-nigh unbearable sympathy. Seldom has +the personal grief of a sovereign been so keenly shared by subjects. +Indeed, they had cause to lament; the removal of the Prince Consort, +just when his faculties seemed ripest and his influence most assured, +left a blank in the councils of the nation which has never been +filled up. "We have buried our _king_" said Mr. Disraeli, regretting +profoundly this national loss; but for once the English people forgot +the public deprivation in compassionating her who was left more +conspicuously lonely, more heavily burdened, than even the poor +bereaved colliers' wives in the North for whom _her_ compassion was +so quick and so sharply sympathetic. Something remorseful mingled +then, and may mingle now, with the affection felt for this lost +benefactor, who had not only been somewhat jealously eyed by certain +classes on his first coming, but who had suffered much silently from +misunderstanding and also from deliberate misrepresentation, and only +by patient continuance in well-doing had at last won the favour which +was his rightful due. + + "That which we have we prize not to the worth + While we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, + Why, then we rack the value, then we find + The virtue that possession would not show us + While it was ours." + +A peculiar tenderness was ever after cherished for Princess Alice, +who in this dark hour rose up to be her mother's comforter, +endeavouring in every way possible to save her all trouble--"all +communications from the Ministers and household passed through the +Princess's hands to the Queen, then bowed down with grief.... It was +the very intimate intercourse with the sorrowing Queen at that time +which called forth in Princess Alice that keen interest and +understanding in politics for which she was afterwards so +distinguished. The gay, bright girl suddenly developed into a wise, +far-seeing woman, living only for others." + +[Illustration: Princess Alice.] + +This ministering angel in the house of mourning had been already +betrothed, with her parents' full approval, to Prince Louis of Hesse; +and to him she was married on July 1st, 1862, at Osborne, very +quietly, as befitted the mournful circumstance of the royal family. +Many a heartfelt wish for her happiness followed "England's +England-loving daughter" to her foreign home, where she led a +beautiful, useful life, treading in her father's footsteps, and +continually cherished by the love of her mother; and the peculiarly +touching manner of her death, a sort of martyrdom to sweet domestic +affections, again stirred the heart of her own people to mournful +admiration. A cottager's wife might have died as Princess Alice died, +through breathing in the poison of diphtheria as she hung, a +constant, loving nurse, over the pillows of her suffering husband and +children. This beautiful _homeliness_ that has marked the lives of +our Sovereign and her children has been of inestimable value, raising +simple human virtues to their proper pre-eminence before the eyes of +the English people of to-day, who are very materially, if often +unconsciously, swayed by the example set them in high places. + +In the May after Prince Consort's death the second International +Exhibition was opened, amid sad memories of the first, so joyful in +every way, and a certain sense of discouragement because the golden +days of universal peace seemed farther off than ten years before. + + "Is the goal so far away? + Far, how far no tongue can say; + Let us dream our dream to-day." + +Far indeed it seemed, with the fratricidal contest raging in America, +and shutting out all contributions to this World's Fair from the +United States. + +[Illustration: The Mausoleum.] + +The Queen had betaken herself that May to her Highland home, whose +joy seemed dead, and where her melancholy pleased itself in the +erection of a memorial cairn to the Prince on Craig Lorigan, after +she had returned from Princess Alice's wedding. But in May she had +sent for Dr. Norman Macleod, who was not only distinguished as one of +her own chaplains, but was also a friend already endeared to the +Prince and herself; and she found comfort in the counsels of that +faithful minister and loyal man, who has left some slight record of +her words. "She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to +look them in the face; she would never shrink from duty, but all was +at present done mechanically; her highest ideas of purity and love +were obtained from the Prince, and God could not be displeased with +her love.... There was nothing morbid in her grief.... She said that +the Prince always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told +her that he had never any fear of death." It seemed that in this +persuasion the Prince had made haste to live up to the duties of his +difficult station to the very utmost, and "being made perfect in a +short time fulfilled a long time [Footnote]." + +[Footnote: Inscription on the cairn on Craig Lorigan.] + +"The more I learn about the Prince Consort," continues Dr. Macleod, +"the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him: 'that he +really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character, or what +selfishness was.' And on whatever day his public life is revealed to +the world, I feel certain this will be recognised." + +[Illustration: Dr. Norman Macleod.] + +The Queen, by revealing to the world, with a kind of holy boldness, +what the Prince's public and private life was, has justified this +confidence of her faithful friend. + +Early in 1863, Dr. Macleod was led by the Queen into the mausoleum +she had caused to be raised for her husband's last resting-place. +Calm and quiet she stood and looked on the beautiful sculptured image +of him she had lost: having "that within which passeth show," her +grief was tranquil. "She is so true, so genuine, I wonder not at her +sorrow; it but expresses the greatest loss that a sovereign and wife +could sustain," said the deeply moved spectator. + +An event was close at hand which was to mingle a little joy in the +bitter cup so long pressed to our Sovereign's lips. The Prince of +Wales had formed an attachment to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark, +a singularly winning and lovely lady, whose popularity, ever since +her sweet face first shone on the surging crowds that shouted her +welcome into London, has seemed always at flood-tide. Faithful to her +experience and convictions, the Queen smiled gladly on the marriage +of affection between this gentle princess and the heir to the throne, +and was present as a spectator, though still wearing her sombre +weeds, at the splendid show of her son's wedding on March 10th, 1863. +"Two things have struck me much," writes Dr. Macleod, from whose +Journal we again quote: "one was the whole of the royal princesses +weeping, though concealing their tears with their bouquets, as they +saw their brother, who was to them but their 'Bertie' and their dear +father's son, standing alone waiting for his bride. The other was the +Queen's expression as she raised her eyes to heaven while her +husband's _Chorale_ was sung. She seemed to be with him alone before +the throne of God." + +[Illustration: Prince of Wales. _From a Photograph by W. & D. Downey, +Ebury Street, W._] + +"No possible favour can the Queen grant me, or honour bestow," said +the manly writer of these words, "beyond what the poor can give the +poor--her friendship." It is rarely that one sitting amid "the fierce +light that beats upon the throne" has been able to enjoy the simple +bliss of true, disinterested friendship with those of kindred soul +but inferior station. Such rare fortune, however, has been the +Queen's; and it is worthy of note that her special regard has been +won by persons distinguished not less by loftiness and purity of +character than by mental power or personal charm. She has not escaped +the frequent penalty of strong affection, that of being bereaved of +its objects. She has outlived earlier and later friends alike--Lady +Augusta Stanley and her husband, the beloved Dean of Westminster; the +good and beautiful Duchess of Sutherland; the two eminent Scotchmen, +Principal Tulloch and Dr. Macleod himself; and the Archbishop of +Canterbury, Dr. Tait, with his charming wife. To these might be +added, among the more eminent objects of her regard, the late poet +laureate, who shared with Macaulay the once unique privilege of +having been raised to the peerage more for transcendent ability than +for any other motive--a distinction that never would have been so +bestowed by our early Hanoverian kings, and which offers a marked +contrast to the sort of patronage with which later sovereigns have +distinguished the great writers of their time. A new spirit rules +now; of this no better evidence could be given than this recently +published testimony to the relations between Queen and poet: "Mrs. +Tennyson told us that the poet laureate likes and admires the Queen +personally very much, and enjoys conversation with her. Mrs. Tennyson +generally goes too, and says the Queen's manner towards him is +childlike and charming, and they both give their opinions freely, +even when those differ from the Queen's, which she takes with perfect +good humour, and is very animated herself [Footnote]." + +[Footnote: "Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings." London: 1887.] + +[Illustration: Princess of Wales. _From a Photograph by Walery._] + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHANGES GOOD AND EVIL. + +With the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, a sort of truce in the +strife of parties, which his supremacy had secured, came to an end. +That supremacy had been imperilled for a moment when the Government +declined to make an armed intervention in the struggle between +Denmark and the German Powers in 1864. Such an intervention would +have been very popular with the English people, who could hardly know +that "all Germany would rise as one man" to repel it if it were +risked. But the English Premier's rare command of his audience in +Parliament enabled him to overcome even this difficulty; and the +gigantic series of contests on the Continent which resulted in the +consolidation of the German empire, the complete liberation of Italy, +the overthrow of Imperialism in France and of the temporal power of +the Pope even in Rome itself, went on its way without our +interference also, which would hardly have been the case had we +intermeddled in the ill-understood contention between Denmark and its +adversaries as to the Schleswig-Holstein succession. + +[Illustration: Sir Robert Napier.] + +That strange crime, the murder of President Lincoln, in America just +when the long contest between North and South had ended and the cause +of true freedom had triumphed, was actually fruitful of good as +regarded this country and the United States. A cry of horror went up +from all England at the news of that "most accursed assassination," +which seemed at the moment to brand the losing cause, whose partisan +was guilty of it, with the very mark of Cain. Expressions of sympathy +with the outraged country and of admiring regret for its murdered +head were lavished by every respectable organ of opinion; while the +Queen, by writing in personal sympathy, as one widow to another, to +the bereaved wife of Lincoln, made herself, as she has often done, +the mouthpiece of her people's best feeling. Again and again has it +been manifested that America and England are in more cordial +relations with each other since the tremendous civil war than before +it. It is no matter of statecraft, but a better understanding between +two great English-speaking peoples, drawn into closer fellowship by +far more easy communication than of old. + +A little war with Ashantee, not too successful, a difficulty with +Japan, some more serious troubles with New Zealand, exhaust the list +of the warlike enterprises of England in the last years of +Palmerston. In a year or two after his death we were engaged in a +brief and entirely successful campaign against the barbaric King +Theodore of Abyssinia, "a compound of savage virtue and more than +savage ambition and cruelty," who, imagining himself wronged and +slighted by England, had seized a number of British subjects, held +them in hard captivity, and treated them with such capricious cruelty +as made it very manifest that their lives were not worth an hour's +purchase. It fell to the Ministry of Mr. Disraeli, Premier on the +resignation of his colleague Lord Derby, who had displaced Earl +Russell in that office, to bring this strange potentate to reason by +force of arms. Under Sir Robert Napier's management the work was done +with remarkable precision; no English life was lost; and but few of +our soldiers were wounded; Magdala, the mountain eyrie of King +Theodore, was stormed and destroyed, and the captives, having been +surrendered under dread of the British arms, were restored to freedom +and safety. The honour of our land, imperilled by the oppression of +our subjects was triumphantly vindicated; other good was not +achieved. Theodore, unwilling to survive defeat, was found dead by +his own hand when Magdala was carried, and he was afterwards +succeeded on the Abyssinian throne by a chief who had more than all +his predecessor's vices and none of his virtues. For this +well-managed campaign Sir Robert Napier was raised to the peerage as +Lord Napier of Magdala. The swift success, the brilliant promptitude, +of his achievement are almost painful to recall to-day, in face of +another enterprise for the rescue of a British subject, conducted by +a commander not less able and resolute, at the head of troops as +daring and as enthusiastic, which was turned into a conspicuous +failure by unhappy delayings on the part of the civil authorities, in +the fatal winter of 1884-5. + +[Illustration: Mr. Gladstone.] + +Turning our eyes from foreign matters to the internal affairs of the +United Kingdom, we see two great leaders, Mr. Disraeli and Mr. +Gladstone--whose "long Parliamentary duel" had begun early in the +fifties of this century--outbidding each other by turns for the +public favour, and each in his different way ministering to the +popular craving for reform. With Mr. Disraeli's first appearance as +leader of the house of Commons, this rivalry entered on its most +noticeable stage; it only really ceased with the life of the +brilliant, versatile, and daring _litterateur_ and statesman who died +as Earl Beaconsfield, not very long after his last tenure of office +expired in 1880. In 1867 Mr. Disraeli, as Leader of the Lower House, +carried a measure for the reform of the franchise in England, and the +year following similar measures with regard to Ireland and Scotland. +In 1869 it was Mr. Gladstone's turn, and he introduced and carried +two remarkable Bills--one for the disestablishment of the Irish +Church, and one for the amendment of land tenure in Ireland, the +latter passing into law in August, 1870. It had long been felt as a +bitter grievance by the mass of Irishmen that the Church established +in their country should be one which did not command the allegiance +of one-sixth of its people and though opinion in England was sharply +divided as to the question of Irish disestablishment, the majority of +Englishmen undoubtedly considered the grievance to be something more +than a sentimental one, and deserving of removal. Another startling +measure of reform was the abolition of purchase in the army, carried +in the face of a reluctant House of Lords by means of a sudden +exercise of royal prerogative under advice of the Government; the +Premier announcing "that as the system of purchase was the creation +of royal regulation, he had advised the Queen to take the decisive +step of cancelling the royal warrant which made purchase legal"--a +step which, however singular, was undoubtedly legal, as was proved by +abundant evidence. + +A measure which may not improbably prove to have affected the +fortunes of this country more extensively than any of those already +enumerated was the Education Bill introduced by Mr. Forster in 1870, +and designed to secure public elementary education for even the +humblest classes throughout England and Wales. Hitherto the teaching +of the destitute poor had been largely left to private charity or +piety, and in the crowded towns it had been much neglected, with the +great exception of the work done in Ragged Schools--those gallant +efforts made by unpaid Christian zeal to cope with the multitudinous +ignorance and misery of our overgrown cities. It was very slowly that +the national conscience was aroused to the peril and sin of allowing +the masses to grow up in heathen ignorance; but at last the English +State shook off its sluggish indifference to the instruction of its +poor, and became as active as it had been supine. Mr. Forster's Bill +is the measure which indicates this turning of the tide. We do not +propose now to discuss the provisions of this Act, which were sharply +canvassed at the time, and which certainly have not worked without +friction; but we may say that the stimulus then given to educational +activity, if judged by subsequent results, must be acknowledged to +have been advantageous. The system of schools under the charge of +various religious bodies, which existed before the Education Act, has +not been superseded; that indeed would have been a deep misfortune, +for it is more needed than ever; the masses of the population have +been, to an appreciable extent, reached and instructed; and we shall +not much err in connecting as cause and effect the wider instruction +with the diminution of pauperism and crime which the statistics of +recent years reveal. + +The same member who honoured himself and benefited his country by +this great effort to promote the advance of the "angel Knowledge" +also introduced, in 1871, the Ballot Bill, designed to do away with +all the violence and corruption that had long disgraced Parliamentary +elections in this free land, and that showed no symptom of a tendency +to reform themselves. The new system of secret voting which was now +adopted has required, it is true, to be further purified by the +recent Corrupt Practices Bill and its stringent provisions; but no +one, whose memory is long enough to recall the tumultuous and +discreditable scenes attendant on elections under the old system, +will be inclined to deny that much that was flagrantly disgraceful as +well as dishonest has been swept away by the reforming energy of our +own day. + +It is to the same period, made memorable by these internal reforms, +that we have to refer the final settlement of the long-standing +controversy between Great Britain and the United States as to the +_Alabama_ claims. We have already referred to these claims and the +peaceful though very costly manner of their adjustment. That the +award on the whole should go against us was not very grateful to the +English people; but when the natural irritation of the hour had time +to subside, the substantial justice of the decision was little +disputed. While England was thus busied in strengthening her walls +and making straight her ways, her great neighbour and rival was +passing through a very furnace of misery. The colossal-seeming +Empire, whose head was rather of strangely mingled Corinthian metal +than of fine gold, and whose iron feet were mixed with miry clay, was +tottering to its overthrow, and fell in the wild days of 1870 with a +world-awakening crash. Again it was a dispute concerning the throne +of Spain which precipitated the fall of a French sovereign. It would +seem as if interference with the affairs of its Southern neighbour +was ever to be ominous of evil to France. The first great Napoleon +had had to rue such interference; it had been disastrous to Louis +Philippe; now Louis Napoleon, making the candidature of Leopold of +Hohenzollern for the Spanish crown a pretext for war with Prussia, +forced on the strife which was to dethrone himself, to cast down his +dynasty, and to despoil France of two fair provinces, Alsace and +Lorraine, once taken from Germany, now reconquered for United +Germany. With that strife, which resulted in the exaltation of the +Prussian King, our Princess Royal's father-in-law, as German Emperor, +England had absolutely nothing to do, except to pity the fallen and +help the suffering as far as in her lay; but it awakened profoundest +interest, especially while the long siege of Paris dragged on through +the hard winter of 1870-71; hardly yet is the interest of the subject +exhausted. + +A certain fleeting effect was produced in England by the erection of +a New Republic in France in place of the fallen Empire, while the +family of the defeated ruler--rejected by his realm more for lack of +success than for his bad government--escaped to the safety of this +country from the angry hatred of their own. A few people here began +to talk republicanism in public, and to commend the "logical +superiority" of that mode of government, oblivious of the fact that +practical Britain prefers a system, however illogical, that actually +works well, to the most beautifully reasoned but untested paper +theory. But the wild excesses of the Commune in Paris, outdoing in +horror the sufferings of the siege, quickly produced the same effect +here that was wrought in the last century by the French Reign of +Terror, and English republicanism relapsed into the dormant state +from which it had only just awakened. The dangerous illness that +attacked the Prince of Wales in the last days of 1871, calling forth +such keen anxiety throughout the land that it seemed as if thousands +of families had a son lying in imminent peril of death, showed at +once that the nation was yet loyal to the core. True prayers were +everywhere offered up in sympathy with the mother, the sister, the +wife, who watched at the bedside of the heir to the throne; and when, +on the very anniversary of the Prince Consort's death, the life that +had seemed ebbing away turned to flow upward again; a sort of sob of +relief rose from the heart of the people, who rejoiced to be able, at +a later day, to share with their Queen her solemn act of thanksgiving +for mercy shown, as she went with her restored son, her son's wife, +and her son's sons, to worship and give praise in the great cathedral +of St. Paul's. + +Princess Alice, who had shared and softened the grief of her mother +ten years before, had been again at her side during all the +protracted anxiety of this winter, and had helped to nurse her +brother. The Princess's experience of nursing had been terribly +increased during the awful wars, when she had been incessantly busied +in hospital organisation and work, suffering from the sight of +suffering as a sensitive nature must, but ever toiling to lighten it; +and she had come with her children to recover a little strength in +her mother's Highland home. Thus it was that she was found at +Sandringham when her brother's illness declared itself, "fulfilling +the same priceless offices" of affection as in her maiden days, and +endearing herself the more to the English people, who grieved for her +when, in the ensuing year, a mournful accident robbed her of one +darling child, and who felt it like a personal domestic loss when in +1878 the beautiful life ended. Other royal marriages have from time +to time awakened public interest, and one, celebrated between the +Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne, heir of the dukedom of +Argyll, had just preceded the illness of the Prince and was regarded +with much more attention because no British subject since the days of +George II's legislation as to royal alliances had been deemed worthy +of such honour. But not even the more outwardly splendid match +between the Queen's sailor son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and the +daughter of the Czar Alexander, could eclipse in popularity the quiet +marriage, overclouded with sorrow, and the tranquil, hard-working +life of the good and gifted lady who was to die the martyr of her +true motherly and wifely devotion. + +[Illustration: Lord Beaconsfield.] + +[Illustration: Lord Salisbury.] + +From these glimpses of the joys and troubles affecting the household +that is cherished in the heart of England, we return to the more +stormy records of our public doings. A sort of link between the two +exists in the long and very successful tour which the Prince of +Wales, some time after his restoration to health, made of the vast +Indian dominions of the crown. Extensive travels and wide +acquaintance with the great world to which Britain is bound by a +thousand ties have entered largely into the royal scheme of education +for the future King. No princes of England in former days have seen +so much of other lands as the sons of Queen Victoria; and this +particular journey is understood to have had an excellent political +effect. + +Mr. Gladstone's five years' lease of power, which had been signalised +by so many important changes, came to an end in 1874, just before the +time when Sir Garnet Wolseley, sent to bring the savage King of +Ashantee to reason, returned successful to England, having snatched a +complete victory "out of the very jaws of approaching sun and fever" +on the pestilent West Coast of Africa in the early days of 1874. The +last Ministry of Mr. Disraeli, who now assumed office, was marked by +several noticeable events: the proclamation of the Queen as "Empress +of India," in formal definite recognition of the new relation between +little England and the gigantic, many-peopled realm which through +strange adventure has come directly under our Sovereign's sway; the +Russo-Turkish war, following on the evil doings in Turkey known as +the "Bulgarian atrocities," and terminating in a peace signed at +Berlin, with which the English Premier, now known as Lord +Beaconsfield, had very much to do; and the acquisition by England of +the 176,000 shares in the Suez Canal originally held by the Khedive +of Egypt--a transaction to which France, also largely interested in +the Canal, was a consenting party. To this period belong the +distressful Afghan and Zulu wars, the latter unhappily memorable by +the tragic fate that befell the young son of Louis Napoleon, a +volunteer serving with the English army. Deep sympathy was felt for +his imperial mother, widowed since 1873, and now bereaved of her only +child; and by none was her sorrow more keenly realised than by the +Queen, who herself had to mourn the loss of the beloved Princess +Alice, the first of her children to follow her father into the silent +land. The death of the Prince Louis Napoleon at the hands of savage +Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; +but Englishmen, remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of +the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal coincidence, while they +could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, +gallantry, and hope-fulness, cast away in our own ill-starred +quarrel. + +An agitation distinctly humanitarian and domestic had been going on +during the early years of this Ministry, which resulted in the +passing of the Merchant Shipping Bill, intended to remedy the many +wrongs to which our merchant seamen were subject, a measure almost +entirely procured by the fervent human sympathy and resoluteness of +one member of Parliament, Samuel Plimsoll; and other measures +belonging to this period, and designed to benefit the toilers of the +land principally, were initiated by the energy of the Home Secretary, +Mr. Cross. But neither the imposing foreign action of Lord +Beaconsfield's Government, nor the domestic improvements wrought +during its period of power, could maintain it in public favour. There +was great and growing distress in the country; depression of trade, +severe winters, sunless summers, all produced suffering, and +suffering discontent. An appeal to the country, made in the spring of +1880, shifted the Parliamentary majority from the Conservative to the +Liberal side. Lord Beaconsfield resigned, and Mr. Gladstone returned +to power. + +The history of the Gladstone Ministry does not come well within the +scope of this work. Certain very memorable events must be touched +upon; there are dark chapters of our national story, stains and blots +on our great name, which force themselves upon us. But to follow the +Government through its years of struggle with the ever-growing bulk +of Irish difficulty, and to track it through its various enactments +designed still further to improve the condition of the English +people, would require a small volume to itself. England still +remembers the thrill, half fury, half anguish, which ran through her +at the tidings that the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, charged with +a message of peace and conciliation, had been stabbed to death within +twenty-four hours of his landing on that unhappy shore. She cannot +forego the deep instinctive feeling--so generally manifested at the +time of Lincoln's murder--that the lawless spilling of life for any +cause dishonours and discredits that cause; nor have various +subsequent efforts made to terrorise public opinion here been +differently judged. + +But it was a far more cruel shock that was inflicted through the +series of ill-advised proceedings that brought about the great +disaster of Khartoum. Before we deal with these, we must glance at +the African and Afghan troubles, again breaking out and again +quieted, the first by a peace with the Boers of the Transvaal that +awakened violent discussion not yet at an end, and the second, after +some successes of the British arms, by a judicious arrangement +designed to secure the neutrality of Afghanistan, interposed by +nature as a strong, all but insurmountable, barrier between India and +Central Asia. These transactions, the theme of sharp contention at +the time, were cast into the shade by events in which we were +concerned in Egypt, our newly acquired interests in the Suez Canal +making that country far more important to us than of yore. Its +condition was very wretched, its government at once feeble and +oppressive, and, despite the joint influence which France and England +had acquired in Egyptian councils, an armed rebellion broke out, +under the leadership of Arabi Pasha. France declining to act in this +emergency, the troops and fleet of England put down this revolt +single-handed; and in their successes the Queen's third son, Arthur, +Duke of Connaught, took his part, under the orders of Sir Garnet +(afterwards Lord) Wolseley. There were again rejoicings in Balmoral, +where the Queen, with her soldierly son's young wife beside her, was +preparing to receive another bride--Princess Helen of Waldeck, just +wedded to our youngest Prince, Leopold, Duke of Albany. + +But this gleam of brightness was destined to be followed by darker +disaster far than that which seemed averted for the moment. A +mightier rebellion was arising in the Soudan, a vast tract of country +annexed by the ambition of Ismail, the former Khedive of Egypt, to be +ill governed by his officials and ravaged by the slave-trade. These +evils were checked for a few years by the strong hand of Charles +George Gordon, already famous through his achievements in China, and +invested with unlimited power by Ismail; but, that potentate being +overthrown, the great Englishman left his thankless post, no longer +tenable by him. Then it seemed that chaos had come again; and a bold +and keen, though probably hypocritical, dervish, self-styled the +_Mahdi_, or Mohammedan Messiah, was able to kindle new flames of +revolt, which burned with the quenchless fury of Oriental fanaticism. +His Arab and negro soldiers made short work of the poor Egyptian +fellaheen sent to fight them, though these were under the command of +Englishmen. The army led by Hicks Pasha utterly vanished in the +deserts, as that of Cambyses did of old. The army under Baker Pasha +did not, indeed, disappear in the same mysterious manner, but it too +was routed with great slaughter. + +The English Government, willing to avoid the vast task of crushing +the revolt, had counselled the abandonment of the Soudan, and the +Khedive's Ministers reluctantly acquiesced. But there were Egyptian +garrisons scattered throughout the Soudan which must not be abandoned +with the country. Above all, there was Khartoum, an important town at +the junction of the Blue and the White Nile, with a large European +settlement and an Egyptian garrison, all in pressing danger, loyal as +yet, but full of just apprehension. These troops, these officials, +these women and children, who only occupied their perilous position +through the action of the Khedive's Government, had a right to +protection--a right acknowledged by Her Majesty's Ministers; but they +wished to avoid hostilities. General Graham, left in command on the +Red Sea littoral, was allowed to take action against the Mahdi's +lieutenant who was threatening Suakim, and who was driven back with +heavy loss; but he might not follow up the victory. + +[Illustration: General Gordon.] + +The English Government hoped to withdraw the garrisons in safety, +without force of arms. They had been for some time urging on the +Khedive that the marvellous influence which Gordon was known to have +acquired in his old province should now be utilised, and that to +_him_ should be entrusted the herculean task of tranquillising the +Soudan, by reinstating its ancient dynasties of tribal chiefs and +withdrawing all Egyptian and European troops and officials. Their +plan was at last accepted; then Gordon, hitherto unacquainted, like +the public at large, with the Government designs, was informed of +them and invited to carry them out. He consented; and, with the +chivalric promptitude which essentially belonged to his character, he +departed the same night on his perilous errand. Passing through +Cairo, he received plenary powers from the Khedive, and went on +almost alone to Khartoum, where he was received with an overflowing +enthusiasm. But, with all his eager haste, he was too late to bring +about the desired results by peaceful means. "He should have come a +year ago," muttered his native well-wishers. Week after week and +month after month, his position in Khartoum became more perilous; +the Mahdi's power waxed greater, and his hordes drew round the city, +which long defied them, while garrison after garrison fell into their +hands elsewhere. It was in vain that General Gordon urged the +despatch of British troops, a few hundred of whom would at one time +have sufficed to turn the tide, and insure success in his enterprise. +They were still withheld; and he would not secure his own safety by +deserting the people whom his presence had induced to stand out +against the impostor and his hosts. The city endured a long, cruel +siege, and fell at last, reduced by hunger and treachery, just as a +tardily despatched British force was making its way to relieve it--a +force commanded by Lord Wolseley, who half a year before had been +protesting against the "indelible disgrace" of leaving Gordon to his +fate. He was not able even to bury his friend and comrade, slain by +the fanatic enemy when they broke into the city in the early morning +of January 26th, 1885. + +[Illustration: Duke of Albany. _From a Photograph by A. BASSANO, Bond +Street, W._] + +"I have done my best for the honour of our country," were the parting +words of the dead hero. His country felt itself profoundly +dishonoured by the manner in which it had lost this its famous son--a +man distinguished at once by commanding ability, unsullied honour, +heroic valour; a man full of tenderest beneficence towards his +fellows, and of utter devotion to his God; "the grandest figure," +said an American admirer, "that has crossed the disc of this planet +for centuries." Him England had fatally delayed to help, withheld by +the dread of costly and cruel warfare; and then just failed to save +him by a war enormously costly and cruelly fatal indeed. A general +lamentation, blent with cries of anger, rose up from the land. Her +Majesty shared the common sorrow, as her messages of sympathy to the +surviving relations of Gordon testified. Various charitable +institutions, modelled on the lines which he had followed in his work +among the poor, rose to keep his memory green; and thus the objects +of his Christlike care during his life are now profiting by the +world-famous manner of his death. But there is still a deep feeling +that even time itself can hardly efface the stain that has been left +on our national fame. An English expedition, well commanded, full of +ardour and daring, sent to accomplish a specific object, and failing +in that object; its commander, entirely guiltless of blame, having to +abandon the scene of his triumphs to a savage, fanatic foe as was now +the case--this was evil enough; but that our beloved countryman, a +true knight without fear and without reproach, should have been +betrayed to desertion and death through his own magnanimity and our +sluggishness, added a rankling, poisonous sense of shame to our +humiliation. That the same year saw further electoral privileges +extended to the humble classes in England, beyond what even the last +Reform Bill had conferred, which might prove of advantage afterwards, +but was an imperfect consolation at the time. Another grief fell upon +the Queen in this year in the early death of Leopold, Duke of Albany, +a Prince whose intellectual gifts were nearly allied to those of his +father, but on whom lifelong delicacy of health had enforced a life +of comparative quietude. His widowed bride and infant children have +ever since been cared for tenderly by his royal mother. + +[Illustration: Duchess of Albany. _From a Photograph by A. BASSANO, +Bond Street, W._] + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +OUR COLONIES. + +[Illustration: Sydney Heads.] + +If now we turn our eyes a while from the foreign and domestic +concerns of Great Britain proper, and look to the Greater Britain +beyond the seas, we shall find that its progress has nowise lagged +behind that of the mother Isle. To Lord Durham, the remarkable man +sent out in 1838 to deal with the rebellion in Lower Canada, we owe +the inauguration of a totally new scheme of colonial policy, which +has been crowned with success wherever it has been introduced. It has +succeeded in the vast Canadian Dominion, now stretching from ocean to +ocean, and embracing all British North America, with the single +exception of the Isle of Newfoundland. In 1867 this Federation was +first formed, uniting then only the two Canadas with New Brunswick +and Nova Scotia, under a constitution framed on Lord Durham's plan, +and providing for the management of common affairs by a central +Parliament, while each province should have its own local +legislature, and the executive be vested in the Crown, ruling through +its Governor General. It had been made competent for the other +provinces of British North America to join this Federation, if they +should so will; and one after another has joined it, with the one +exception mentioned above, which may or may not be permanent. The +population of the Dominion has trebled, and its revenues have +increased twenty-fold, since its constitution was thus settled. + +The same system, it may be hoped, will equally succeed in that +wonderful Australasia where our colonists now have the shaping of +their destinies in their own hands, amid the yet unexplored amplitude +of a land where "in the softest and sweetest air, and in an +unexhausted soil, the fable of Midas is reversed; food does not turn +to gold, but the gold with which the land is teeming converts itself +into farms and vineyards, into flocks and herds, into crops of wild +luxuriance, into cities whose recent origin is concealed and +compensated by trees and flowers." + +In such terms does a recent eye-witness describe the splendid +prosperity attained within the last two or three decades by that +Australia which our fathers thought of chiefly as a kind of far-off +rubbish-heap where they could fling out the human garbage of England, +to rot or redeem itself as it might, well out of the way of society's +fastidious nostril, and which to our childhood was chiefly associated +with the wild gold-fever and the wreck and ruin which that fever too +often wrought. The transportation system, so far as Australia was +concerned, came virtually to an end with the discovery of gold in the +region to which we had been shipping off our criminals. The colonists +had long been complaining of this system, which at first sight had +much to recommend it, as offering a fair chance of reformation to the +convict, and providing cheap labour for the land that received him. +But it was found, as a high official said, that convict labour was +far less valuable than the uncompelled work of honest freemen; and +the contagious vices which the criminal classes brought with them +made them little welcome. When to these drawbacks were added the +difficulties and dangers with which the presence of the convict +element in the population encumbered the new gold-mining industry, +the question reached the burning stage. The system was modified in +1853, and totally abolished in 1857. Transports whose sentence were +unexpired lingered out their time in Tasmania, whence the aborigines +have vanished under circumstances of cruelty assuredly not mitigated +by the presence of convicts in the island; but Australia was +henceforth free from the blight. + +The political life of these colonies may be said to have begun in the +same year--1853--when the importation of criminals received its first +check. New South Wales, the eldest of the Australian provinces, +received a genuine constitution of its own; Victoria followed in +1856--Victoria, which is not without its dreams of being one day "the +chief State in a federated Australia," an Australia that may then +rank as "a second United States of the Southern Hemisphere." Western +Australia, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand, +one after another, attained the same liberties; all have now +representative governments, modelled on those of the mother country, +but inevitably without the aristocratic element. Such an aristocracy +as that of England is the natural growth of many centuries and of +circumstances hardly likely to be duplicated--a fact which the Prince +Consort once had occasion to lay very clearly before Louis Napoleon, +anxious to surround himself with a similar nobility, if only he could +manage it. But though the aristocratic element be lacking, the +patriotic passion and the sentiment of loyalty are abundantly +present; nor has the mother country any intellectual pre-eminence +over her colonies, drawn immeasurably nearer to her in thought and +feeling as communication has become rapid and easy. + +There is something almost magical at first sight in the +transformation which the Australian colonies have undergone in a very +limited space of time; yet it is but the natural result of the +untrammelled energy of a race sovereignly fitted to "subdue the +earth." It is curious to read how in 1810 the convict settlement at +Botany Bay--name of terror to ignorant home criminals, shuddering at +the long, dreadful voyage and the imagined horrors of a savage +country--was almost entirely nourished on imported food, now that the +vast flocks and herds of Australia and New Zealand contribute no +inconsiderable proportion of the food supply of Britain. + +The record of New Zealand is somewhat less brilliant than that of its +gigantic neighbour. This is due to somewhat less favourable +circumstances, to a nobler and less manageable race of aborigines; +the land perhaps more beautiful, is by the very character of its +beauty less subduable. Its political life is at least as old as that +of the old Australian colony, its constitution being granted about +the same time; but this colony has needed, what Australia has not, +the armed interference of the Home Government in its quarrels with +the natives--a race once bold and warlike, able to hold their own +awhile even against the English soldiers, gifted with eloquence, with +a certain poetic imagination, and no inconsiderable intelligence. It +seemed, too, at one moment as if these Maoris would become generally +Christianised; but the kind of Christianity which they saw +exemplified in certain colonists, hungry for land and little +scrupulous as to the means by which they could gratify that hunger, +largely undid the good effected through the agency of missionaries, +the countrymen of these oppressors, whose evil deeds they were +helpless to hinder. A superstition that was nothing Christian laid +hold of many who had once been altogether persuaded to embrace the +teachings of Jesus, and the relapsed Maoris doubtless were guilty of +savage excesses; yet the original blame lay not chiefly with them; +nor is it possible to regard without deep pity the spectacle +presented at the present day of "the noblest of all the savage races +with whom we have ever been brought in contact, overcome by a worse +enemy than sword and bullet, and corrupted into sloth and +ruin, ...ruined physically, demoralised in character, by drink." +Nobler than other aborigines, who have faded out before the invasion +of the white man, as they may be, their savage nobility has not saved +them from the common fate; they too have "learned our vices faster +than our virtues," aided by the speculative traders in alcoholic +poison, who have followed on the track of the colonist, and who, +devil's missionaries as they are, have counteracted too quickly the +work of the Christian evangelists who preceded them. + +The extraordinary natural fertility of the country, whose volcanic +nature was very recently terribly demonstrated, is yet very far from +being utilised to the utmost, the population of the islands, not +inferior in extent to Great Britain, being yet a long way below that +of London. Probably this "desert treasure-house of agricultural +wealth" may, under wise self-government, yet rise to a position of +magnificent importance. + +Of all our colonies that in Southern Africa has the least reason to +be proud of its recent history, which has not been rendered any +fairer by the discovery of the great Diamond Fields, and the rush of +all sorts and conditions of men to profit thereby. Into the entangled +history of our doings in relation to Cape Colony--originally a Dutch +settlement--and all our varied and often disastrous dealings with the +Dutch-descended Boers and the native tribes in its neighbourhood, we +cannot well enter. Our missionary action has the glory of great +achievement in Southern Africa; of our political action it is best to +say little. + +A more encouraging scene is presented if we turn to the Fijian Isles, +whose natives, once a proverb of cannibal ferocity, have been +humanised and Christianised by untiring missionary effort, and by +their own free-will have passed under British domination and are +ruled by a British governor. The extraordinary change worked in the +people of these isles, characterised now, as even in their heathen +days, by a certain bold manliness, that hitherto has escaped the +usual deterioration, is so great and unmistakable that critics +predisposed to unfriendliness do not try to deny it. + +In consequence of the immensely increased facilities of communication +that we now enjoy, our own great food-producing dependencies and the +vast corn-growing districts of other lands can pour their stores into +our market--a process much aided by the successive removal of so many +restrictions on commerce, and by the practical science which has +overcome so many difficulties connected with the transport of slain +meat and other perishable commodities. England seems not unlikely to +become a wonderfully cheap country to live in, unless some new turn +of events interferes with the processes which during the last two +decades have so increased the purchasing power of money that, as is +confidently stated, fifteen shillings will now buy what it needed +twenty shillings to purchase twenty years ago. To this result, as a +matter of course, the enormous development of our manufacturing and +other industries has also contributed. + +There is another side to the medal, and not so fair a one. The +necessaries of life are cheaper; wages are actually higher, when the +greater value of money is taken into account; more care is taken as +to the housing of the poor; the workers of the nation have more +leisure, and spend not a little of it in travelling, being now by far +the most numerous patrons of the railway; the altered style of the +conveyances provided for them is a sufficient testimony to their +higher importance. All this is to the good; so, too, is the +diminution in losses by bankruptcy and in general pauperism, the +increasing thrift shown by the records of savings banks, the +lengthening of life, the falling off in crime, which is actually--not +proportionally--rarer than ten years ago, to go no further back. + +Against this we have to set the facts that the terrible malady of +insanity is distinctly on the increase--whether due to mere physical +causes, to the high pressure at which modern society lives, or to the +prevalent scepticisms which leave many wretched men so little +tranquillising hope or faith, who shall say?--that all trades and +professions are more or less overcrowded; and that there is a +terrible amount, not of pauperism, but of hard-struggling poverty, +massed up in the crowded, wretched, but high-priced tenements of +great towns, and maintaining a forlorn life by such incessant, cruel +labour as is not exacted from convicted criminals in any English +prison. London, where this kind of misery is inevitably at its +height, receives every week an accession of a thousand persons, who +doubtless, in a great majority of cases, simply help to glut the +already crowded labour market and still further lower the wages of +the workers; and the other great towns in like manner grow, while the +rural population remains stagnant or lessens. Agricultural distress, +which helps to keep the tide of emigration high, also accounts in +part for this singular, undesirable displacement of population; while +recent testimony points to the fact that the terribly unsanitary and +inefficient housing of the rural poor does much to drive the best and +most laborious members of that class away from the villages and +fields which might otherwise be the homes of happy and peaceful +industry. For this form of evil, in town and country, private +greed--frequently shown by small proprietors, who have never learnt +that property has duties as well as rights--is very largely +responsible; for how many other of the evils we have to deplore is +not the greed of gain responsible? + +The sins of the age are still much the same sins that the Laureate +roughly arraigned when the Crimean war broke our long peace; +denouncing the race for riches which turned men into "pickpockets, +each hand lusting for all that is not its own;" denouncing the cruel +selfishness of rich and poor as the vilest kind of civil war, being +"underhand, not openly bearing the sword." We had made the blessings +of peace a curse, he told us, in those days, "when only the ledger +lived, and when only not all men lied; when the poor were hovelled +and hustled together, each sex, like swine; when chalk and alum and +plaster were sold to the poor for bread, and the spirit of murder +worked in the very means of life." Yet those very days saw the +uprising of a whole generation of noble servants of humanity, +resolute to tight and overcome the rampant evils that surrounded +them. And though we would avoid the error of praising our own epoch +as though it alone were humane, as though we only, "the latest seed +of Time, have loved the people well," and shown our love by deeds; +though we would not deny that to-day has its crying abuses as well as +yesterday; yet it is hardly possible to survey the broad course of +our history during the past sixty years, and not to perceive, amid +all the cross-currents--false ambitions, false pretences, +mammon-worship, pitiless selfishness, sins of individuals, sins of +society, sins of the nation--an ever-widening and mastering stream of +beneficent energy, which has already wonderfully changed for the +better many of the conditions of existence, and which, since its flow +shows no signs of abating, we may hope to see spreading more widely, +and bearing down in its great flood the wrecks of many another +oppression and iniquity. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. + +[Illustration: Robert Southey.] + +"Man doth not live by bread alone." The enormous material progress of +this country during the last sixty years--imperfectly indicated by +the fact that during the last forty years the taxable income of the +United Kingdom has been considerably more than doubled--would be but +a barren theme of rejoicing, if there were signs among us of +intellectual or spiritual degeneracy. The great periods of English +history have been always fruitful in great thinkers and great +writers, in religious and mental activity. Endeavouring to judge our +own period by this standard, and making a swift survey of its +achievements in literature, we do not find it apparently inferior to +the splendours of "great Elizabeth" or of the Augustan age of Anne. +Our fifth Queen-regnant, whose reign, longer than that of any of her +four predecessors, is also happier than that of the greatest among +them, can reckon among her subjects an even larger number of men +eminent in all departments of knowledge, though perhaps we cannot +boast one name quite equal to Newton in science, and though assuredly +neither this nor any modern nation has yet a second imaginative +writer whose throne may be set beside that of Shakespeare. + +[Illustration: William Wordsworth.] + +[Illustration: Alfred Tennyson. _From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry_] + +We excel in quantity, indeed; for while, owing to the spread of +education, the number of readers has been greatly increased, the +number of writers has risen proportionately; the activity of the +press has increased tenfold. Journalism has become a far more +formidable power in the land than in the earlier years when, as our +domestic annals plainly indicate, the _Times_ ruled as the Napoleon +of newspapers. This result is largely due to the removal of the +duties formerly imposed both on the journals themselves and on their +essential paper material; and it would indeed "dizzy the arithmetic +of memory" should we try to enumerate the varied periodicals that are +far younger than Her Majesty's happy reign. Of these a great number +are excellent in both intention and execution, and must be numbered +among the educating, civilising, Christianising agencies of the day. +They are something more and higher than the "savoury literary +_entremets_" designed to please the fastidious taste of a cultured +and leisured class, which was the just description of our periodical +literature at large not so very long ago. The number of our +imaginative writers--poets and romancers, but especially the +latter--has been out of all proportion great. We give the place of +honour, as is their due, to the singers rather than to the +story-tellers, the more readily since the popular taste, it cannot be +denied, chooses its favourites in inverse order as a rule. + +[Illustration: Robert Browning. _From a Photograph by Elliott & +Fry_.] + +When Her Majesty ascended the throne, one brilliant poetical +constellation was setting slowly, star by star. Keats and Shelley and +Byron, none of them much older than the century, had perished in +their early prime between 1820 and 1824; Scott had sunk under the +storms of fortune in 1832; the fitful glimmer of Coleridge's genius +vanished in 1834, and a year later "the gentle Elia" too was gone. +Southey, who still held the laureate-ship in 1837, had faded out of +life in 1843, and was succeeded in his once-despised office by +William Wordsworth, who, with Rogers and Leigh Hunt and Moore, lived +far into the new reign, uniting the Georgian and the Victorian school +of writers. Thomas Hood, the poet of the poor and oppressed, whose +too short life ended in 1845, gives in his serious verse such +thrilling expression to the impassioned, indignant philanthropy, +which has actuated many workers and writers of our own period, that +it is not easy to reckon him with the older group. His song rings +like that of Charles Kingsley, poet, novelist, preacher, and +"Christian socialist," who did not publish his "Saint's Tragedy" till +three years after Hood was dead. + +There has, indeed, been no break in the continuity of our great +literary history; while one splendid group was setting, another as +illustrious was rising. Tennyson, who on Wordsworth's death in 1850 +received at Queen Victoria's hand the "laurel greener from the brows +of him that uttered nothing base," had published his earliest two +volumes of poems some years before Her Majesty's accession; and of +that rare poetic pair, the Brownings, each had already given evidence +of the great powers they possessed, Robert Browning's tragedy of +"Strafford" being produced on the stage in 1837, while his future +wife's translation of the "Prometheus Bound" saw the light four years +earlier. The Victorian period can boast no greater poetic names than +these, each of which is held in highest reverence by its own special +admirers. The patriotic fervour with which Lord Tennyson has done +almost all his laureate work, the lucid splendour of his style, the +perfect music of his rhythm, and the stinging sharpness with which he +has sometimes chastised contemporary sins, have all combined to win +for him a far wider popularity than even that accorded to the fine +lyrical passion of Mrs. Browning, or to the deep-thoughted and +splendid, but often perplexing and ruggedly phrased, dramatic and +lyric utterances of her husband. All three have honoured themselves +and their country by a majestic purity of moral and religious +teaching--an excellence shared by many of their contemporaries, whose +powers would have won them a first place in an age and country less +fruitful of genius; but not so conspicuous in some younger poets, +later heirs of fame, whose lot it may be to carry on the traditions +of Victorian greatness into another reign. + +There are not a few writers of our day whose excellent prose work has +won more of popular favour than their verse, which notwithstanding is +of high quality. Such was the "unsubduable old Roman," Walter Savage +Landor, a contemporary of Byron and Wordsworth, who long outlived +them, dying in 1864. Such--to bring two extremes together--are the +critic and poet Matthew Arnold, the poet and theologian John Henry +Newman. Intimately associated in our thought with the latter, who has +enriched our devotional poetry with one touching hymn, is Keble, the +singer _par excellence_ of the "Catholic revival," and the most +widely successful religious poet of the age, though only very few of +his hymns have reached the heart of the people like the far more +direct and fervent work of the Wesleys and their compeers. He is even +excelled in simplicity and passion, though not in grace and +tenderness, by two or three other workers in the same field, who +belong to our day, and whose verse is known more widely than their +names. + +We have several women-poets who are only less beloved and less well +known than Mrs. Browning; but so far the greatest literary +distinction gained by the women of our age and country, +notwithstanding the far wider and higher educational advantages +enjoyed by them to-day, has been won, as of yore, in the field of +prose fiction. More than a hundred years ago a veteran novelist, +whose humour and observation, something redeeming his coarseness, +have ranked him among classic English authors, referred mischievously +to the engrossing of "that branch of business" by female writers, +whose "ease, and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human +heart," have not, however, availed to redeem their names from +oblivion. For some of their nineteenth-century successors at least +we may expect a more enduring memory. + +Numerous as are our poets, they are far outnumbered by the novelists, +whose works are poured forth every season with bewildering profusion; +but as story-tellers have always commanded a larger audience than +grave philosophers or historians, and as our singers deal as much in +philosophy as in narrative, perhaps in seeking for the cause of this +overrunning flood of fiction we need go no further than the immensely +increased number of readers--a view in which the records of some +English public libraries will bear us out. We may therefore be +thankful that, on the whole, such literature has been of a vastly +purer and healthier character than of yore, reflecting that higher +and better tone of public feeling which we may attribute, in part at +least, to the influence of the "pure court and serene life" of the +Sovereign. + +[Illustration: Charles Dickens. _From a Photograph by Elliott & +Fry_.] + +[Illustration: W.M. Thackeray. _From a Drawing by Samuel Lawrence_.] + +This nobler tone is not least perceptible in the eldest of the great +masters of fiction whom we can claim for our period--Dickens, who in +1837 first won by his "Pickwick Papers" that astonishing popularity +which continued widening until his death; Thackeray, who in that year +was working more obscurely, having not yet found a congenial field in +the humorous chronicle that reflects for us so much of the Victorian +age, for _Punch_ was not started till 1841, and Thackeray's first +great masterpiece of pathos and satire, "Vanity Fair," did not begin +to appear till five years later. Each of these writers in his own way +held "the mirror up" to English human nature, and showed "the very +age and body of the time his form and pressure," with manly boldness +indeed, but with due artistic reticence also; each knew how to be +vivid without being vicious, to be realistic without being revolting; +and despite the sometimes offensive caricature in which the one +indulged, despite the seeming cynicism of the other their influence +must be pronounced healthy. Thackeray did not, like Dickens, use his +pen against particular glaring abuses of the time, nor insist on the +special virtues that bloom amid the poor and lowly; but he attacked +valiantly the crying sins of society in all time--the mammon-worship +and the mercilessness, the false pretences and the fraud--and never +failed to uphold for admiration and imitation "whatsoever things are +true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, +whatsoever thing are pure, whatsoever things are lovely." And though +both writers were sometimes hard on the professors of religion, +neither failed in reverence of tone when religion itself was +concerned. + +[Illustration: Charlotte Bronte.] + +The sudden death of both these men, in the very prime of life and in +the fulness of power, was keenly felt at the time: each had a +world-wide fame, and each awakened a blank, distressful sense of +personal loss in his many admirers as he was suddenly called away +from incomplete work and faithful friendship. Contemporary literature +has not benefited by the removal of these two men and the gradual +diminishing of the influence they so strongly exerted while yet they +"stood up and spoke." The work of Charlotte Bronte--produced under a +fervent admiration for "the satirist of Vanity Fair," whom she deemed +"the first social regenerator of his day"--is, with all its +occasional morbidness of sensitive feeling, far more bracing in moral +tone, more inspiring in its scorn of baseness and glorifying of +goodness, than is the work of recent Positivist emulators of the +achievements of George Eliot. Some romances of this school are vivid +and highly finished pictures of human misery, unredeemed by hope, and +hardly brightened by occasional gleams of humour, of the sardonic +sort which may stir a mirthless smile, but never a laugh. Herein they +are far inferior to their model, whose melancholy philosophy is half +hidden from her readers by the delightful freshness and truth of her +"Dutch painter's" portraying of every-day humanity, by her delicately +skilful reproduction of its homely wit and harmless absurdity. +Happily neither these writers, nor the purveyors of mere sensation +who cannot get on without crime and mystery, exhaust the list of our +romancers, many of whom are altogether healthful, cheerful, and +helpful; and it is no unreasonable hope that these may increase and +their gloomier rivals decrease, or at least grow gayer and wiser. + +[Illustration: Lord Macauley.] + +There are many other great writers, working in other fields, whom we +may claim as belonging altogether or almost to the Victorian age. +Within that period lies almost entirely the brilliantly successful +career of Macaulay, essayist, poet, orator, and historian. For the +last-named _role_ Macaulay seemed sovereignly fitted by his +extraordinary faculty for assimilating and retaining historical +knowledge, and by the vividness of imagination and mastery of words +which enabled him to present his facts in such attractive guise as +made them fascinating far beyond romance. His "History of England +from the Accession of James II," whereof the first volumes appeared +in 1849, remains a colossal fragment; the fulness of detail with +which he adorned it, the grand scale on which he worked, rendered its +completion a task almost impossible for the longest lifetime; and +Macaulay died in his sixtieth year. Despite the defects of +partisanship and exaggeration freely and not quite unjustly charged +upon his great work, it remains a yet unequalled record of the period +dealt with, just as his stirring ballads, so seemingly easy of +imitation in their ringing, rolling numbers, hold their own against +very able rivals and are yet unequalled in our time. + +[Illustration: Thomas Carlyle.] + +Macaulay was not the first, and he is not the last, of our +picturesque historians. It was in 1837 that Carlyle, who four years +before had startled the English-reading public by his strangely +worded, bewildering "Sartor Resartus," brought out his astonishing +"History of the French Revolution"--a prose poem, an epic without a +hero, revealing as by "flashes of lightning" the ghastly tragedy and +comedy of that tremendous upheaval; and in 1845 he followed up the +vein thus opened by his lifelike study of "Oliver Cromwell," which +was better received by his English readers than the later "History of +Friedrich II," marvel of careful research and graphic reproduction +though it be. To Carlyle therefore and to Macaulay belongs the honour +of having given a new and powerful impulse to the study they adorned; +dissimilar in other respects, they are alike in their preference for +and insistent use of original sources of information, in their able +employment of minute detail, and in the graphic touch and artistic +power which made history very differently attractive in their hands +from what it had ever been previously. Mr. Froude and Mr. Green may +be ranked as their followers in this latter respect; hardly so Mr. +Freeman or the philosophic Buckle, Grote, and Lecky, who by their +style and method belong more to the school of Hallam, however widely +they may differ from him or from each other in opinion. But in +thoroughness of research and in resolute following of the very truth +through all mazes and veils that may obscure it, one group of +historians does not yield to the other. + +[Illustration: William Whewell, D.D.] + +[Illustration: Sir David Brewster.] + +And the same zealous passion for accuracy that has distinguished +these and less famous historians and biographers has shown itself in +other fields of intellectual endeavour. Our Queen in her desire "to +get at the root and reality of things" is entirely in harmony with +the spirit of her age. In scientific men we look for the ardent +pursuit of difficult truth; and it would be thankless to forget how +numerous beyond precedent have been in the Victorian period faithful +workers in the field of science. Though some of our _savants_ in +later years have injured their renown by straying outside the sphere +in which they are honoured and useful and speaking unadvisedly on +matters theological, this ought not to deter us from acknowledging +the value of true service rendered. The Queen's reign can claim as +its own such men as John Herschel, worthy son of an illustrious +father, Airy, Adams, and Maxwell, Whewell and Brewster and Faraday, +Owen and Buckland and Lyell, Murchison and Miller, Darwin and Tyndall +and Huxley, with Wheatstone, one of the three independent inventors +of telegraphy, and the Stephensons, father and son, to whose ability +and energy we are indebted for the origination and perfection of our +method of steam locomotion; it can boast such masters in philosophy +as Hamilton and Whately and John Stuart Mill, each a leader of many. +It has also the rare distinction of possessing one lady writer on +science who has attained to real eminence--eminence not likely soon +to be surpassed by her younger sister-rivals--the late Mrs. Mary +Somerville, who united an entirely feminine and gentle character to +masculine powers of mind. + +[Illustration: Sir James Simpson.] + +[Illustration: Michael Faraday.] + +Only to catalogue the recent discoveries and inventions we owe to men +of science, from merciful anaesthetics to the latest applications of +electric power, would occupy more space than we ought here to give. +All honour to these servants of humanity! We rejoice to find among +them many who could unite the simplest childlike faith with a wide +and grand mental outlook; we exult not less to find in many Biblical +students and commentators the same patience, thoroughness, and +resolute pursuit of the very truth as that exemplified by the +devotees of physical science. God's Word is explored in our day--the +same clay which has seen the great work of the Revised Version of the +Scriptures begun and completed--with no less ardour than God's world. +And what vast additions have been made to our knowledge of this +earth! We have seen Nineveh unburied, the North-West Passage +explored, and the mysterious Nile stream at last tracked to its +source. To compare a fifty-years-old map of Africa with one of the +present day will a little enable us to estimate the advances made in +our acquaintance with the Dark Continent alone; similar maps +including the Polar regions of North America will testify also to a +large increase of hard-won knowledge. + +[Illustration: David Livingstone.] + +[Illustration: Sir John Franklin.] + +Exploration--Arctic, African, Oriental and Occidental--has had its +heroic devotees, sometimes its martyrs. Witness Franklin, Burke and +Wills, and Livingstone. The long uncertainty overhanging the fate of +the gallant Franklin, after he and the expedition he commanded had +vanished into the darkness of Arctic winter in 1845, and the +unfaltering faithfulness with which his widow clung to the search for +her lost husband, form one of the most pathetic chapters of English +story. The veil was lifted at last and the secret of the North-West +Passage, to which so many lives had been sacrificed, was brought to +light in the course of the many efforts made to find the dead +discoverer. As Franklin had disappeared in the North, so Livingstone +was long lost to sight in the wilds of Africa, and hardly less +feverish interest centred round the point, so long disputed, of his +being in life or in death--interest freshly awakened when the remains +of the heroic explorer, who had been found only to be lost again, +were brought home to be laid among the mighty dead of England. The +fervent Christian philanthropy of Livingstone endeared him yet more +to the national heart; and we may here note that very often, as in +his case, the missionary has served not only Christianity, as was his +first and last aim, but also geographical and ethnological science +and colonial and commercial development. We have briefly referred +already to some of the struggles, the sufferings, and the triumphs of +missionary enterprise in our day: to chronicle all its effort and +achievement would be difficult, for these have been world-wide, and +often wonderfully successful. Nor has much less success crowned other +agencies for meeting the ever-increasing need for religious +knowledge, which multiply and grow in number and in power. Witness, +among many that might be named, the continuous development of the +Sunday School system and the immensely extended operations of the +unsectarian Bible Society. + +[Illustration: John Ruskin. _From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry_.] + +Great advances have been made during this reign in English art and +art-criticism, and more particularly in the extension of real +artistic education to classes of the community who could hardly +attain it before, though it was perhaps more essential to them than +to the wealthy and leisurely who had previously monopolised it. The +multiplication of Schools of Design over the country, intended to +promote the tasteful efficiency of those engaged in textile +manufactures and in our decorative and constructive art generally, is +one remarkable feature of the time, and the sedulous cultivation of +music by members of all classes of society is another, hardly less +hopeful. In all these efforts for the benefit and elevation of the +community the Prince Consort took deep and active interest, and the +royal family themselves, from Her Majesty downwards, highly cultured +and accomplished, have not failed to act in the same spirit. But the +history of English nineteenth-century art would be incomplete indeed +without reference to two powerful influences--the rise and progress +of the new art of photography, which has singularly affected other +branches of graphic work; and the career, hitherto unexampled in our +land, of the greatest art-critic of this, perhaps of any, age--John +Ruskin, the most eminent also of the many writers and thinkers who +have been swayed by the magic spell of Carlyle, whose fierce and +fervid genius, for good or for evil, told so strongly on his +contemporaries. Ruskin is yet more deeply imbued with his master's +philosophy than those other gifted and widely influential teachers, +Maurice and Kingsley; and yet perhaps he is more strongly and +sturdily independent in his individuality than either, while the +unmatched English of his prose style differs not less widely from the +rugged strength of Carlyle than from the mystical involution of +Maurice and the vehement and, as it were, breathless, yet vivid and +poetic, utterance of Kingsley. When every defect has been admitted +that is chargeable against one or all of this group of sincere and +stalwart workers, it must be allowed that their power on their +countrymen has been largely wielded for good. Particularly is this +the case with Ruskin, whose influence has reached and ennobled many a +life that, from pressure of sordid circumstances, was in great need +of such help as his spirituality of tone, and deeply felt reverential +belief in the Giver of all good and Maker of all beauty, could +afford. + +[Illustration: Dean Stanley.] + +[Illustration: "I was sick, and ye visited me."] + +We have preferred not to dwell on one department of literature which, +like every other, has received great additions during our +period--that of religious controversy. A large portion of such +literature is in its very nature ephemeral; and some of the disputes +which have engaged the energies even of our greatest masters in +dialectics have not been in themselves of supreme importance; but +many points of doctrine and discipline have been violently canvassed +among professing Christians, and attacks of long-sustained vigour and +virulence have been made on almost every leading article of the +Christian creed by the avowed enemies or the only half-hostile +critics of the Church, which the champions of Scripture truth have +not been backward to repel. Amid all this confusion and strife of +assault and resistance one thing stands out clearly: Christianity and +its progress are more interesting to the national mind than ever +before. It has been well, too, that through all those fifty years a +large-minded and fervent but most unobtrusive and practical piety has +been enthroned in the highest places of the land--a piety which will +escape the condemnation of the King when He shall come in His glory, +and say to many false followers, "I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no +meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and +ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, +and ye visited Me not." + +These dread words are not for those who have cared as our Sovereign +Lady and her beloved ones have cared for the sick and the suffering +and the sad; who have bound up the heart-wounds of the widow and the +orphan and ministered to their earthly needs; who, like our lost +Princess Alice and her royal elder sister, have tended the victims of +war, shrinking from no ghastliness or repulsiveness, no horrors of +the hospital where victor and vanquished lay moaning in common +misery; or, like their queenly mother, have shed the sunshine of +royal smiles and soothing words and helpful alms upon the obscurer +but hardly less pitiable patients who crowd our English infirmaries. +In her northern and southern "homes" of Osborne and Balmoral the +Queen, too, has been able to share a true, unsophisticated friendship +with her humble neighbours, to rejoice in their joys and lighten +their griefs with gentle, most efficient sympathy. It was of a +Highland cottage that Dr. Guthrie wrote that "within its walls the +Queen had stood, with her kind hands smoothing the thorns of a dying +man's pillow. There, left alone with him at her own request, she had +sat by the bed of death--a Queen ministering to the comfort of a +saint." It was in a cottage at Osborne that the same gentle and +august almsgiver was found reading comfortable Scripture words to a +sick and aged peasant, quietly retiring upon the entrance of the +clerical visitant, that _his_ message of peace might be freely given, +and thus allowing the sufferer to disclose to the pastor that the +lady in the widow's weeds was Victoria of England. These are +examples, which it would be easy to multiply, of that true oneness of +feeling between the lofty and the lowly which is the special, the +unique glory of Christ's kingdom. May our land never lack them; may +they multiply themselves to all time. + +The best evidence of the truth of the Gospel is admittedly its +unequalled power of lifting up humanity to higher and yet higher +levels. In many and mighty instances of that power our age is not +barren. And in despite of the foes without and within that have +wrought her woe--of the Pharisaism that is a mask for fraud, of the +mammon-worship cloaked as respectability, of scepticism lightly +mocking, of the bolder enmity of the blasphemer--we cannot +contemplate the story of Christianity throughout our epoch, even in +these islands and this empire, without seeing that the advance of the +Faith is real and constant, the advance of the rising tide, and that +her seeming defeats are but the deceptive reflux of the ever-mounting +waves. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +PROGRESS OF THE EMPIRE FROM 1887 TO 1897. + +[Illustration: Duke of Connaught.] + +Resuming our pen after an interval of ten years, we have thought it +well, not only to carry on our story of the Sovereign and her realm +to the latest attainable point, but also to give some account of the +advance made and the work accomplished by the Methodist Church, +which, youngest of the greater Nonconformist denominations, has acted +more powerfully than any other among them on the religious and social +life, not only of the United Kingdom and the Empire, but of the +world. This account, very brief, but giving details little known to +outsiders, will form a valuable pendant to the sketch of the general +history of Victoria's England that we are now about to continue. + +[Illustration: The Imperial Institute.] + +Many thousands who rejoiced in the Queen's Jubilee of 1887 are glad +to-day that the close of the decade should find the beloved Lady of +these isles, true woman and true Queen, still living and reigning. + +On September 23, 1896, Queen Victoria had reigned longer than any +other English monarch, and the desire was general for some immediate +celebration of the event; but, by the Queen's express wish, all +recognition of the fact was deferred until the sixtieth year should +be fully completed, and the nation prepared to celebrate the "Diamond +Jubilee" on June 22, 1897, with a fervour of loyalty that should far +outshine that of the Jubilee year of 1887. + +In the personal history of our Queen during those ten years we may +note with reverent sympathy some events that must shadow the festival +for her. The calm and kindly course of her home-life has again been +broken in upon by bereavement. All seemed fair in the Jubilee year +itself, and the Queen was appearing more in public than had been her +wont--laying the foundations of the Imperial Institute; unveiling in +Windsor Park a statue of the Prince Consort, Jubilee gift of the +women of England; taking part in a magnificent naval review at +Spithead. But a shadow was already visible to some; and early in 1888 +sinister rumours were afloat as to the health of the Crown Prince of +Germany, consort of the Queen's eldest daughter. Too soon those +rumours proved true. Even when the prince rode in the splendid +Jubilee procession, a commanding figure in his dazzling white +uniform, the cruel malady had fastened on him that was to slay him in +less than a year, proving fatal three months after the death of his +aged father had called him to fill the imperial throne. The nation +followed the course of this tragedy with a feverish interest never +before excited by the lot of any foreign potentate, and deeply +sympathised with, the distress of the Queen and of the bereaved +empress. + +[Illustration: Duke of Clarence. _From a Photograph by Lafayette, +Dublin_.] + +But the year 1892 held in store a blow yet more cruelly felt. The +English people were still rejoicing with the Queen over the betrothal +of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, to his +kinswoman Princess May of Teck, when the death of the bridegroom +elect in January plunged court and people into mourning. That the +Queen was greatly touched by the universal sympathy with her and hers +was proved by the pathetic letter she wrote to the nation, and by the +frank reliance on their affection which marked the second letter in +which, eighteen months later, she asked them to share her joy in the +wedding of the Duke of York, now heir-presumptive, to the bride-elect +of his late brother. This union has been highly popular, and the +Queen's evident delight in the birth of the little Prince Edward of +York in June, 1894, touched the hearts of her subjects, who +remembered the deep sorrow of 1892. + +[Illustration: Duke of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons, +Baker Street, W_.] + +[Illustration: Duchess of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons, +Baker Street, W_.] + +Once more they were called to grieve with her, when the husband of +her youngest daughter Beatrice, Prince Henry of Battenberg, who for +years had formed part of her immediate circle, died far from home and +England, having fallen a victim to fever ere he could distinguish +himself, as he had hoped, in our last expedition to Ashanti. The +pathos of such a death was deeply felt when the prince's remains were +brought home and laid to rest, in the presence of his widow and her +royal mother, in the very church at Whippingham that he had entered +an ardent bridegroom. Not all gloom, however, has been Her Majesty's +domestic life in these recent years; she has taken joy in the +marriages of many of her descendants; and the visits of her +grandchildren--of whom one, Princess Alice of Hesse, daughter of the +well-beloved Alice of England, became Czarina of Russia only the +other day--are a source of keen interest to her. + +[Illustration: Princess Henry of Battenberg. _From a Photograph by +Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight_.] + +[Illustration: Prince Henry of Battenberg. _From a Photograph by +Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight_.] + +[Illustration: The Czarina of Russia.] + +But there is no selfish absorption in her own family affairs, no +neglect of essential duty. The Prince of Wales and "the Princess" +relieve the Queen of many irksome social functions; but she does not +shun these when it is clear to her that her people wish her to +undertake them. Witness her willingness to take part in the Jubilee +Thanksgiving services and pageant, despite the feebleness of her +advanced age. + +We need not dwell long on the rather stormy Parliamentary history of +the last decade, on the divisions and disappointments of the Irish +Home Rule party, once so powerful, or on the various attacks aimed at +the Welsh and Scottish Church establishments and at the principle of +"hereditary legislation" as embodied in the House of Lords. Some +useful legislation has been accomplished amid all the strife. We may +instance the Act in 1888 creating the new system of County Councils, +the Parish Councils Act, the Factory and Workshops Amendment Act, and +the Education Act of 1891--measures designed to protect the toiling +millions from the evils of "sweating," and to assure their children +of practically free education. + +Substantial good has been done, whether the reins of power have been +held by Mr. Gladstone or by Lord Salisbury--whose long tenure of +office expiring in 1892, the veteran statesman whom he had displaced +again took the helm--or by Lord Rosebery, in whose favour the great +leader finally withdrew in 1894 into private life, weary of the +burden of State. In 1897 we again see Lord Salisbury directing the +destinies of the mighty empire--a task of exceptional difficulty, now +that the gravest complications exist in Europe itself and in Africa. +The horrors suffered by the Armenian subjects of the Turk have called +for intervention by the great powers; but no sooner had Turkish +reforms been promised in response to the joint note of Great Britain, +France, and Russia, than new troubles began in Crete, its people +rising in arms to shake off the Turkish yoke. + +Meanwhile our occupation of Egypt is compelling us to use armed force +against the wild, threatening dervishes in the Soudan, and +well-grounded uneasiness is felt as to the position and action of our +countrymen in Southeastern Africa in connexion with the Boer republic +of the Transvaal. The British South Africa Chartered Company, formed +in 1889, adventurous and ambitious, loomed large in men's eyes during +1896, when the historic and disastrous raid of Dr. Jameson and his +followers startled the civilised world. The whole story of that +enterprise is yet to unfold; but it has added considerably to the +embarrassments of the British government. Hopes were entertained in +1890 that the British East Africa Company, by the pressure it could +put on the Sultan of Zanzibar, had secured the cessation of the slave +trade on the East African shore; these hopes are not yet fulfilled, +but it may be trusted that a step has been taken towards the +mitigation of the evil--the "open sore of the world." + +If we turn to India, we see it in 1896-7 still in the grip of a cruel +famine, aggravated by an outbreak of the bubonic plague too well +known to our fathers, which, appearing three years ago at Hong-Kong, +has committed new ravages at Bombay. Government is making giant +efforts to meet both evils, and is aided by large free-will offerings +of money, sent not only from this country, but also from Canada. "Ten +years ago such a manifestation would have been unlikely. The sense of +kinship is stronger, the imperial sentiment has grown deeper, the +feeling of responsibility has broadened." Kinship with a starving +race is felt and shown by the Empress on her throne, and her subjects +learn to follow her example. + +But the sense of brotherhood seems somewhat deficient when we look at +the continual labour wars that mark the period in our own land. From +the Hyde Park riots of socialists and unemployed, in the end of 1887, +to the railway strikes of 1897, the story is one of strikes among all +sorts and conditions of workers, paralysing trade, and witnessing to +strained relations between labour and capital; the great London +strike of dock labourers, lasting five weeks, and keeping 2,500 men +out of work, may yet be keenly remembered. There seems an imperative +need for the wide diffusion of a true, practical Christianity among +employers and employed; some signs point to the growth of that +healing spirit: and we may note with delight that while never was +there so much wealth and never such deep poverty as during this +period, never also were there so many religious and charitable +organisations at work for the relief of poverty and the uplifting of +the fallen; while not a few of the wealthy, and even one or two +millionaires, have shown by generous giving their painful sense of +the contrast between their own wealth and the destitution of others. + +It has been a period of sharp religious disputes, and every religious +and benevolent institution is keenly criticised; but great good is +being done notwithstanding by devoted men and women. The centenary of +the Baptist Missionary Society, observed in 1892, recalled to mind +the vast work accomplished by missions since that pioneer society +sent out the apostolic "shoemaker" Carey, to labour in India, and +reminds us of the great change wrought in public opinion since he and +his enterprise were so bitterly attacked. The heroic missionary +spirit is still alive, as is proved by the readiness of new +evangelists to step into the place of the missionaries to China, +cruelly murdered at Ku-Cheng in 1895 by heathen fanatics. + +The immense development of our colonies during the reign has already +been noticed; some of them have made surprising advances during the +last ten years. In southern and eastern Africa British enterprise has +done much to develop the great natural wealth of the land; but the +frequent troubles in Matabeleland and the complications with the +Transvaal since the discovery of gold there may be regarded as +counterbalancing the material advantages secured. Ceylon has a +happier record, having more than regained her imperilled prosperity +through the successful enterprise of her settlers in cultivating the +fine tea which has almost displaced China tea in the British market, +Ceylon exporting 100,000,000 lbs. in 1895 as against 2,000,000 lbs. +ten years previously. Canada also now takes rank as a great maritime +state, and the fortunes of Australia, though much shaken a few years +ago by a great financial crisis, are again brilliant; in the world of +social progress and democracy it is still the colonial marvel of our +times. + +[Illustration: H. M. Stanley.] + +The last census, taken in 1891, in Great Britain and Ireland showed a +vast increase of population, sixty-two towns in England and Wales +returning more than 50,000 inhabitants, and the total population of +the United Kingdom being 38,104,975. Alarmists warned us that, with +the ratio of increase shown, neither food nor place would soon be +found for our people; and a great impetus being given to emigration, +our colonies benefited. But despite such alarms, articles of luxury +were in greater demand than ever, the tobacco duty reaching in 1892 +the sum of L10,135,666, half a million, more than in the previous +year; and the consumption of tea and spirits increased in due +proportion. The same year saw great improvements in sanitation put +into practice as the result of an alarm of cholera, that plague +ravaging Hamburg. + +[Illustration: Dr. Fridtjof Nansen.] + +[Illustration: Miss Kingsley.] + +Vast engineering works, of which the Manchester Ship Canal is the +most familiar instance, have been carried on. This great waterway, +thirty-five miles long, and placing an inland town in touch with the +sea, was begun in 1887 and finished in 1894. Numerous exhibitions, at +home and abroad, have stimulated industrial and aesthetic progress; +and science has continued to advance with bewildering rapidity, +developing chiefly in practical directions. The bacteriologist has +unveiled much of the mystery of disease, showing that seed-germs +produce it; the photographer comes in aid of surgery, for the +discovery of the X or Roentgen rays, by the German professor whose +name is associated with them, now enables the surgeon to discover +foreign bodies lodged within the human frame, and to decide with +authority their position and the means of removing them. Burial +reforms, in the interests of health and economy, have been +introduced, and nursing, elevated into a science, has become an +honourable profession for cultured women. In 1894 that eminent +_savant_ Lord Rayleigh brought before the British Association his +discovery of a hitherto unknown constituent in the atmosphere. The +use of steam as a motive power, almost contemporaneous with the +Queen's reign, has bound our land in a network of railways: now it is +electricity which is being utilised in the same sense, and to the +telephone and the telegraph as means of verbal communication is added +the motorcar as a means of rapid progression, 1896 seeing its use in +streets sanctioned by Parliament. It may not yet supersede the +bicycle, which in ten years has greatly increased in favour. Electric +lighting, in the same period, has become very general; and further +adaptations of this mysterious force to man's service are in the air. + +[Illustration: J. M. Barrie.] + +[Illustration: Richard Jefferies.] + +This is an age of great explorers. Stanley has succeeded to +Livingstone, Nansen to Franklin; but it has been only within +comparatively recent years that women have emulated men in +penetrating to remote regions. Within the decade we have seen Mrs. +Bishop a veteran traveller, visiting south-west Persia; Mrs. French +Sheldon has shown how far beyond the beaten track a woman's +adventurous spirit may lead her; and Miss Mary Kingsley, a niece of +the late Charles Kingsley, has intrepidly explored the interior of +Africa, her scientific observations being welcomed by British +_savants_. In 1896 women, who had long sought the privilege, were +permitted to compete for the diploma of the Royal College of +Surgeons, and in many other walks of usefulness the barriers +excluding women have been removed, with benefit to all concerned. It +is not other than natural that under the reign of a noble woman there +should arise women noble-minded as herself, cherishing ideas of life +and duty lofty as her own, and that their greatest elevation of +purpose should tent to raise the moral standard among the men who +work with them for the uplifting of their fellow subjects. Such signs +of the times may be noticed now, more evident than even ten years +ago. + +[Illustration: Professor Huxley. _From a Photograph by the London +Stereoscopic Co_.] + +[Illustration: Professor Tyndall. _From a Photograph by Alexander +Bassano, Ltd_.] + +The educational progress of the last decade has been very great, +especially as regards the instruction of women; yet the period has +not been noticeably fruitful of literature in the highest sense. In +the world of fiction there is much that looks like degeneration; the +lighter magazines and serials have multiplied past computation, and +form all the reading of not a few persons. To counteract the +unhealthy "modern novel" has arisen the Scottish school, the +"literature of the kailyard," as it has been termed in scorn; yet a +purer air breathes in the pages of J. M. Barrie, "Ian Maclaren," and +Crockett. Their many imitators are in some danger of impairing the +vogue of these masters, but still the tendency of the school is +wholesome. Other artists in fiction assume the part of censors of +society, and write of its doings with a bitterness that may or may +not profit; the unveiling of cancerous sores is of doubtful advantage +to health. + +[Illustration: C. H. Spurgeon.] + +[Illustration: Dr. Horatius Bonar.] + +The death-roll from 1887 to 1897 is exceptionally heavy; in every +department of science, art, literary and religious life, the loss has +been great. Many musicians have been taken from us since the +well-beloved Jenny Lind Goldschmidt; Canon Sir E. A. Gore Ouseley, +Sir G. Macfarren, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, +Rubinstein, Carrodus, and others. + +[Illustration: Rev. J. G. Wood.] + +[Illustration: Dean Church.] + +English letters have suffered by the removal of many whose services +in one way or another have been great: the prose-painter Richard +Jefferies; the pure and beneficent Mrs. Craik, better known as Miss +Muloch; Matthew Arnold, poet, educationalist, critic, whose verse +should outlive his criticisms; the noble astronomer Richard Proctor; +Gustave Masson, the careful biographer of Milton; Laurence Oliphant, +gifted and eccentric visionary; the naturalist J. G. Wood; the +explorer and orientalist Burton; the historians Kinglake, Froude, and +Freeman; the great ecclesiastics Bishop Lightfoot, Canon Liddon, +Archbishop Magee of York, Dean Church, Dean Plumptre, and the +Cardinals Newman and Manning; Tennyson and Browning, poets whose +mantle has yet fallen on none; Huxley and Tyndall, eminent in +science; the justly popular preacher and writer Charles H. Spurgeon; +the orator and philanthropist John Bright, whose speeches delight +many in book-form; and Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, +poet. To these we may add Eliza Cook and Martin Tapper, widely +popular a generation ago, and surviving into our own day; Lord +Lytton, known as "Owen Meredith," a literary artist, before he became +viceroy of India and British ambassador at Paris; and Professor Henry +Drummond, dead since 1897 began, and widely known by his "Natural Law +in the Spiritual World." Even so our list is far from complete. + +[Illustration: J. E. Millais, P.R.A. _From a Photograph by Elliott & +Fry_.] + +Of painters and sculptors we have lost since 1887 Frank Holl; Sir +Edgar Boehm, buried in St. Paul's by express wish of the Queen; Edwin +Long; John Pettie; Sir Noel Paton; Sir Frederick Leighton; and Sir +J. E. Millais. The last two illustrious painters were successively +Presidents of the Royal Academy, Millais, who followed Leighton in +that office, surviving him but a short time. Sir Frederick had been +raised to the peerage as Lord Leighton only a few days before he +died, the patent arriving too late for him to receive it. + +[Illustration: Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A. _From a Photograph by +J. R. Mayall, Piccadilly, W_.] + +The English world is the poorer for these many losses, some of which +took place under tragic circumstances; yet hope may well be cherished +that amongst us are those, not yet fully recognised, who will nobly +fill the places of the dead. Some hymn-writer may arise whose note +will be as sweet as that of the much loved singer, Dr. Horatius +Bonar, some painter as spiritual and powerful as Paton, some poet as +grandly gifted as the late laureate and his compeer Browning. We do +not at once recognise our greatest while they are with us; therefore +we need not think despairingly of our age because the good and the +great pass away, and we see not their place immediately filled. Nor, +though there be great and crying evils in our midst, need we tremble +lest these should prevail, while there is so much earnest and +energetic endeavour to cope with and overcome them. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +PROGRESS OF WESLEYAN METHODISM +UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA, 1837-1897. [Footnote] + +PART I. + +[Illustration: Wesley preaching on his father's tomb.] + +When the Queen ascended the throne Wesleyan Methodism in this country +was recovering from the effects of the agitation occasioned by Dr. +Warren, who had been expelled from its ministry; the erection of an +organ in a Leeds chapel had caused another small secession. But the +Conference of 1837, assembled in Leeds under the presidency of the +Rev. Edmund Grindrod, with the Rev. Robert Newton as secretary, had +no reason to be discouraged. Faithful to the loyal tradition of +Methodism, it promptly attended to the duty of congratulating the +young Sovereign who had ascended the throne on June 20, a few weeks +before. + +[Footnote: 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.] + +We may read in its Minutes of the vote in favour of an address, which +should assure the Queen of the sincere attachment cherished by her +Methodist subjects for her person and government, and of their +fervent prayers to Almighty God "for her personal happiness and the +prosperity of her reign." By a singular coincidence, it will probably +be one of the first acts of a Leeds Conference in 1897 to forward +another address, congratulating Her Majesty on the long and +successful reign which has realised these aspirations of unaffected +devotion. The address of 1837 had gracious acknowledgment, conveyed +through Lord John Russell. + +[Illustration: Group of Presidents Number One] + +At this time Methodism had spread throughout the world. Its +membership in Great Britain and Ireland numbered 318,716; in foreign +mission stations 66,007; in Upper Canada 14,000; while the American +Conferences had charge of 650,678 members; thus the total for the +world, exclusive of ministers, was 1,049,401. + +Of ministers there were 1,162 in the United Kingdom and 3,316 +elsewhere. It will be obvious that British and Irish Methodism even +then formed a body whose allegiance was highly valuable. + +The 1837 Conference had to discuss the subject of the approaching +Centenary of Methodism, which had for years been anticipated with +great interest. With Mr. Butterworth--a Member of Parliament and a +loyal Methodist and generous supporter of our funds--originated the +idea of commemorating God's goodness in a fitting manner, not in a +boastful spirit; a committee which had been appointed reported to the +next Conference "that the primary object of the said celebration +should be the religious and devotional improvement of the centenary"; +and that there should also be "thank-offering to Almighty God" in +money contributions for some of the institutions of the Church. The +Conference approved these suggestions, and appointed a day of united +prayer in January, 1839, "for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit" on +the Connexion during the year. + +[Illustration: Centenary meeting at Manchester.] + +There had been some difficulty in fixing the date of the birth of +Methodism; but 1739 was determined on, because then the first +class-meetings were held, the first chapel at Bristol was opened, the +first hymn-book published; then the United Societies were formed, +then field-preaching began, and then Whitefield, Charles Wesley, and +others held that historic lovefeast in Fetter Lane when the Holy +Spirit came so mightily on them that all were awed into silence, some +sank down insensible, and on recovering they sang with one voice +their Te Deum of reverent praise. + +The centenary year being decided, a three days' convention of +ministers and laymen was held at Manchester to make the needful +arrangements; its proceedings were marked by a wonderful enthusiasm +and liberality. + +The Centenary Conference assembled at Liverpool in 1839. It could +report an increase of 13,000 members. On August 5 it suspended its +ordinary business for the centenary services--a prayer-meeting at six +in the morning being followed by sermons preached by the Rev. Thomas +Jackson and the President, the Rev. Theophilus Lessey. A few weeks +later came the festal day, October 25, morning prayer-meetings and +special afternoon and evening services being held throughout the +country. Never had there been such large gatherings for rejoicing and +thanksgiving; there were festivities for the poor and for the +children of the day and Sunday schools. These celebrations, in which +the whole Methodist Church joined, aroused the interest of the +nation, and called forth appreciative criticism from press and +pulpit. + +[Illustration: Wesleyan Centenary Hall.] + +When the idea of this first great Thanksgiving Fund was originally +contemplated, the most hopeful only dared look for L10,000; but when +the accounts were closed the treasurers were in possession of +L222,589, one meeting at City Road having produced L10,000; and the +effort was made at a time of great commercial depression. This +remarkable liberality drew the attention of the Pope, who said in an +encyclical that _the heretics were putting to shame the offerings of +the faithful_. + +Not a few meetings took the form of lovefeasts, where generous giving +proved the reality of the religious experiences; for there has ever +been an intimate connexion between the fellowship and the finance of +Methodism. Part of the great sum raised went to the Theological +Institution, part to Foreign Missions; Wesleyan education was helped +by a grant, L1,000 were paid over to the British and Foreign Bible +Society; and the laymen desiring to help the worn-out ministers and +their widows and children, L16,000 were set aside to form the +Auxiliary Fund for this purpose. + +It was now that the Missionary Committee were enabled to secure the +Centenary Hall, the present headquarters of the Missionary Society. +The remaining sums were given to other useful purposes. + +Methodism in 1839 in all its branches [Footnote] reckoned more than +1,400,000 members, with 6,080 itinerant preachers and 350 +missionaries; 50,000 pupils were instructed in the mission schools, +and there were upwards of 70,000 communicants and at least 200,000 +hearers of the gospel in Methodist mission chapels. In England alone +the Wesleyan Methodists owned 3,000 chapels, and had many other +preaching places; there were 3,300 Sunday schools, 341,000 scholars, +and 4,000 local preachers. These figures, when, compared with those +given at the end of our sketch, will furnish some idea of the +numerical advance of Methodism throughout the world during the +Queen's reign. + +[Footnote: "Methodism in all its branches" must be understood of +_all_ bodies bearing the name of Methodist, including the New +Connexion and the Primitive Methodists. The membership of Wesleyan +Methodism alone throughout the world, according to the _Minutes of +Conference_ for 1839, was 1,112,519; and the total ministry, +including 335 missionaries, 4,957.] + +The centenary celebrations marked the high flood-tide of spiritual +prosperity for many ensuing years, for a time of great trial +followed. Gladly would we forget the misunderstandings of our +fathers; yet this sketch would be incomplete without reference to +unhappy occurrences which caused the loss of 100,000 members, and +allowance must be made for this terrible loss in estimating the +progress of Wesleyan Methodism. The troubles began when certain +anonymous productions, known as "Fly Sheets," severely criticised the +administration of Methodism and libellously assailed the characters +of leading ministers, especially Dr. Bunting, who stood head and +shoulders above all others in this Methodist war. He was chosen +President when only forty-one, and on three other occasions filled +the chair of the Conference. He became an authority on Methodist +government and policy. Dr. Gregory says, "As an administrator, he was +unapproached in sagacity, aptitude, personal influence, and +indefatigability... his character was spotless." He was a born +commander. The "Liverpool Minutes," describing the ideal Methodist +preacher, are his work. + +Dr. Bunting volunteered to be tried by the Conference as to the +anonymous charges against him, but no one came forward with proofs to +sustain them. Three ministers, Messrs. Everett, Dunn, and Griffiths, +supposed to be the chief movers of this agitation, refused to be +questioned on the matter, and defying the Conference, were expelled. +Thereafter the agitation was kept up, and caused great disaffection +in the Societies, resulting in the loss we have referred to. The +seceders called themselves "Reformers"; many of them eventually +joined similar bodies of seceders, forming with them the "United +Methodist Free Churches." These in 1857 reported a membership of +41,000, less than half that which was lost to Wesleyan Methodism. But +now they may be congratulated on better success, the statistics for +1896 showing, at home and abroad, a total of nearly 90,000 members, +with 1,622 chapels, 417 ministers, 3,448 local preachers, 1,350 +Sunday schools, and 203,712 scholars. It may be noted with pleasure +that the leaders of the movement outlived all hostility to the mother +Church; one of them attended the Ecumenical Conference of 1881, and +took the sacrament with the other delegates. + +With great regret we speak of this painful disruption, now that so +much better feeling animates the various Methodist Churches. +Practically there is no difference of doctrine among them. It has +been well said, "Our articles of faith stand to-day precisely as in +the last century, which makes us think that, like Minerva from the +brain of Jupiter, they were born full-grown and heavily armoured." + +An influential committee has been appointed to ascertain how +concerted action may be taken by the Methodist Churches; and the hope +is cherished that their suggestions may lead to the adoption of +methods which will prevent strife and friction and unworthy rivalry. +The New Connexion and Methodist Free Church Conferences also +appointed a joint committee to consider the same subject. The +brotherly desire for spiritual fellowship and mutual help and counsel +thus indicated must be held as a very hopeful token of something +better than numerical advance. + +[Illustration: Group of Presidents Number Two.] + +The bitter experiences through which the Church passed called +attention to the need for modification and expansion of Wesleyan +Methodist polity. The Conference of 1851 appointed a committee of +ministers to consider the question; 745 laymen were invited to join +them. Their recommendations led Conference to adopt resolutions +defining the proper constitution of the quarterly meeting, and to +provide for special circuit meetings to re-try cases of discipline, +which had been brought before the leaders' meeting, when there was +reason to think that the verdict had been given in a factious spirit. +The chairman of the district, with twelve elected by the quarterly +meeting, formed a tribunal to re-try the case. From this decision +there was an appeal to the district synods, and also to the +Conference. Provision was made for the trial of trustees, so that +every justice should be done them. Local Church meetings were +guaranteed the right of appeal to Conference, and circuits were +allowed to memorialise Conference on Connexional subjects, within +proper limits. The quarterly meetings, having considered these +resolutions, gave them a cordial reception, and they were confirmed +by the Conference of 1853. + +No new rule is enforced by Conference until opportunity is given to +bring it before all the quarterly meetings, and it is not likely to +become Methodist law if the majority object. The enlarged district +synods are an additional safeguard for the privileges of the people. +By ballot the circuit quarterly meetings may now elect one, or in +some cases two gentlemen, who, with the circuit steward, shall +represent the circuit in the district synod. + +In 1889, Conference sanctioned the formation of Methodist councils, +composed of ministers and laymen, to consult on matters pertaining to +Methodist institutions in the towns. Their decisions of course do not +bind any particular Society. + +The disaffection so fruitful of suffering had been due to a suspicion +that men were retained in departmental offices when they no longer +had the confidence of the people. Now such officials are only elected +for six years, though eligible for re-election. One-sixth of the +laymen on Connexional committees retire yearly; they may be +re-elected, but must receive a four-fifths vote. Visitors may be +present when the President is inducted into office, and during the +representative session, when also reporters other than ministers are +now allowed to take notes. + +It was the year 1878 which witnessed that most important development +of Methodist economy, the introduction of lay representatives to take +part with ministers in the deliberations of Conference. This was no +sudden revolution; laymen had long had their share in the work of +quarterly meetings, district synods, and great Connexional +committees; in 1861 they were admitted to the Committees of Review, +which arranged the business of Conference; they sat in the nomination +committee each year, and had power to scrutinise, and even to alter, +the lists of names for the various committees. Now in natural +sequence they were to be endowed with legislative as well as +consultative functions; it might be said they had been educated to +this end. + +The committee appointed to consider the matter having done its work, +the report was submitted to the district synods and then to +Conference. Long, earnest, animated, but loving was the debate that +ensued; the assembled ministers, by a large majority, determined that +the laity should henceforth share in their deliberations on all +questions not strictly pastoral. + +It was resolved that there should be a representative session of 240 +ministers and 240 laymen. The ministerial quota was to consist of +President and secretary, members of the Legal Hundred, assistant +secretary, chairmen of districts not members of the Hundred, and +representatives of the great departments; six ministers stationed in +foreign countries, but visiting England at the time; and the +remainder elected by their brethren in the district synods; the +laymen to be elected in the synods by laymen only. A small proportion +at one Conference is chosen to attend the next. + +Such were the new arrangements that came into force in 1878, causing +no friction, since they secured "a maximum of adaptation with a +minimum of change"; there was no difficulty in deciding what business +should belong to either session of Conference. It is needless to +dwell here on minor alterations, introduced in the past, or +contemplated for the future, as to the order of the sessions; it may +amply suffice us to remark that Wesleyan Methodism, thanks to the +modifications of its constitution which we have briefly touched upon, +is one of the most truly popular Church systems ever devised. For, as +the Pastoral Address of 1896 puts it, "Methodism gives every class, +every member, all the rights which can be reasonably claimed, listens +to every complaint, asserts no exclusive privilege, but insures that +all things are done 'decently and in order.'" + +The great change just described, being the work of the ministers +themselves, and accomplished by them before there was any loud demand +for it, was effected with such moderation and discretion as not to +entail the loss of a single member or minister. This was justly held +a cause for great thankfulness; and it was determined to raise a +thanksgiving fund for the relief of the various departments. + +Great central meetings, extending over two years (1878--1880), were +held throughout the country, and were characterised by enthusiasm and +wonderful generosity. At a time when the country was suffering almost +unheard of commercial depression, the sum of L297,500 was raised, to +be apportioned between Foreign Missions, the Extension of Methodism +in Great Britain, Education, Home Missions, Methodism in Scotland, +the Sunday-school Union, a new Theological College, the "Children's +Home," the Welsh and German chapels in London, a chapel at Oxford, +the relief of necessitous local preachers, and the promotion of +temperance. The missionary debt was paid, and the buildings for +soldiers and sailors at Malta and Aldershot were cleared of debt. + +Such work could not be done if the circuits acted independently; but +united as they are, and forming one vast connexion, much which would +otherwise be impossible can be achieved by means of the great +Connexional funds. Of these funds not a few have been established +since 1837; but the most important among them, the Foreign Mission +fund, can boast an earlier origin. + +Wesleyanism, indeed, is essentially missionary in spirit, her +original aim being to spread scriptural holiness throughout the +world. "The world is my parish," said Wesley though he himself could +never visit the whole of that parish, his followers have at least +explored the greater part of it, causing the darkness to flee before +the radiance of the lamp of truth. + +British Methodism has now missions in almost every quarter of the +globe--in Asia, in Africa, on the Continent of Europe, in the Western +Hemisphere. Her mission agencies include medical missions, hospitals, +schools for the blind, homes for lepers, orphanages, training and +industrial schools, etc. + +In Europe we have set on foot missions in countries that are +nominally Christian, where the people are too often the victims of +ignorance, wickedness, vice, scepticism, and superstition; France, +Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal have all been objects of +our missionary enterprise during the present reign, and in some +instances conspicuous success has been attained. Witness the good +work still going on in Italy, and the independent position attained +by the _Conference, Methodiste de France_. + +In India, Ceylon, China, and Burma, our agents are working amongst +races in which they have to combat heathenism strong in its +antiquity. The progress is necessarily slow, but a point has been +reached where great success may be prophesied, as the result largely +of the work of the pioneers. The schools are turning out many who, if +they do not all become decided Christians, are intellectually +convinced that Christianity is right, and will put fewer difficulties +in the way of their children than they themselves had to contend +with. This educational work prepares the way for the gospel; +observers declare that nearly all converts in Ceylon have been +trained in our schools. + +The important missions in Southern and Western Africa must not be +forgotten, nor those in Honduras and the Bahamas. + +The present policy throughout our actual mission-field is as far as +possible to raise up native agents. Probably the heathen lands will +be won for the great Captain of salvation by native soldiers; but for +a long time they will need officers trained in countries familiar for +generations with the blessings of the gospel. The number of our +missionaries may be stated at 400, more than half being native +agents; there are 2,680 other mission workers, 52,058 Church members; +84,113 children and young people having instruction in the schools. +But these figures would give a false idea of the progress of the work +if compared with the statistics of 1837; for _then_ our missions +included vast regions that have now their own Conferences. When the +Queen ascended the throne Fiji was a nation of cannibals. Two years +before her accession our Missionary Society commenced operations in +those islands. John Hunt laboured with apostolic zeal, and died +breathing the prayer, "God, for Christ's sake, bless Fiji, save +Fiji." The prayer is already answered. All these islands have been +won for Christ, and are trophies of Wesleyan missionary toil. There +are 3,100 native preachers under the care of nine white missionaries; +1,322 chapels, 43,339 members and catechumens, and more than 42,000 +scholars. Fiji has become almost a nation of Methodists. But it were +vain to look for traces of this vast achievement in the "Minutes of +Conference" of 1896; for a special feature of our missionary policy +is the establishment of affiliated Conferences, which in course of +time become self-supporting. In 1883 all the branches of the Canadian +Methodists united to form one Canadian Conference. The first French +Conference met in 1852. In 1855 the Conference of Eastern British +America was formed. The same year the first Australian Conference +met, and took charge of the Missions in Fiji, the Friendly Isles, and +New Zealand. The first South African Conference met in 1882, and the +two West Indian Conferences in 1884. Although more or less +independent of the mother Conference, they still retain the +characteristics of Methodism. A distinct branch of Mission work, +known as the Women's Auxiliary, has been established, and sends forth +ladies to engage in educational, zenana, and medical work. They are +doing good service in India, China, and other parts of the world. In +1896 they expended more than L10,000. + +The total expenditure last year (1896) was L124,700, incurred by our +own Mission work and by grants to the affiliated Conferences. It is +satisfactory to note that in the districts helped, including those +covered by these Conferences, an additional L185,000 was raised. We +have magnificent opportunities; and with full consecration of our +people's wealth there would be glorious successes in the future. +Foreign Missions have been the chief honour of Methodism, and it is +to be hoped the same affection for them will be maintained; for +wherever Methodism is found throughout the world, it is the result of +mission work. + +Meanwhile there has been no sacrificing of home interests. Never were +greater efforts made by Methodism for the evangelisation of the +masses in Great Britain. The Home Mission Fund, first instituted in +1756, was remodelled in 1856. Its business is to assist the dependent +circuits in maintaining the administration of the gospel, to provide +means for employing additional ministers, and to meet various +contingencies with which the circuits could not cope unassisted. Our +needs as a Connexion demand such a Contingent Fund. One-third of the +amount raised by the Juvenile Home and Foreign Missionary Association +is devoted to Home Missions. The income, which in 1837 was less than +L10.000, is now more than L36,000; an increase witnessing to a spirit +of aggression and enterprise in modern Methodism. This fund provides +for the support of the Connexional evangelists and district +missionaries. + +In the year 1882, under the head "Home Missions," there was a new and +important departure, by the appointment of the first "Connexional +evangelists," of whom there are now four; they have already been the +means of great blessing throughout the country, showing that the old +gospel, preached as in the old days, is still mighty to awaken and +convert. + +Under the direction of the Home Mission Committee, commissioners +visit certain districts, to give advice and discover the best methods +for improving the condition of Methodism where it appears to be low. + +Special attention is given to the villages. The "Out-and-Out Band" +subscribed for four Gospel Mission vans, each carrying two +evangelists, and a large quantity of literature, to the villages; the +evangelists in charge conducting services in the village chapels and +in the open air. The sale of books and the voluntary contributions of +the people help to defray the expenses. This agency is now under the +direction of the Home Mission committee, and the gospel cars will be +known as "Wesleyan Home Mission Cars." + +Another new movement, helpful to village Methodism, is the "Joyful +News" mission, originating with the Rev. Thomas Champness, who has +been set free from ordinary circuit work to manage it. He trains lay +agents, for whose services there is a great demand in villages where +the people are too poor to maintain additional ministers, and where +the supply of local preachers is deficient. Some of these agents are +at work abroad. + +The energetic Home Mission Committee has also set on foot missions +where Methodism was feeble. Nor are those forgotten who "go down to +the sea in ships, and do business in great waters." As far as means +permit, efforts are made for the spiritual benefit of our sailors in +all the great ports of the world; our soldiers, too, are equally +cared for. Methodism has always been interested in the army, in which +some of Wesley's best converts were found; yet there was no +systematic work in it before 1839, when an order by the +commander-in-chief permitted every soldier to attend the church of +his choice. Some years afterwards, the Rev. Dr. Rule strove hard to +secure the recognition of the rights of Wesleyans, and after much +struggle the War Office recognised Wesleyan chaplains. The work and +position of Wesleyan Methodism are now thoroughly organised +throughout the world. The government allows a capitation grant for +all declared Wesleyans, and it amounts to a large sum of money every +year. In 1896 there were, including the Militia, 22,663 declared +Wesleyans in the army and 1,485 Church members. There are 28 Sailors' +and Soldiers' Homes, providing 432 beds, and these Homes have been +established at a cost of L35,000. In them are coffee bars, libraries, +lecture halls, and, what is most appreciated by Christian soldiers, +rooms for private prayer. The officiating ministers, who give the +whole or part of their time to the soldiers and their families, +number 195. + +There are many local preachers among the soldiers, and at least two +have left the ranks to become ministers. + +On the Mission field, soldiers render valuable aid to the missionary +in building chapels, distributing tracts, and often teaching and +preaching to the natives and others. Thus, whilst helping to hold the +empire for their Queen, they are hastening on the day when all the +kingdoms of the world shall be the kingdom of our Lord and of His +Christ. + +This deeply interesting work in the Army and Royal Navy is +appropriately mentioned in connexion with our Home and Foreign +Missions, both intimately concerned in its maintenance and +management. It is right to mention that the Soldiers' and Sailors' +Homes described are free to all members of H.M.'s sea and land +forces, irrespective of religious denomination. + +PART II. + +One great event in Methodist history since 1837 now calls for +notice--the assembling of the first Oecumenical Conference in +Wesley's Chapel, City Road, London, in 1861. This idea was in strict +keeping with the spirit Wesley discovered when, five weeks before his +death, he wrote to his children in America: "See that you never give +place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe. Lose +no opportunity of declaring to all men that the Methodists are one +people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so +to continue, + + "'Though mountains rise, and oceans roll, + To sever us in vain.'" + +The growing affection among Methodists of all branches made the idea +of an Oecumenical Conference practicable. + +[Illustration: Sir Francis Lycett.] + +The suggestion took form at the Joint Conference of the Methodist +Episcopal Church of America in 1876. The American Methodists sent a +delegate to the British Conference, proposing a United Conference +which should demonstrate to the world the essential oneness in +doctrine, spirit, and principle of all the Churches which +historically trace their origin to John Wesley; such a manifestation, +it was hoped, would strengthen and perpetuate that unity. + +Further, the Conference was to discover how to adjust our mission +work so as to prevent waste and friction; suggesting also modes and +agencies for the most successful work of evangelisation. Nor was this +all; its promoters trusted to gain light on the relation of universal +Methodism to education, civil government, other Christian bodies, and +missionary enterprise at large, and looked for a vast increase in +spiritual power and intelligent, enthusiastic activity among the +various branches of Methodism, whose gathering together might well +draw "the attention of scholars and reformers and thinkers to the +whole Methodist history, work, and mission," while a new impulse +should be given to every good work, and a more daring purpose of +evangelisation kindled. The British Conference pointed out the need +of frankly recognising the not unimportant differences amongst the +various Methodist bodies, so as to rule out of discussion any points +which had a suggestion of past controversies. The American Conference +accepted this. + +[Illustration: The Methodist Settlement, Bermondsey, London, S.E.] + +The smaller Methodist bodies being invited to join, the four hundred +delegates were sent up by the various branches of the Methodist +Church as nearly as possible in proportion to their numerical +strength; seven sections of British Methodism and thirteen from the +United States and the Mission fields, numbering probably twenty +millions, were represented. It was fitting that the first Oecumenical +Conference should meet in City Road, the cathedral of Methodism. +Bishop Simpson preached the opening sermon; the delegates then +partook of the sacrament together, and Dr. Osborn, President of the +Conference, gave the opening address. The Oecumenical Conference did +not aim at determining any debated condition of Church membership, or +at defining any controverted doctrine, or settling any question of +ritual; it met for consultative, not legislative purposes. As such, +the gathering brought about the thing which is written: "Thy watchmen +shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they +sing... Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall +fear, and be enlarged." + +By a happy coincidence, that largehearted son of Methodism, the late +Sir William M'Arthur, was then Lord Mayor of London, and he gave a +congratulatory welcome to the delegates at a magnificent reception in +the Mansion House. + +The next important event in Methodist history during the Queen's +reign is the rise and progress of the great Wesleyan Missions in the +towns--a vast beneficent movement, in which some at least of the +aspirations cherished by the promoters of the first Oecumenical +Conference appeared to have been realised. + +The tendency of our day is towards a steady flow of population from +the villages to the towns, especially to London. In 1837, there was +only one London district, covering a very wide area, and including +six circuits, whose total membership was only 11,460, after a hundred +years of Methodism. The various branches of the recently established +London Mission report more than a third of this number after less +than ten years' labour. + +[Illustration: Theological Institution, Richmond.] + +The success of London Methodism in late years is largely due to the +establishment of the Metropolitan Chapel Building fund in 1862. The +late Sir Francis Lycett gave L50,000, on condition that an equal +amount should be raised throughout the country, and that ten chapels, +each seating at least a thousand persons, should in ten years be +built in the metropolitan area. The noble challenge called forth a +fit response. In his will he left a large sum to the same fund, so +the committee could offer an additional L500 pounds to every chapel +commenced before the end of 1898, with a proportionate grant to +smaller chapels; aid will also be given by the committee in securing +additional ministerial supply. Such offers should stimulate chapel +building for the two years. Already, since the establishment of the +fund, more than ninety chapels have been built in London at a cost of +L630,000, towards which the fund contributed in grants and loans +L213,000. Before 1862, there were only three important chapels south +of the Thames, and now there are thirty-seven. During the last ten or +twelve years unprecedented prosperity has been shown, not only in +chapel building, but in chapel filling, and the establishment of +successful missions. + +In 1885 the earnest attention of the Churches was directed to +"outcast London." The deepest interest was aroused, especially in +Methodist circles; and that year great meetings were held in City +Road, to initiate a movement that should benefit London's outcasts. A +large sum of money was raised, and the London Mission formed. The +West London Mission at St. James's Hall, the East End branch, and the +almost deserted chapel in Clerkenwell became notable centres. Thus at +one time efforts were put forth to reach the rich, the artisans, and +the outcasts. The success has abundantly justified the enterprise. In +addition to evangelistic work, the missions make strenuous efforts to +improve the social condition of the people, for Methodism realises +that she is called to minister not only to the souls, but also to the +bodies of men. Already, as a result of the London Mission, a new, +fully organised circuit has grown up; the West London Mission alone +reporting a membership which is one-tenth of the whole membership of +London in 1837. + +The latest and most novel branch of the work is the "Bermondsey +Settlement," established six years ago in the poorest district of +south-east London. In this hall of residence live devoted workers who +have been trained in our universities or in our high-class schools, +and who spend their leisure in benefiting their poor neighbours by +religious, educational, and social effort. A home for women, in which +about ten ladies reside, is connected with the settlement, which is +in special connexion with Wesleyan schools throughout the country. +The programme of work is extensive, and in addition the settlement +takes an increasing part in local administration and philanthropy, +many non-resident workers assisting. + +[Illustration: Theological Institution, Didsbury.] + +To support the London Mission, appeal is made to Methodists +throughout the country and the world. The meetings held on its behalf +in the provinces have greatly blessed the people, stimulating them to +fresh efforts in their own localities. Similar agencies had +previously been established in various great trading centres, where +the tendency is for the people who can afford it to leave the towns +and to live in the suburbs. Thus many chapels have become almost +deserted. The Conference decided that the best method of filling +these chapels would be to utilise them as Mission halls, for +aggressive evangelistic and social effort; which has been done with +surprising success in Manchester, Leeds, Hull, Birmingham, and many +other large towns. In Manchester there are from ten to twelve +thousand people reached by the Mission agencies, and already a new +circuit has been formed, the members of its Society having been +gathered in from the army of distress and destitution. It would be +impossible here to enumerate the thousand ways in which the Mission +workers toil for the redemption of the downfallen, or to tell half +the tale of their success. But all this work could not be so well +carried on without the assistance of another important department. +The Wesleyan Chapel Building Committee, instituted in 1818, was +reconstituted in 1854; it meets monthly in Manchester to dispose of +grants and loans, to consider cases of erections, alterations, +purchases, and sales of Wesleyan trust property, and to afford advice +in difficult cases. It has also to see that all our trust property is +duly secured to the Connexion. The erection of the Central Hall in +Manchester, to be at once the headquarters of our Chapel Committee +and of the great Mission, marked a most important era in Methodist +aggressive enterprise. The income of the Chapel Fund from all sources +last year was L9,115. It was reported that the entire debt discharged +or provided for during the last forty-one years was L2,389,073, and +the total debt remaining on trust property is not more than L800,000; +while L9,000,000 had been expended on chapel buildings during the +thirty years preceding 1893. + +[Illustration: Theological Institution, Headingley.] + +The Extension of Methodism Fund was established in 1874, to +supplement the ordinary funds of the Connexion and the local +resources of the people, by aiding in the increase of chapel +accommodation throughout the country, and in the extension of +Methodism by Home Mission and similar agencies. At first the building +of a thousand chapels was contemplated; but already 1,796 cases have +been helped, with grants and loans amounting to L122,999. In 1867 a +fund was started for the relief and extension of Methodism in +Scotland; a Chapel Fund for the North Wales District was instituted +in 1867, and for South Wales in 1873. There are now in Great Britain +10,000 Wesleyan chapels, which will accommodate 2,156,209 hearers, +more than four times the number of members returned; for there is +something misleading, as far as the general public is concerned, in +the published statistics of Methodism, which take account of +class-meeting membership only. Estimating the other Methodist bodies +at the same rate, Methodist chapels provide accommodation for +3,000,000 people; so that the united Methodist Church in this country +is second only to the Established Church of England. + +The Wesleyan Methodist Trust Assurance Company was established in +1872, for the insurance of Methodist Trust property only. The Board +of Trustees for Chapel Purposes was formed in 1866, which undertakes +to invest money intended for the chapel trust and for Methodist +objects. Seeing that there are so many funds in Methodism, and that +while some have a balance, others might be obliged to borrow at a +high rate of interest, it was suggested that a Common Cash Fund +should be established, making it possible for the committees to +borrow from and lend to one another, the borrowers paying the +ordinary bank rate of interest, and the profits being equally divided +among the funds. + +[Illustration: Theological Institution, Handsworth.] + +A passing reference must be made to another committee, instituted in +1803--the Committee of Privileges and Exigency: and in 1845 an acting +special committee for cases of great emergency was formed. Between +the sessions of the Conference this committee often renders great +service, safeguarding Methodist interests when they would be +endangered by proposed government measures, or in any other way. At +present it is engaged in trying to get through Parliament several +measures in the interests of Nonconformity generally. + +The subject of education drew the anxious attention of Wesley; his +followers were less alive to its importance, until just before the +Queen came to the throne. The training of the ministry was neglected, +and the young ministers had to educate themselves. Though Wesley +approved the idea of a seminary for his preachers, it was only three +years before the Queen's accession that the first Theological +Institution was opened at Hoxton. The Centenary Fund provided for one +such institution at Richmond, and another at Didsbury. The Headingley +branch was opened in 1868, and the Birmingham branch, built with part +of the Thanksgiving Fund, in 1881. Our ministers are now far better +trained than were the old Methodist preachers, and, taking them as a +whole, they do not come short of their predecessors in any necessary +qualification for their work. + +[Illustration: Kingswood School, Bath.] + +Their culture must not be judged by the scantiness of their literary +production. The empress Catherine once said to a French _savant_, "My +dear philosopher, it is not so easy to write on human flesh as on +paper." Much more difficult is the task of our ministers, whose +religious, social, and financial work leaves them little of that +learned leisure enjoyed by Anglican divines, who by their masterly +works have made the entire Christian Church their debtor. But in the +period we are reviewing, despite the demands made on the time of the +ministers, many have written that which will not easily be forgotten. +The Church that nurtured Dr. Moulton, whose edition of Winer's "Greek +Grammar" is a standard work, used by all the greatest Greek New +Testament scholars, need not be ashamed of her learning. Dr. Moulton +and Dr. Geden were on the revision committee which undertook the +fresh translation of the Old and New Testaments. Other Wesleyan +ministers have made their mark as commentators, apologists, scholars, +and scientists in the last few decades. The _Fernley Lectures_ have +proved the ability of many Methodist preachers; we lack space to +refer to the many able writers who have ceased from their labours. + +The _London Quarterly Review_ has kept up the literary reputation of +Methodism: nor are we behind any Nonconformist Church in journalistic +matters. Two newspapers represent the varying shades of opinion in +Methodism, and give full scope to its expression. A high level of +excellence is seen in the publications of the Book Room, and our +people when supporting it are also helping important Connexional +funds, to which the profits are given. + +[Illustration: The North House, Leys School, Cambridge.] + +While increasing care has been taken with the training of the +ministry, lay education has not been neglected. Kingswood School, +founded by Wesley, continues, as in his day, to give excellent +instruction to ministers' sons. In 1837 a Methodist school, Wesley +College, was opened at Sheffield, and a few years later one at +Taunton, well known as Queen's College. The Leys School at Cambridge, +under the head-mastership of Dr. Moulton, was opened in 1874, and has +shown "the possibility of reconciling Methodist training with the +breadth and freedom of English public school life." There are in +Ireland excellent colleges at Belfast and Dublin. + +In 1875, a scheme for establishing middle-class schools was adopted, +resulting in the opening of such schools at Truro, Jersey, Bury St. +Edmunds, Woodhouse Grove, Congleton, Canterbury, Folkestone, +Trowbridge, Penzance, Camborne, and Queenswood; all report +satisfactorily. + +Elementary education, which has made such great progress during the +Queen's reign, engaged the anxious attention of our authorities long +before the initiation of the School Board system, under which the +average attendance in twenty-five years increased almost fourfold. +Methodism has been in the forefront of the long battle with +ignorance. + +The establishment of "week-day schools" in connexion with this great +Church owed its origin to the declaration of the Conference in 1833. +that "such institutions, placed under an efficient spiritual control, +cannot fail to promote those high and holy ends for which we exist as +a religious community." The object was to give the scholars "an +education which might begin in the infant school and end in heaven," +thus subserving the lofty aim of Methodism, "to fill the world with +saints, and Paradise with glorified spirits"; a more ambitious idea +than that expressed by Huxley when he said, "We want a great highway, +along which the child of the peasant as well as of the peer can climb +to the highest seats of learning." + +[Illustration: Queen's College, Taunton.] + +In 1836 the attention of the Conference was directed to education in +general, and especially to Wesleyan day schools; the Pastoral Address +of 1837, regretting that children had to be trained outside the +Church or be left untaught, expressed the hope that soon, in the +larger circuits, schools might be established which would give a +scriptural and Wesleyan education. Already some schools had been +commenced; and the plan was devised which has been the basis of all +subsequent Methodist day-school work. + +In 1840 it was decided to spend the interest of the L5,000 given from +the Centenary Fund for the training of teachers, work which was at +first carried on at Glasgow. The determination of Conference to +perfect its plan of Wesleyan education was quickened when an unfair +Education Bill, not the last of its kind, was introduced into +Parliament in 1843, proposing to hand over the children in factory +districts to the Church of England. An Education Fund was +established. Government, in 1847, offered grants for the training of +elementary school teachers; and in 1851 the Westminster Training +College was opened, with room for 130 men students. In 1872, in +response to an increased demand for Wesleyan teachers, a separate +college for mistresses was opened at Southlands, Battersea. Already +four thousand have been trained in these institutions. Many hold +positions in Board schools. In 1896 the number in Wesleyan and Board +schools was 2,400. + +The system thus inaugurated met a great and real need, and under it +excellent work has been done on the lines laid down by the Department +at Whitehall; for, receiving State aid, the training colleges and all +the schools, like other similar denominational institutions on the +same footing, are inspected and in a measure controlled by the +national educational authority. In 1837 there were only 31 Wesleyan +day schools; to-day there are 753 school departments, and on their +books 162,609 scholars. But the introduction of free education has +made it difficult for the Methodist Church to maintain her schools, +efficient though they be. Since 1870, when school boards were +introduced, the number of Wesleyan day schools has only increased by +10, while 9,752 Board schools have arisen, and the Church of England +schools have increased from 9,331 to 16,517; the Roman Catholic +schools actually trebling in number and attendance. + +[Illustration: Wesley College, Sheffield.] + +In view of these changed conditions, Conference has expressed itself +anxious for such a complete national system of education as might +place a Christian unsectarian school within reasonable distance of +every family, especially in rural districts, with "adequate +representative public management"; it has most earnestly deprecated +the exclusion of the Bible, and suitable religious instruction +therefrom by the teachers, from the day schools; but, so long as +denominational schools form part of the national system, it is +resolved to maintain our schools and Training Colleges, in full +vigour. Difficulties, undreamed of sixty years ago, surround this +great question; but assuredly Methodism will be true to its trust and +its traditions. + +The cost of Wesleyan schools last year was L215,634, and was met by +school fees, subscriptions, and a government grant of L185,780. The +Education Fund of 1896, amounting to L7,115, was spent on the +Training Colleges, grants to necessitous schools, etc. + +Wesley approved of Sunday schools as means of giving religious +instruction to the children of the poor, and Hannah Ball at High +Wycombe, a good Methodist, and Silas Told, teaching at the Foundery, +both anticipated the work of Raikes by several years. In 1837 there +were already 3,339 Sunday schools, with 341,442 scholars. Today the +schools number 7,147, the officers and teachers 131,145, and there +are in the schools 965,201 children and young people. The formation +in 1869 of the Circuit Sunday-school Union, and in 1874 of the +Connexional Sunday-school Union, has done much for the schools, in +providing suitable literature for teachers and scholars, and in +organising their work. An additional motive to Scripture study is +furnished by the "Religious Knowledge Examinations" instituted by +Conference; certificates, signed by the President, being granted to +teachers and scholars who succeed in passing the examinations. In +recognition of the value of so important a department of the Church, +adequate representation at the quarterly meetings is now accorded to +the Sunday schools. + +It is not in our day only that the pastoral oversight of the young +has been deemed worthy of attention; the duty has always been +enforced on ministers; but in 1878 there were first formed junior +Society classes, to prepare children for full membership. There are +now seventy-two thousand in such classes. + +In 1896 we note a new effort to bring young people into the kingdom, +in the foundation of the "Wesley Guild," of which the President of +Conference is the head, with four vice-presidents, two being laymen. +The guild is "a union of the young people of a congregation. Its +keynote is comradeship, and its aim is to encourage the young people +of our Church in the highest aims of life." The story of its origin +may be briefly told. + +The Rev. Charles H. Kelly introduced the subject in the London +Methodist Council, and then brought the matter before the Plymouth +Conference of 1895, dwelling on the desire existing to form a Wesley +Guild that should do for Britain what the Epworth League does for +American Methodism, and secure the best advantages not only of that +league, but of the Boys' Brigade, Bands of Hope, Christian Endeavour +and Mutual Improvement Societies, which it should federate. The +Liverpool Conference of 1896 therefore sanctioned the formation of +the "Wesley Guild." Its three grades of members include young people +already attached to the Church, with others not yet ripe for such +identification, and "older people young in heart," who all join in +guild friendship, and aid in forming this federation of the existing +societies interesting to young people. + +By periodical meetings, weekly if possible, for devotional, social, +and literary purposes, a healthy common life and beneficent activity +are stimulated, and the rising generation is happily and usefully +drawn into relation with the older Church workers, whom it aids by +seeking out the young, lonely, and unattached, and bringing them into +the warm circle of youthful fellowship. + +Such in brief is the programme of the Guild, which may yet greatly +enrich the Church with which it is connected. + +We turn now to one of the most notable changes in Methodism during +the Queen's reign--the wonderful advance in the temperance movement. +Wesley himself was an ardent temperance reformer, but his preachers +were slow to follow him. A few prominent men strove long to induce +Conference to institute a temperance branch of our work, and finally +succeeded, their efforts having effected a great change in opinion. +For many years our theological students, though not compelled +thereto, have almost all been pledged abstainers. 1873 saw Conference +appoint a temperance committee "to promote legislation for the more +effectual control of the liquor traffic--and in general for the +suppression of intemperance." In 1879 a scheme was sanctioned for the +formation of Methodist Bands of Hope and Circuit Temperance Unions; +and a special Sunday, the last in November, is devoted to considering +"the appalling extent and dire result" of our national sin, one of +the greatest obstacles to that "spread of scriptural holiness" which +is the aim of the true Wesleyan Methodist, whose chosen Church, with +its manifold organisation, has unequalled facilities for temperance +work. In 1896 the report showed 1,374 temperance societies, with +80,000 members--figures that do not include all the abstainers in +Methodism; some societies have no temperance association, and some +Methodists are connected with other than our own temperance work. The +4,393 Bands of Hope count 433,027 members. + +[Illustration: Children's Home, Bolton.] + +We have already spoken of the growth and development of social +philanthropic work in connexion with the great Methodist missions in +towns; there remains one most important movement in this direction to +notice--the establishment of the "Children's Home," which, begun in +1869 by Dr. Stephenson, received Conference recognition in 1871. It +has now branches in London, Lancashire, Gravesend, Birmingham, and +the Isle of Man, and an emigration depot in Canada. Over 900 girls +and boys are in residence, while more than 2,900 have been sent forth +well equipped for the battle of life; some of them becoming +ministers, local preachers, Sunday-school workers, and in many ways +most useful citizens. The committee of management has the sanction of +Conference. This "powerful arm of Christian work" not only rescues +helpless little ones from degradation and misery; it undertakes the +special training of the workers amongst the children in industrial +homes and orphanages; and hence has arisen the institution in 1895 of +the order of Methodist deaconesses, which is recommended by +Conference to Connexional sympathy and confidence, the deaconesses +rendering to our Church such services as the Sisters of Mercy give to +the Church of Rome. One example may suffice. A London superintendent +minister describes the work of one of the Sisters during the past +twelvemonth as "simply invaluable. She has visited the poor, nursed +the sick, held services in lodging-houses, met Society classes and +Bible-classes, gathered round her a godly band of mission-workers, +and in a hundred ways has promoted the interests of God's work." + +Two events made 1891 memorable for Methodists, the centenary of +Wesley's death and its commemoration being the first. + +The Conference decided that suitable memorial services should be +held, and an appeal made to Methodists everywhere for funds to +improve Wesley's Chapel and the graveyard containing his tomb. +Universal interest was aroused; all branches of Methodism were +represented; the leading ministers of Nonconformist Churches also +shared in the services. Crowded and enthusiastic congregations +assembled in City Road when on Sunday, March 1, the Rev. Charles H. +Kelly, Ex-President, preached on "The Man, his Teaching, and his +Work," and when the Rev. Dr. Moulton delivered the centenary sermon. +On March 2, a statue of Wesley was unveiled--exactly one hundred +years after his death--Dean Farrar and Sir Henry H. Fowler addressing +the meeting. + +[Illustration: Westminster Training College.] + +The Allan Library, the gift of the late Thomas R. Allan, containing +more than 30,000 books and dissertations, was opened by the +President; it has since been enriched by gifts of modern books from +the Fernley Trustees and others, and a circulating library is now +connected with it. Accessible on easy terms to ministers and local +preachers, and within the reach of many others, this library should +be a useful stimulus to the taste for study among ministers and +people. + +The other event of the year was the meeting of the second Oecumenical +Conference in October, at Washington, in the country where Methodism +obtained great triumphs. The Conference lasted twelve days, like its +predecessor; the opening sermon, prepared by the Rev. William Arthur, +was read for him, Mr. Arthur's voice being too weak to be heard; and +the President of the United States gave a reception at the Executive +Mansion, and also visited the Conference. Many topics of deep +interest were discussed on this occasion, and not the least +attractive subject was the statistical report presented. The +difficulty of estimating the actual strength and influence of +Methodism is very great. + +In the present year the membership of the Wesleyan Methodists, for +Great Britain and Ireland, is estimated at 494,287; of other +Methodist bodies in the United Kingdom at 373,700; the affiliated +Conferences of Wesleyan Methodists in France, South Africa, the West +Indies, and Australasia at 212,849, being 1,942 for France, 62,812 +for South Africa, 50,365 for the two West Indian, and 97,730 for the +Australasian Conferences. American Methodism in all its branches, +white and coloured, returns a membership of 5,573,118, while the +united Methodism of Canada shows 272,392, and the foreign missions of +British Wesleyan Methodism 52,058 members. These figures, giving a +total of 6,978,404 members, exclusive of the ministers, estimated at +43,368, are sufficiently gratifying; yet they do not represent the +real strength of the Church at large, and give only a faint idea of +its influence. + +The Oecumenical Report gave the number of Methodist "adherents" as +24,899,421, intending, by the term _adherents_, those whose religious +home is the Methodist chapel, though their visits to it be irregular. +For the British Wesleyans the two millions of sittings were supposed +to represent the number of adherents (yet should all the occasional +worshippers wish to attend at once, it may be doubted if they could +be accommodated); for the other branches of Methodism in the United +Kingdom, four additional persons were reckoned to each member +reported. The statistics for Ireland and Canada were checked by the +census returns. Probably in the case of missions the adherents would +be more than four times the membership. Varying principles were +adopted for the United States, and the adherents reckoned at less +than four times the members reported. Should we to-day treat the +returns of membership on the same principle (Sunday scholars being +now as then included in the term "adherents "), we should find nearly +thirty millions of persons in immediate touch with Methodism and +strongly bound to it. Compare these figures with those of 1837, and +we must exclaim, "What hath God wrought!" + +Estimating the increase of British Methodism, we have to remember +that the population has almost doubled in the sixty years, while +British Wesleyan Methodism has not doubled; but the great losses +occasioned by the agitations must be taken into account, and also the +curious fact that the ratio of increase for Methodism at large, in +the ten years between the two Oecumenical Conferences, was thirty per +cent--twice as great as the increase of population in the countries +represented; the Methodist Church in Ireland actually increasing +thirteen per cent, while the population of the country was +diminishing and the other Protestant Churches reported loss. + +If the increase in Great Britain be proportionally smaller, this need +not cause surprise, in view of that vast development of energy in the +Established Church which is really due to the reflex action of +Methodism itself; that Church, with all the old advantages of wealth +and prestige and connexion with the universities and grammar schools +which she possessed in the days of her comparative supine-ness, with +her clergy roll of 23,000, and her many voluntary workers, having in +twenty-seven years almost doubled the number of her elementary +schools, largely attended by Methodist children. But the indirect +influence of Methodism is such as cannot be represented in our +returns; figures cannot show us the true spiritual status of a +Church. The total cost of the maintenance of our work in all its +branches can be estimated; and so able an authority as the Rev. Dr. +H. J. Pope stated it at from L1,500,000 to L1,750,000 pounds +annually, a sum more than equal to a dividend on fifty millions of +consols; but it is impossible to compute the profit to the human race +from that expenditure and the work it maintains. This may be said +with certainty, that other Churches have been greatly enriched +thereby. We may just refer to that remarkable religious movement, the +Salvation Army, of Methodist origin, though working on new lines; +doing such work, social and evangelistic, as Methodism has chosen for +its own, and absorbing into its ranks many of our own trained +workers. "The Salvationists, taught by Wesley," said the late Bishop +of Durham, "have learned and taught to the Church again the lost +secret of the compulsion of human souls to the Saviour." + +"The Methodists themselves," says John Richard Green, "are the least +result of the Methodist revival"; the creation of "a large and +powerful and active sect," numbering many millions, extending over +both hemispheres, was, says Lecky, but one consequence of that +revival, which exercised "a large influence upon the Established +Church, upon the amount and distribution of the moral forces of the +nation, and even upon its political history"; an influence which +continues, the sons of Methodism taking their due part in local and +imperial government. Eloquent tributes to the work of Wesley are +frequent to-day, the _Times_, in an article on the centenary of his +death, saying: "The Evangelical movement in the Church of England was +the direct result of his influence and example, and since the +movements and ideas which have moulded the Church of England to-day +could have found no fitting soil for their development if they had +not been preceded by the Evangelical movement, it is no paradox to +say that the Church of England to-day is what it is because John +Wesley lived and taught in the last century.... He remains the +greatest, the most potent, the most far-reaching spiritual influence +which Anglo-Saxon Christianity has felt since the days of the +Reformation." So far the _Times_, of him whom it styles "the restorer +of the Church of England." Many impartial writers, some being ardent +friends of the English Church, have also recognised a gracious +overflow from Methodism which has blessed that Church, the +Nonconformist bodies, and the nation at large. If a man would +understand "the religious history of the last hundred years," that +"most important ecclesiastical fact of modern times," the rise and +progress of Methodism, must be studied in relation to the Anglican +and the older Nonconformist Churches, and the general "missionary +interests of Christianity": so we are taught by Dr. Stoughton, who +has traced the influence of Methodism in the general moral condition +of the country and the voluntary institutions of our age. The +doctrines once almost peculiar to Wesley and his followers--such as +entire sanctification--are now accepted and taught by many Churches, +and the religious usages of Methodism are imitated, watchnight +services being held, and revival mission services and prayer-meetings +being conducted, in Anglican churches; while the hymns of Charles +Wesley, sung by all English-speaking Protestants, and translated into +many languages, enrich the devotional life of the Christian world. + +It was a fit tribute to the benefits which the English Church has +derived from the Methodist movement, when the memorial tablet to the +brothers John and Charles Wesley was unveiled in Westminster Abbey by +the late Dean Stanley, in 1872. + +"The bracing breezes," said Dr. Stoughton, "came sweeping down from +the hills of Methodism on Baptist meadows as well as upon Independent +fields." We may give some few instances that will show what blessings +have come to Nonconformist Churches by the agency of Methodism. + +A remarkable incident that occurred in 1872 was recorded in the +_Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_. Dr. Jobson had invited five eminent +ministers to meet the President of Conference at his house. After +breakfast their conversation quite naturally took the form of a +lovefeast, all being familiar with Methodist custom; when Dr. Allon, +Dr. Raleigh, and Dr. Stoughton all said they were converted in +Methodist chapels, and began Christian work as Methodists. Thomas +Binney said that "the direct instrumentality in his conversion was +Wesleyan," and Dr. Fraser was induced to enter the ministry by a +Wesleyan lady. Charles H. Spurgeon was converted through the +instrumentality of a Primitive Methodist local preacher; William Jay +of Bath was converted at a Methodist service; John Angell James +caught fire among the Methodists; and Thomas Raffles was a member of +the Wesleyan Society; Dr. Parker began his ministrations as a +Methodist local preacher; while Dr. Dale has shown the indebtedness +of Nonconformity to Methodism. In France and Germany Methodist agency +has been one of the strongest forces in re-awakening the old +Protestant Churches; the services held by our Connexional evangelists +send many converts to swell the fellowship of Churches not our own. +And the same effects followed the great Methodist revival in America; +out of 1,300 converts, 800 joined the Presbyterian and other +denominations. But while calling attention to the spiritual wealth +and the beneficent overflow of Methodism, we would not be unmindful +of the debt which Methodism owes to other Churches, and in special of +its obligations to those Anglican divines of our day who have +enriched the whole Church of Christ by their scholarly contributions +to sacred literature; and we would ascribe all the praise of +Methodist achievement to the almighty Author of good, whom the spirit +of ostentation and vain glorifying must displease, while it would +surely hinder His work. + +The great desire of Methodism to-day--its great need, as Dr. Handles +expressed it in his presidential address--is "fulness of spiritual +life." If this be attained, the actual resources of the Church will +amply suffice to carry on its glorious future mission; it will not +fail in its primary duties of giving prominence to the spirituality +of religion, of maintaining strict fidelity to scriptural doctrine, +of giving persevering illustration of the fellowship of believers, +nor in upholding the expansion of home and foreign missions, nor in +ceaseless efforts to promote social advancement. "There is no rigid +system of Church mechanism, nor restraining dogma," to hinder +missions. + +[Illustration: Group of Presidents Number Three.] + +At present four-sevenths of the human race are in heathen darkness. +To win the world for Christ demands that Methodists should unite with +all His true soldiers. Wesley said: "We have strong reason to hope +that the work He hath begun He will carry on until the day of the +Lord Jesus; that He will never intermit this blessed work of His +Spirit until He has fulfilled all His promises, until He hath put a +period to sin and misery, infirmity and death, re-established +universal holiness and happiness, and caused all the inhabitants of +the earth to sing, 'Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.'" +If Methodism be faithful to her mission, this prophecy may be +fulfilled. + +When the second temple was built, Haggai exhorted Zerubbabel and +Joshua to be strong, and all the people to be strong, and to work, +for the Lord was with them. Let Methodists be strong in God's +strength, and work with the consciousness that the Lord of hosts is +with them, and they will insure success to the great mission of their +Church. + +We will conclude with the last paragraph of the Rev. Charles H. +Kelly's sermon at the celebration of the centenary of Wesley's death +in 1891. + +"Surely the lesson to the Methodists of to-day is clear enough. Let +us cherish the memory of our forefathers, let us emulate their +spirit, let us cling to their God-given doctrines, let us cultivate, +as they did, communion with the Master and fellowship with each +other. Let us aim to be one, to do our duty. Let us strive to make +our Church a greater power for evangelism among the people of the +earth than ever, let us look to the Holy Spirit for the richer +baptism of grace, and Methodism, so blest of the Lord in the past, +will yet be blest. Her mission is not accomplished, her work is not +done; long may she live and prosper. Peace be within her walls, and +prosperity within her palaces. For my brethren and companions' sake, +the faithful living and the sainted dead, I will now say, Peace be +within her; peace be within her." + + + +CONCLUSION. + +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," + +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;" + +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 of _his_ successors; 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." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT BRITAIN AND HER QUEEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 13103.txt or 13103.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/0/13103 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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