Anne E. Keeling

“ 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. ”

“ And now Aunt Golding, who loved Harry, and never could endure to have him crossed, began to laugh outright.
'I will own,' she said, 'I thought you very unmerciful to your good son, Mr. Truelocke, while you continued to run him down so shamefully; but now I see you took the right way to advance his cause. It's wonderful what a spice of contradiction will do with a woman! Lucy, you would never have made this bold, open confession without some such provocation'—words which abashed me much, for they were true. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am sent before, dear love, to tell you your sister is coming, and not coming alone.'
'Who is coming with her? any one beside Will? have you come to say she hath found Andrew? has she indeed?' I cried.
'Ay,' said Harry, 'he is found; but I fear we may lose him again. Have you here a place, Lucy, here a dying man may lie softly and easily, the little time he has left? If not, make one ready quickly—but no stairs for him, remember. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I know nothing of these people and their doctrines.'
'You see their doings,' said Althea indignantly; 'that should be enough. Mr. Truelocke, Lucia and I were bred up true Churchwomen, and so I will continue to my dying day. I love not all these sects that spring up like weeds in the ruined places of the Church; I am for those who are building up her walls again, and making them stronger.'
'And is this your mind too, Mistress Lucia?' says Harry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But I could feel nothing save joy and gratitude, more especially when I thought of the heavy and dreadful summer that lay behind me; and I was possessed with a great longing to see my father Truelocke once more. Harry had got word conveyed to him of his safety, and of our approaching journey; and sure I am his thoughts flew to meet our thoughts on the way, as we drew nearer and nearer. But I want words to express the tenderness of our meeting together, when at last my Harry and I beheld that venerable face again. There are some joys that cannot be told. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Althea had given earnest heed to this tale, and now she asked, 'And what says Master Andrew to such wild talk? I suppose he will use the poor deluded wretch gently and kindly, that's his nature; but sure he will scorn his ravings?'
'I cannot tell what Andrew may think in his heart,' says Harry moodily; 'but he uses the man as if he thought him a saint or a martyr, or both. I wish harm may not come of this day's doings;' and he fell into a gloomy silence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Truelocke spoke with a voice that rang like a trumpet, and said,—
'Do the man no harm; for shame, my brethren! Did not I tell him he had liberty to speak? Make me not a liar by your violence!' and then I saw several men, Andrew and Harry being foremost, raising up the stranger, for he had been felled to his knees pushing off those who were striking him, and leading him forth of the church. ”

“ 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." ”

“ I climbed through the window which I found open, and ran to the spot where I could discern that a struggle was going on; but as I came up Andrew had got himself loosed; and, saying low and thickly to me,—
'Look to your sister, take her in instantly,' he turned and fled as a man might flee for his life, while Althea threw herself on the cold ground, moaning and sobbing like a creature mortally hurt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we shall find it not amiss to keep our dwellings cleaner and sweeter here in England; with faith and courage and cleanliness, we might defy the foul fiend Pestilence. You shall not find that it makes so great ravages, even among the Dutch.' With that he bit his lip, as though a secret had escaped him; however no one but myself noted him; and the others now began to talk more freely; and Mrs. Giles from time to time bestirred herself about nourishment for Andrew, which Harry had been careful to provide; he said a man so nigh dead of hunger must have food often, but in small quantities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now and then we heard news of the war: first there was talk of a great victory at sea over the Dutch, won the third day of June, at which the Court and City were rejoicing mightily, half forgetting their home perils; then came contrary news, how this victory was no victory, but rather a disgrace to us, and that our ships were shamefully commanded, which I believe was the truer tale; so my thoughts flew at once to my Harry and his father. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And thou hast seen, dear heart, how I have grieved over my Andrew—my heart's child, the comfort of my old age; I have thought he was clean gone out of the right way, for all his sincerity. It has been shown me in my sleep, that I had no need thus to grieve. His rashness may bring him sharp trials, but even through those shall he enter in. The light that leads him is the true Light. And though he and his fellows are but erring men,—like all others,—yet even their trivial errors shall have their use ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then Althea wiped her eyes, and said, with a trembling voice,—
'I cannot think, however, why our cousin should make so strange a proffer to me—one so unfitting for a well-taught maiden to accept.'
'He made it that you might refuse it, child,' said our aunt. 'Now he can truly say he was willing to do somewhat for you, and that you would none of it, but thought scorn of his goodwill. It hath ever been his way to get much credit for little goodness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The man, looking compassionately at her, now came up to us and said, 'Nay, my words are too true, madam. Have you any interest in this Mr. Dacre?'
'I am his cousin,' said Althea, 'and I am come up from the North on great occasion, to see my kinsman and claim his help.'
'Alas!' said the gentleman; 'he is past rendering help to any. It was mightily suspected,' said he whisperingly, 'that he died of the Plague; but your great rich folks can smother these matters up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After this my only care was to find a ship to bring me home; of which I was almost in despair, when the good Maret came to my rescue, which he effected with great skill and boldness. Nor do I know how I could have got you clear of London, but for his readiness to help me once again.'
This was Harry's history, which he made very dry and short; for he hates to dwell on his own doings or sufferings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Golding, sighing heavily, 'we will pray you may have illumination from above. I cannot tell how we shall do, bereft of our father in Christ. But I dare not urge any man against his conscience. And now am I ashamed that you have been so long within my doors and I have yet set nothing before you. Lucy, Althea, come help me;' and she bustled about, and presently with our help had set a dish of strawberries and cream, with nuts and cakes and wine, before our guests. Mr. Truelocke ate but little, which grieved my aunt; and he would drink nothing but spring water. But Harry was gay enough for two. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Golding. 'What sayest, Althea? Wilt be parted from thy sister that thou mayest have the honour of keeping house for so liberal a kinsman and master? or wilt go with Lucy and me to my farm, at West Fazeby, where you two shall be to me as daughters? for I am a childless widow, and will gladly cherish you young things. The choice lies before you, Althea.'
Althea was now red as any rose; and the tears' that had been in her eyes seemed turned to sparks of fire. She rose from the table and made a deep curtsey to Mr. Dacre. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This brutal usage dismayed me; but Althea said, 'Poor wretch! he is half crazed with fear; that makes mean men cruel; care not for him;' and when we were ready, giving our packages to Will, she led the way out with a determined aspect, having, as I soon found, embraced a strange—nay, a desperate resolution. For Will asking her, 'Which way will ye turn now, mistress? In this street no inn will open to us, for sure;' she replied,—
'We will not seek any inn; we will betake ourselves to our cousin's empty house.'
'You mean not Mr. Dacre's?' I cried. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This was nearly all I heard about that long conference of theirs; for after some more lamentations over its ill result, which, Harry whispered me, they might have expected, Mr. Truelocke departed with his son, and Aunt Golding remained so troubled that I did not like to question her about what had passed. But all the more was I curious to know what the man's doctrine was; and on the first fair occasion I found, I began to ask Andrew to describe it to me. Poor youth! ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”