E-text prepared by Al Haines
Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral
by the
RIGHT REV. A. F. WINNINGTON INGRAM, D.D.Bishop Suffragan of Stepney,and Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral
LondonWells Gardner, Darton & Co.3, Paternoster Buildings, E C1901.
The After-glow of a Great Reign.
"Behold, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts."—Psalm li. 6.
We stand to-day like men who have just watched a great sunset. On somebeautiful summer evening we must all of us have watched a sunset, andwe know how, first of all, we see the great orb slowly decline towardsthe horizon; then comes the sense of coming loss; then it sets amid ablaze of glory, and then it is buried, buried for ever so far as thatday is concerned, to reappear as the leader of a new dawn. In exactlythe same way have we for years been watching with loving interest thedeclining years of our Queen, years that declined so slowly towards thehorizon that we almost persuaded ourselves we should have her with usfor ever. Then came, but a few weeks ago, a sudden sense of comingloss, then her sun set in a blaze of glory, and yesterday she wasburied, buried from our sight, to reappear, as we believe, as a brightparticular star in another world. We do not grudge her her rest. Fewwords can express more beautifully the thoughts of thousands than thesewords just put into my hand—
"Leave her in peace, her time is fully come,
Her empire's crown
All day she bore, nor asked to lay it down,
Now God has called her home.
Let sights and sounds of earth be all forgot,
Her cares and tears
She hath endured thro' her allotted years,
Now they can touch her not.
From that fierce light which beats upon a throne
Now has she passed
Into God's stillness, cool and deep and vast,
Let Heaven for earth atone.
All gifts but one He gave, but kept the best
Till now in store;
Now He doth add to all He gave before
His perfect gift of rest." [1]
But, just as in the sunset a beautiful and tender after-glow remainslong after the sun has set, so we are gathered to-day in the tenderafter-glow. And I propose that we should try and gather up one byone—to learn ourselves and to tell our children, and the generationsyet unborn, as some explanation of the marvellous influence which sheexercised—some of the qualities of the Queen whom we have lost.
And let us first fix our minds upon something which at first sightseems so simple, but yet seems to have struck every generation ofstatesmen as a thing almost supernatural—and that is her marvelloustruthfulness. Said a great statesman, "She is the most perfectlytruthful being I have ever met." "Perfect sincerity" is thedescription of another. Now what that must have meant to England, forgeneration after generation of statesmen to have had at the centre ofthe empire a truthful person, a person who never used intrigue, whonever was plotting or planning, or working behind the backs of thosewho were responsible to advise her—to h