PRETORIA AND THE ROYAL FAMILY
During the next few months many events occurred in Pretoria of vital
interest to the whole empire, and especially to the various members of
the Royal Family. To these this seems the fittest place to refer,
though most of them took place during my various return visits to
Pretoria, and are therefore not precisely ranged in due chronologic
order.
[Sidenote: _Suzerainty turned to Sovereignty._]
It was an ever memorable scene I witnessed in the Kirk Square when the
Union Jack was once more formally hoisted in the midst of armed men, a
miscellaneous crowd of cheering civilians, and an important group of
Basuto chiefs who had been specially invited to witness the
ceremonious annexation of the conquered territory and to hear
proclaimed the Royal pleasure that the erstwhile "South African
Republic" should henceforth be known by the new, yet older, title of
"The Transvaal."
So came to an end the Queen's Suzerainty;--an ill-omened term, which
had proved fruitful in all conceivable kinds of misinterpretation, and
made possible the misunderstandings and controversies that culminated
in this cruel and wasteful war. So was resumed the Queen's
Sovereignty, which as subsequent events proved, ought never to have
been renounced; and so too was made plain the way for that ultimate
federation of all South Africa, under one glorious flag, for which
Lord Carnarvon and Sir Bartle Frere long years before had laboured
apparently in vain. This fresh unfurling of that flag was a pledge of
equal liberties alike for Boer and Briton, as well as of fair play to
the natives. It was a guarantee that the Pax Britannica would
henceforth be maintained from the Zambesi to the Cape, and that in
this vast area, well nigh as large as all Europe, there would be
nursed into matureness and majestic strength, a new Anglo-Saxon
nation, essentially Christian, essentially liberty-loving, and
rivalling in wealth, in enterprise and prowess, the ripest promise of
united Canada, and newly federated Australia.
In this Imperial conflict the heroic fashion in which both those
Commonwealths rallied for the defence of our Imperial flag is one of
the most hopeful facts in modern history. "Waterloo," said Wellington,
"did more than any other battle I know of toward the true object of
all battles--the peace of the world." A similar comment both by
victors and vanquished may possibly hereafter be made concerning this
deplorable Boer war. But that can come to pass only provided we as a
united people strive to cherish more fully the spirit embodied in
Kipling's Diamond Jubilee Recessional:
God of our fathers, known of old,--
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,--
Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine,--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!
* * *
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard,--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!--AMEN.
[Sidenote: _Prince Christian Victor._]
To Dr Macgregor the Queen is reported to have said at Balmoral in
November 1900, "My heart bleeds for these terrible losses. The war
lies heavy on my heart." And Lord Wantage assures us that her
Majesty's very last words, spoken only a few weeks later, were "Oh
that peace may come!" Both assertions may well find credence; so
characteristic are they of her whom all men revered and loved. As the
head and representative of the whole empire, every bereavement caused
by the war had in it for her a kind of personal element. But her
sympathies and sufferings were destined to become more than merely
vicarious. As in connection with one of our petty West African wars
she was compelled to mourn the death of Prince Henry of Battenberg, so
in the course of this South African war death again invaded her own
immediate circle. The griefs that hastened her end were strongly
personal as well as representative, and so made her all the more the
true representative of those she ruled.
It was in the early days of that dull November, tidings reached her
and us of the dangerous illness of Prince Christian Victor. Not alone
in name was he Christian; and not alone in name was he Victor. On the
voyage out, in the _Braemar Castle_, through the absence of a
chaplain, the prince conducted divine worship with the troops. One of
our best appointed hospital trains was "The Princess Christian
Victor," so called presumably because provided by the bounty of his
and her princely hands and hearts. He was what Sir Ascelin declared
"The last of the English" to be--"A very perfect knight, beloved and
honoured of all men."
It therefore alarmed both town and camp to learn that enteric, the
deadliest of all a soldier's foes, had claimed him, like so many a
lowlier man, for its prey, and that his life was in mortal peril. At
that time he was a patient in the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital which
consisted of Mr T. W. Beckett's beautiful mansion, and a formidable
array of tents that almost covered the whole of the extensive grounds.
Here prince and private alike reaped the fruit of the lavish
beneficence which provided and maintained this magnificent hospital.
All that wealth could procure was there of skill and tenderness, and
such appliances as the healing art requires. All was there, except the
power to command success. With what seemed startling suddenness the
prince's vital powers collapsed, and the half masting of flags, far
and wide, told to friend and foe the tidings of the Queen's
irreparable loss.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Mr Jones_
Part of I.Y. Hospital in the Grounds Surrounding Mr T. W. Beckett's
Mansion at Pretoria.]
[Sidenote: _A Royal Funeral._]
It was at first proposed that the body of the prince should be taken
to England for interment, and certain companies of the Grenadiers, to
which battalion I was still attached, were detailed for escort duty,
but finally it was decided all fittingly that he should be laid to
rest in the city where he fell, and among the comrades who like him
had laid down life in defence of Queen and duty. So Pretoria witnessed
a stately funeral, the like of which South Africa had never seen
before, as the Queen's own kinsman was borne, by the martial
representatives of the whole empire, to the quiet cemetery which this
war had so enlarged and so enriched.
Disease and fatal woundings combined cost us in this strangely
protracted conflict, scarcely more lives than the one great fight at
Waterloo, where on the English side alone 15,000 fell,--for the most
part to rise no more. In this South African war, up to January 31st,
1901, about 7700 of our men had died of disease; 700 by accidents; and
4300 of wounds. But this Pretoria cemetery like that at Bloemfontein,
where 1500 interments took place in less than fifteen months, affords
striking testimony to the common loyalty of all classes throughout the
empire. Volunteers belonging to the Imperial Light Horse, raised
exclusively in South Africa here lie, side by side, with volunteers
belonging to the Imperial Yeomanry, raised exclusively in England.
Sons of the empire, from Canadian Vancouver and Australian Victoria,
here find a common sepulchre. The soldier prince whose dwelling was in
king's palaces here becomes, as in the conflict of the battlefield so
in the quiet of a hero's grave, a comrade of the private soldier whose
dwelling was a cottage; and be it noted, the death of the lowliest may
involve quite as much of heartbreak as the lordliest.
[Sidenote: _A touching story._]
At the close of a simple military funeral in this same cemetery, the
orderly in charge came to me and said, "I never felt so much over any
case. This grave means four orphans left to the care of an invalid
mother. I knew the man well, and he was always scheming what to do for
his family when he got back: but _this_ is the end of it!" That dead
soldier was merely a private. Not one of his own particular comrades
was present, but only the necessary fatigue party. No flag was flung
over his coffin, no bugle sounded "the last post." No tear was shed.
It was only a commonplace "casualty," one among thousands. But it was
a tragedy all the same. These tragedies in humble life seldom find a
trumpeter; but they are none the less terrible on that account; and if
half the truth were known and realised concerning the horrors and
heartbreak caused by war, all Christendom would clamour for its speedy
superseding by honest Courts of Arbitration.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Mr Jones_
Wesleyan Church and Manse, Pretoria.]
[Sidenote: _The death of the Queen._]
I was still in Pretoria when tidings arrived concerning the illness
and death of the Queen; and was present in that same Kirk Square when
King Edward VII. was proclaimed "Overlord of the Transvaal." In
connection with the former event a memorial service, at which the
military were largely represented, was held in Wesley Church on
Sunday, January 27th. The Rev. Geo. Weavind, as well as Rev. H. W.
Goodwin, took part in the proceedings, and I was privileged to deliver
the following address which may serve to illustrate, once for all, the
type of teaching given to the troops throughout this campaign:--
"I bowed down mourning as one that bewaileth his mother."
--Ps. xxxv. 14 (R.V.).
As there is no relationship on earth so imperishably true and tender
as that between a mother and her children, so also there is no
mourning on earth so real and reverent as that beside a mother's
grave. This saying therefore of the Psalmist describes with exquisite
exactness our common attitude to-day; and voices, as scarcely any
other single sentence could, our profoundest thought and feeling. We
behold at this hour a many peopled empire bowed down mourning; and
almost all other nations sharing in our sorrows; but it is not over
the death of a mere monarch, however mighty, the whole earth thus
feels moved to unfeigned lamentation.
I. _It is the death of the representative_ MOTHER _of our race and age
that bids us wrap our mourning robes around us._ For any record of
such another we ransack in vain the treasure stores of all history.
She is the only mother that ever reigned in her own right over any
potent realm; and certainly over our own. Queen Mary of unhappy
memory, died childless, and her more fortunate sister, "Good Queen
Bess," went down to her grave a maiden queen; but in the case of
Victoria, four sons and five daughters found their earliest cradle in
her queenly arms. She is said to have been in almost all respects as
capable as the ablest of her predecessors, and was even to extreme old
age unsparingly devoted to the discharge of her royal duties. Yet not
by reason of her laboriousness, her linguistic gifts, or gifts of
statesmanship will she be longest and most lovingly remembered. Put
it on record, as her chief glory, that in her own person she honoured
family life and kept it pure, when for generations such pureness had
seldom been suffered to show its face. Her most popular portraits
represent her as the centre of a group of her own children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren--a chain of living royalties
reaching to the fourth generation. It was never so seen in Israel
before; and thus have been linked to the throne of England by potent
blood bonds almost all the Protestant royalties of Europe. The Queen
retained to the last a heart that was young, because to the last she
lived in tenderest relationship to the young. I cannot therefore even
imagine a more beautifully appropriate or suggestive message than that
by which the new King conveyed to the Lord Mayor of London, tidings of
the great Queen's death:--
"My beloved Mother passed peacefully away, at 6.30, _surrounded
by her children and grandchildren_."
In the midst of her children she lived; and all fittingly in the midst
of her children she died!
As her most signal virtues were of the domestic type, so also her
acutest sorrows were domestic. A father's strongly tender love, or
wisely-watchful care, she never knew. In one sad year there was taken
from her her long-widowed mother, and her almost idolized husband,
Albert the Good.
"Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was redeeming human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
... thro' all the tract of years,
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life."
Concerning that great sorrow, the Queen was wont in homely phrase to
say that it made so large a hole in her heart, all other sorrows
dropped lightly through. Nevertheless of other sorrows too she was
called to bear no common share. As you are all well aware, two of the
daughters of our widowed Queen have themselves long been widows. Two
of her sons perished in their ripening prime. Her favourite daughter,
the Princess Alice, and her favourite grandson, the heir-presumptive
to her throne, drooped beside her like flowers untimely touched by
frost; and within the last few weeks we ourselves have seen yet
another of her grandsons laid beneath the sod in this very city of
Pretoria. Nor is it with absolutely unqualified regret we call to mind
that notably sad event. Like many another of lowlier name he died in
the service of his queen--and ours; and perchance the Queen herself
rebelled, not as against an utterly unfitting thing, when thus called
in her own person to share the griefs of those among her own people,
whom recent events have made so desolate.
Reverentially we may venture to say that in all afflictions she was
afflicted, and thus endeared herself to those she ruled as no other
monarch ever did. Because she was Queen of Sorrows she became also
Queen of Hearts.
That of which we have just spoken was indeed her last sore
bereavement; and now that to her who shed such countless tears there
has come the end of all grief, we have therewith witnessed the full
and final prevailings of her Laureate's familiar prayer:--
"May all love
His love unseen, but felt, o'ershadow thee;
The love of all thy sons encompass thee,
The love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
The love of all thy people comfort thee:
_Till God's love set thee at his side again_."
The day she ceased to breathe was to her as a new, a nobler bridal
day. The wife has found her long-lost consort; the mother is at home!
II. Queen Victoria was not merely a model mother in the narrow circle
of her own household. _She was emphatically the mother of her
people_--a people multitudinous as the stars of the midnight sky. One
fourth of the inhabitants of the entire globe gladly submitted to her
gentle sway. The vastest sovereignties of the ancient world were mere
satrapies compared with the length and breadth of her domain, and
to-day east, west, north and south bow down beneath a common sorrow
beside her bier. In synagogue and mosque and temple, in kirk and
church of every class and creed, men render thanks for one "who
wrought her people lasting good," and humbly own before their God that
"A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her, as mother, wife, and queen."
Almost as a matter of course this monarch and mother of many nations
became more and more liberal-minded and large-hearted. For her to have
become a bigot would have been a very miracle of perverseness. She
rejoiced in all true progress in all places, and made the sorrows of
the whole world her own. Famine in the East Indies, or a desolating
hurricane in the West, called forth from her an instant telegram of
queenly sympathy or, it may be, a queenly gift. Every effort for the
betterment of her people awoke her liveliest interest. The east end of
London, only less well than the west, was known to her. From Windsor
to Woolwich she recently went in midwinter, that with her own hand she
might distribute flowers among her wounded soldiers, and with her own
lips speak to them words of solace. At that same inclement season she
crossed the Irish Channel to show her vulnerable face once more among
her Irish people, and I should not marvel if for such a queen some
would even dare to die!
It was ever with the simplicity of a sister of the people rather than
with the symbolic splendours of a sovereign, she went in and out among
us. In the full pomp and pageantry of her high position she seemed to
find no special pleasure. Even on Jubilee Day, when her presence
crowned the superbest procession England ever saw, she looked
immeasurably more like a mighty mother of her martial sons than like a
majestic monarch in the midst of her exulting subjects. Filial love
and filial loyalty that day reached their climax. Till then the best
informed knew not how truly she was the mother of us all!
III. _Her prodigious hold upon the hearts of her people was largely
due to the unexampled length of her reign._
That she ever reigned is one of the many marvels of divine mercy found
in the history of our native land. Note that her father was not the
first, but the fourth son of old King George III.; that the three
elder sons all died childless, and that her own father died within a
few months of her birth. Victoria seems to have been as truly a
special gift of God to England as Samuel was to Israel. This longest
of all reigns was unmarred by any break of any kind from first to
last. Had our princess come to the throne only a few months earlier a
regency must have been proclaimed, and had she lingered a few months
longer increasing infirmities might have forced that same calamity
upon us. But through God's mercy hers was a full orbed reign. There
was no abdication of her power for a single day. The first serious
illness of her life was also her last, and to her it was granted to
cease at once to work and live.
So long ago as September 1852, when her devoted friend and adviser,
the famous Duke of Wellington, died, she pathetically said "I shall
soon stand sadly alone"; then naming one after another of her recent
intimates she added "They are all gone!" That of necessity became
increasingly true in the course of the remaining half century of her
life. Not one among the many friends of her youth remained at her side
amid the deepening shadows of her eventide. Surrounded by new
acquaintances and new kinships a loneliness was hers, which few of us
are ever likely in any similar measure to experience.
Every throne in Europe except her own has witnessed repeated changes
in the course of her strangely eventful career, sometimes as the
result of appalling revolutions ans sometimes as the fruit of a
dastardly assassin's dagger; but amid all He who was Abraham's shield
and exceeding great reward deigned to compass our Queen with songs of
deliverance. Never was any monarch so much prayed for; and that she
may long reign over us is a petition that in special measure has
prevailed. Not three score years and ten, but four score years and
two, have been the days of the years of her life, and now that the
inevitable end has come, no voice of complaining is heard in our
streets. Such a death we commemorate with thankful song!
IV. _The Queen's whole reign was frankly based on the fear of God_;
and to find such in English history I fear we shall have to travel
back a full thousand years to the days of Alfred the Great, who was
also Alfred the Good, and whose favourite saying was
"Come what may come,
God's will be welcome!"
When Victoria was still a girl of fifteen she was solemnly confirmed
in the Chapel Royal, and in her case that impressive service
manifestly meant--what alas, it does not always imply--a life
henceforth wholly given to God.
At two o'clock in the morning of June 21st, 1837, she was roused from
her slumbers in old Kensington Palace, and hastily flinging a shawl
over her nightdress, she presently stood in the presence of the Lord
Chamberlain and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to learn from their lips
that her royal uncle had given up the ghost, and that she, a trembling
maid of just eighteen, was Queen. Thereupon, so we are told, her eyes
filled with tears, her lips quivered, and turning to the Archbishop
she said, "Pray for me!" So that instant all three lowly bowed
imploring heaven's help. The Queen began her reign upon her knees.
Her first act of conscious royalty was thus to render heartfelt homage
to "The Prince of the kings of the earth." Hence came it to pass
"Her court was pure, her life sincere."
Her favourite recreations were consequently not those provided by the
ballroom, the card-table, the racecourse, or even the theatre. Music,
the simple charms of country life, and, manifold ministries of mercy,
were the pastimes that became her best; and she never appeared in the
eyes of her people more truly royal than when seen sitting by the
bedside of a Highland cottager, reading to the sick out of God's own
Gospel the wonderful words of life.
We are here at liberty to use a scriptural phrase and to add that she
"married in the Lord." Royal etiquette required that the Queen should
herself select the lover destined to share the pleasures and
responsibilities of her high position, and her choice fell not on one
renowned for gaiety, for wealth or wit, but on one in whom she
recognised the double gift of abounding good sense and the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ. For a choice so supremely wise, and for a
marriage so supremely happy, all thoughtful Englishmen still render
thanks to God.
Her piety was as broad as it was deep and practical. The head of the
Anglican Church, when in England she worshipped with Anglicans only;
but when in Scotland she no less regularly repaired to the
Presbyterian Kirk, and only a few months ago gave expression to her
warm appreciation of the work done for God and man by "The people
called Methodists." She would tolerate no intolerance in things
pertaining to godliness, and on her Jubilee Day insisted that all
creeds should be invited to join in one common act of worship. For
that reason among others the Queen required that historic service
should be held in the open air, on the steps, it is true, of our
stateliest cathedral; but none the less under God's own arching sky,
which makes the whole earth a temple. We owe not a little of our
religious liberty to the personal influence and example of our much
lamented Queen; and we, therefore, show ourselves worthy to have been
her subjects, only when we shun utterly all indifference concerning
things divine, yet give no place to bigotry; when we seek out not the
worst, but the best, in every man, and honestly strive to make the
best of that best.
V. _With the new century we suddenly find ourselves subjects of a new
Sovereign_, and with equal sincerity, if not with equal fervour, we
say, "God save the King." May his reign also like that of his
predecessor bring blessing to many lands! We crave not for him, and
seek not in him, unexampled greatness. We desire chiefly that he may
"love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly with his God." His rich legacy
of newly-created loyalty he will thus assuredly retain and augment.
It is commonly said that this new century, like the last, has begun
with a notable lack of notable men, but, nevertheless, never yet have
we been left without trusty leaders in the hour of national necessity;
and as it has been so will it be!
"We thank Thee, Lord, when Thou hast need,
The man aye ripens for the deed!"
Yet the new century clamours importunately, not so much for great men,
as for good men. All greatness perishes that is not broad based on
godliness. The best gift for this new era that God Himself can bestow
upon our people, is the grace of deep-toned repentance, an impassioned
love of righteousness, a never flinching resolve to walk in newness of
life; for then will the brightness of even the Victorian era be
splendidly outshone, and heaven itself will hasten to make all things
new. We who believe in Christ have learned to say:--
"Oh Thou bleeding Lamb
The true morality is love of Thee!"
Along that same path of love divine lies also the truest patriotism
and the speediest perfecting of our national life. I pray you,
therefore, let the God of your late Queen be yet more completely your
God; her Saviour your Saviour; and make this Memorial Service doubly
memorable by bowing this moment at His feet,
"In full and glad surrender."
[Sidenote: _The King's Coronation._]
On Saturday, March 22nd, 1902, Schalk Burger, late State-Secretary
Reitz, and General Lucas Meyer are reported to have appeared in
Pretoria, presumably with a view to the submission of those they
represent to the sovereign authority of our new King, whose
approaching Coronation, Pretoria, even while I write, is preparing to
celebrate with unexampled splendour. It is intended to break all
previous festival records, and some of the Guards may only too
probably still be there to share therein. But that is quite another
story, and must find for itself quite another historian. Meanwhile--
"*God send His people peace!*"