YOUR MAJESTY, There is a little village in England nestling among wooded
hills. It has sent forth its bravest and best from cottage and farm and
manor-house to fight for truth and liberty and justice. The news of
grievous wounds and still more grievous deaths, of men missing and
captured, comes often to that quiet hamlet, and the roll of honour in
the little grey stone church grows longer and longer. In the big house
on the hill, at sunrise and at sunset, the young Lady of the Manor
stands at the bedside of her little son, and hears him lisp his simple
prayers to God, and they always end like this:--
"And God bless Father and Mother and Nurse, and send Father back
soon from his howwid prison in Germany. And God bless 'specially
the dear King of SPAIN, who found out about Father. Amen."
The kings of the earth have many priceless possessions; they are able to
confer upon each other various glittering orders of merit and
distinction; but we doubt if any one of them has a dearer possession or
a more genuine order of merit than this simple prayer of faith and
gratitude offered at sunrise and at sunset on behalf of Your Majesty by
the bedside of a little English child.
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