EDWARD THE PEACEMAKER.
AND now let our pageant draw to a close with the figure of our present
gracious and genial king. Long may he reign! He has laid his subjects
under a deep debt of gratitude. Every inch a constitutional king, he has
been by no means a mere figurehead of state, but a real and potent
factor in the affairs of his land. His watchword has been Peace, and in
its service he has won notable victories. It has been his great glory to
bring the nations of Europe into closer friendship with this country
than they have ever been before.
Let us present Edward the Peacemaker in a characteristic scene. For two
years seven months and nineteen days the British nation has been engaged
in a desperate struggle with the Boers of the Transvaal Republic and
Orange Free State, and the resources of the British Empire have been
strained to the utmost. Then, one blessed May day, peace is signed at
Pretoria, and with a great sigh of relief the British nation learns that
the war is at an end.
Three of the Boer generals, Botha, De la Key, and De Wet, come to
England to meet the King. They have no knowledge of sovereigns and
courts, and they have no experience to guide them in the presence of
royalty. But their misgivings are speedily dispelled, for as they step
on the deck of the royal yacht, King Edward comes forward to greet them
with an ease and urbanity that is all his own. In simple, homely phrases
he says that he is glad to meet them; he tells them that they have been
brave enemies, and now he hopes they are to be good friends. And the
Boer generals respond no less heartily. They reply that they hope so
too; that they are happy to see him recovered from his illness; that
their people had heard of it with great regret, and are glad to know
that the Lord has given him back his health.
Then they chat frankly and freely with him and the Queen—God bless
her!—and thus he wins the hearts of these simple, brave men, who in the
years to come shall be his loyal subjects, and shall add a new pillar of
strength to the British Empire. As they leave the ship a friend asks,
“And what are you going to tell our people about the King, Oom Koos?” “I
shall tell them this: that I think that if we had sooner known the King,
and the King us, many things might have been different.”
Here is a kingly triumph indeed! We raise our hats as this royal lover
of Peace passes by, and from our grateful hearts send up the prayer:
“GOD SAVE THE KING!”
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.
Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.
Corrections to text: —“. . . Easter Sunday in the year 1491.” was
corrected to 1471 to reflect the actual date of the Earl of Warwick’s
death in battle.
—“In the year 1788” was corrected to 1759 to reflect the year in which
Wolfe sailed for Canada, arriving in Quebec in May that same year.