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I believe I shall be borne out in the assertion by those who are best read in the history of our country, that at no period did ever any event happen, which caused such universal regret, or which, under all its oppressive circumstances, was pregnant with such important results. Without entering, however, into calculations, which fall more within the department of the Statesman, than within the province of the Minister of religion, it may be fit only to observe, that the personal character, and the domestic virtues of the amiable and beloved object of our regard, seemed to justify that universal feeling of regret, which has been experienced from one end of the country to the other, as well in the palace of the prince, as in the habitation of the subject. I have always thought, that, constituted as the British empire is, both from the nature of its situation, and the form of its government, it is a great blessing to our country, when the character of the individual to whom the sovereign authority is delegated, possesses those virtues, which grace, embellish, and dignify domestic life. Had such been the will of God, that individual, whose death we now deplore, would, in the course of time, as the presumptive heir of the throne, have been invested with the first authority of the state; and, how well the laws would have been administered, and the rule of authority been attempered with the exercise of mercy, let the numerous virtues of domestic life which shone out so conspicuously, and gave to the nation the fondest and brightest hopes of future glory and prosperity under her mild and maternal sway, attest. In this, we cannot but trace a faithful likeness between the conduct of our beloved Princess and that of our good and afflicted King, after whose virtues she seems to have successfully copied; and there can be no doubt, had it been the dispensation of God to have lengthened out her days, that, while she inherited the virtues of her grandsire, she would have received the same tokens of loyalty and affection with which we now even exult at the name, and nail the remembrance of our beloved and venerable Sovereign. Apart from other considerations which, at this

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time, press upon the mind, and weigh down the spirits of all of us, we cannot but consider, that this calamitous stroke of Almighty God has broken up one of the most delightful scenes of domestic felicity which ever graced a public station, or was witnessed in private life.

"But it was not to the private circle, or the domestic hearth only, that the virtues of the much-loved Princess were confined. A character which furnished a pattern of all that was good and lovely to look upon in the endearing relation of a wife, tenderly and devotedly attached to the illustrious and amiable object of her own choice and affections, was complete in other parts. It has been tried in the balance, and found nothing wanting. It is in my own power to relate, that, acting from the best and most exalted motives, she felt for the woes and wretchedness of the distressed; and wherever a wellauthenticated case of human suffering was submitted to her, the ear was as open to hear as the heart was ready to relieve it. And were there no impropriety in it, I might mention, that on one occasion, an application was made by myself to this feeling and inestimable Princess, in behalf of a fellow-creature, upon whom one of the heaviest afflictions had fallen; and nothing could equal or exceed the sweetness and affability with which my representation was heard, and the grace and kindness with which my petition was granted! And this, I have reason to believe, was one only of many instances in which her uncommon benevolence of heart was displayed. It is right that, where one case even can be substantiated, it should be mentioned, though it may tend, in one sense, to imbitter our regrets, and make us all exclaim, under the deep and melancholy impression thereof, "Oh! Englaud! how incalculably great is thy loss!" But it should be recorded, and I have done it with inexpressible pleasure, because, while it is but due to the dead, it is satisfactory to the living, who are, happily, enthusiastic in her praises, and cherish with the most reverential feelings, the recollection of her virtues

Sermon of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, of Glasgow.

ISAIAH, chap. xxvi. v. 9.

"For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."

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NOW let me apply this remark to the mutual state of sentiment which obtains between the different orders of the community. Amongst the rich, there is apt at times to rankle an injurious and unworthy impression of the poor-and just because these poor stand at a distance from them--just because they come not into contact with that which would draw them out in courteousness to their persons, and in benevolent attentions to their families. Amongst the poor, on the other hand, there is often a disdainful suspicion of the wealthy, as if they were actuated by a proud indifference to them and to their concerns; and as if they were placed away from them at so distant and lofty an elevation as not to require the exercise of any of those cordialities, which are ever sure to spring in the bosom of man to man, when they come to know each other, and to have the actual sight of each other. But, let any accident place an individual of the higher before the eyes of the lower order, on the ground of their common humanity-let the latter be made to see that the former are akin to themselves in all the sufferings and in all the sensibilities of our common inheritance-let, for example, the greatest chieftain of the territory die, and the report of his weeping children, or of his distracted widow, be sent through the neighbourhood— or, let an infant of his family be in suffering, and the mothers of the humble vicinity be run to for counsel and assistance-or, in any other way, let the rich, instead of being viewed by their inferiors through the dim and distant medium of that fancied interval which separates the ranks of society, be seen as heirs of the same frailty, and as dependent on the same sympathies with themselves-and, at that moment, all the floodgates of honest sympathy will be opened-and the lowest ser

vants of the establishment will join in the cry of distress which has come upon their family--and the neighbouring cottagers, to share in their grief, have only to recognise them as the partakers of one nature, and to perceive an assimilation of feelings and of circumstances between them.

"Now if, through an accidental opening, the public should be favoured with a domestic exhibition-if, by some overpowering visitation of Providence upon an illustrious family, the members of it should come to be recognised as the partakers of one common humanity with ourselves-if, instead of beholding them in their gorgeousness as princes, we look to them in the natural evolution of their sensibilities as menif the stately palace should be turned into a house of mourningin one word, if death should do what he has already done,— he has met the Princess of England in the prime and promise of her days, and as she was moving onward on her march to a hereditary throne, he has laid her at his feet! Ah! my brethren, when the imagination dwells on that bed where the remains of departed youth and departed infancy are lyingwhen, instead of crowns and canopies of grandeur, it looks to the forlorn husband, and the weeping father, and the human feelings which agitate their bosom, and the human tears which flow down their cheeks, and all such symptoms of deep affliction as bespeak the workings of suffering and dejected nature-what ought to be, and what actually is, the feeling of the country at so sad an exhibition? It is just the feeling of the domestics and the labourers at Claremont. All is soft and tender as womanhood. Nor is there a peasant in our land, who is not touched to the very heart when he thinks of the unhappy stranger who is now spending his days in grief and his nights in sleeplessness-as he mourns alone in his darkened chamber, and refuses to be comforted-as he turns in vain for rest to his troubled feelings, and cannot find it— as he gazes on the memorials of an affection that blessed the brightest, happiest, shortest year of his existence-as he looks back on the endearments of the bygone months, and the

thought that they have for ever fleeted away from him, turns all to agony as he looks forward on the blighted prospect of this world's pilgrimage, and feels that all which bound him to existence, is now torn irretrievably away from him! There is not a British heart that does not feel to this interesting visitor, all the force and all the tenderness of a most affecting relationship; and, go where he may, will he ever be recognised and cherished as a much-loved member of the British family.

Would it not have been most desirable could the whole population of the city have been admitted to join in the solemn services of the day? Do you not think that they are precisely such services as would have spread a loyal and patriotic influence amongst them? Is it not experimentally the case, that, over the untimely grave of our fair Princess, the meanest of the people would have shed as warm and plentiful a tribute of honest sensibility as the most refined and delicate amongst us? And, I ask, is it not unfortunate, that, on the day of such an affecting, and, if I may so style it, such a national exercise, there should not have been twenty more churches with twenty more ministers to have contained the whole crowd of eager and interested listeners? A man of mere loyalty, without one other accomplishment, will, I am sure, participate in a regret so natural; but couple this regret with the principle, that the only way in which the loyalty of the people can effectually be maintained, is on the basis of their Christianity, and then the regret in question embraces an object still more general-and well were it for us, if, amid the insecurity of families, and the various fluctuations of fortune and of arrangement that are taking place in the highest walks of society, the country were led, by the judgment with which it has now been visited, to deepen the foundation of all its order and of all its interests, in the moral education of its people. Then, indeed, the text would have its literal fulfilment. When the judgments of God are in the earth, the rulers of the world would lead the inhabitants thereof to learn righteousness.

In our own city, much in this respect remains to be accom

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