In little groups, or one by one, the mourners went away; Aldwyth and Herrick together, passing down the church path--and onward down the path of life. The tottering duke, leaning on his eldest son, went home to his great, dull mansion; P. C. Dormer returned to night duty in the London streets; Joe the stableman went back to his horses in the mews. All, all the living left the lonely dead. Thus, one day, will you and I be left, alone in our long last sleep. The glow of the sun would wane; darkness would shroud the graves; the pale beams of the moon would rest there, and, in turn, the steely light of winter stars; the strong spring breeze would bend the grass, and the daisies would cluster there; the song of happy birds would come and go; the tender bud of hope, and the red ripeness of the autumn leaf; daybreak and sunset over the hills; summer and winter, seed-time and harvest,--till that great day of ripened grain, when the angels will be the reapers, and the harvest the end of the world. CHAPTER XXXVII THE GREAT THANKSGIVING On the last day of the year there was a national service of thanksgiving in St Paul’s Cathedral. The rushing river of national feeling, at first tumultuous like the sound of many waters, had found a channel, deep and broad. The waters, being deep, were therefore still. It was a joyful and a pleasant, but also a solemn thing to be thankful. Vast numbers came from every quarter to attend the service; the highest and the lowest; the King and the Queen; the civic rulers; the restored judges of the land; the rich and the poor. Here in the vast cathedral church in by-gone years the voice of praise and thanksgiving had been raised on memorable occasions; a thanksgiving for the King when, as heir to the throne of England, he had come back from the very jaws of death; a thanksgiving for the long and prosperous reign of a Queen dear to the hearts of her people; but never before a thanksgiving such as this--so complex and so sudden in its causes, and following so swiftly on the perils from which the nation had been saved. The newly appointed Primate of London--a former Bishop of Stepney--was the preacher; but it was no set sermon that he preached. His Grace gave out no text, but every heart was thrilled by what fell from his lips: “Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro’ future time by power of thought.” He spoke of the patriotism that is sublime, and of the pride that goes before a fall: of “True love turn’d round on fixed poles, Love that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers, and immortal souls.”