"When you were a little babe, my dear," said Cicely, "I remember, if you were frighted at aught, you used to make-believe to throw your bits of arms about my neck, and cling close to me; but after all, it warn't your clinging as kept you from falling, but me holding of you. We are all as babes in the Lord's arms, my clear. 'Tis well, surely, for us to keep clinging to Him; but, after all, it ben't that as holds us--'tis His keeping of us. It ben't always when we are looking at Him that He is closest to us. He may be nearest when we can't see Him; and I'm sure of one thing, child,--if the Good Shepherd didn't go a-seeking after the lost sheep, the lost sheep would never turn of itself and come home to the Good Shepherd;--it would only go farther and farther in the great wilderness, until it was wholly lost. 'He calleth His own sheep by name'--ben't that it?--'and leadeth them out.'[11] Deary me! what was we a-talking about? It seems so natural like to get round to Him." Celia smiled sadly as Philip's remark occurred to her--"There you come round to your divinity!" For eleven years longer George Louis of Hanover sat on the throne of England. Every year he sank lower and lower in the estimation of his subjects. When he first landed, in 1714, in tones more deep than loud, England had demanded her Queen, and had no answer. Now, through these thirteen years, she had seen her King, chosen out of all the Princes of Europe, living apart from every member of his family, and keeping up a Court which only the complete demoralization of her nobles made them not ashamed to visit. And though very dimly and uncertainly, yet reports did reach England of a guarded prison in Hanover, and of a chapel in it where, every Communion Sabbath, a white-robed prisoner knelt down before the holy table, and, laying her hand upon it, solemnly protested in the presence of God that she had done no wrong deserving of that penalty. And England began to wonder if she had spoken well in summoning to her helm the husband and gaoler of this woful, white-robed captive. If the grand question of Protestantism had not been at stake--if she could have retained that and yet have had back her old line--the throne of George Louis would have trembled and fallen under him. Not "The Fifteen," nor "The Forty-five," brought so near a second Restoration as the evil and miserable life of that crowned sinner from Hanover. So early as 1716, George had persuaded Parliament to repeal that clause of the Act of Settlement which made obligatory the perpetual residence of the Sovereign: and no sooner had the clerk[12] said _Le Roy le veut_ to the repeal, than George set out for Hanover, with extreme delight at his release. After that, he spent as little time in England as was possible.