The marriage was to take place at noon, not in the evening, like former royal weddings, and the change was a great boon to the London public. During the busy morning, Prince Albert found time for a small act, which was nevertheless full of manly reverence for age and weakness, of mindful, affectionate gratitude for old and tender cares which had often made his childhood and youth happy. He wrote a few lines to the loving, venerable kinswoman who had performed the part of second mother to him, who had grieved so sorely over their parting. "In less than three hours I shall stand before the altar with my dear bride. In these solemn moments I must once more ask your blessing, which I am well assured I shall receive, and which will be my safeguard and my future joy. I must end. God help me (or, rather, God be my stay!), your faithful Grandson." The Prince wrote a similar letter, showing how faithfully he recollected her on the crowning day of his life, to his good stepmother, the Duchess of Coburg. Among the innumerable discussions on the merits or demerits of the Prince when he was first proposed as the husband for the Queen of England, there had not been wanting in a country where religion is generally granted to be a vital question, and where religious feuds, like other feuds, rage high, sundry probings as to the Prince's Christianity--what form he held, whether he might not be a Roman Catholic, whether he were a Christian at all, and might not rather be an infidel? Seeing that the Prince belonged to a Christian and to one of the most Protestant royal families in Europe, that he had been regularly trained in Christian and Lutheran doctrines, and had made a public profession of his belief in the same--a profession which his practice had in no way contradicted--these suppositions were, to say the least, uncalled for, and not remarkable for liberality or charity. It is easy to answer them substantially. The Prince, reserving his Protestant right of private judgment on all points of his belief, was a deeply religious man, as indicated throughout his career, at every stage, in every event of his life. It is hardly possible even for an irreligious man to conceive that Prince Albert could have been what he was without faith and discipline. His biographer has with reason quoted the "God be my stay!" in the light of the sincerity of the man, in a letter written in the flush of his joy and the very fruition of his desires, as one of the innumerable proofs that the Prince lived consciously and constantly under the all-seeing eye of an Almighty Father.