And here I borrow from one[1] who touches as no other living man can touch these dramatic solemnities of our national life (for I know he will consent to the borrowing), and I say that this is as noble as it is intelligible. "It embodies the splendid liberty with which a free people asserts its claim to have nothing imposed upon it in the dark, no tyrannous rule set over it which it has not measured and considered and acknowledged in the open light of Heaven." And then the whole great company falls to prayer, and the Archbishop, who has hitherto played his part as the first citizen of England and the greatest subject of the Crown, takes up a still higher function, and goes up, vested to the altar and begins the Service of the Eucharist, and, as a priest, invokes the supreme sanction of the Eternal. And then the majestic course of the rite is broken off in the very centre, and, with every act and feature and ceremony which can most forcibly express the solemnity of the transaction, the Archbishop demands of the King, in the face of God and the Church and the people, whether he will promise to rule England in due obedience to law and with sacred regard to Justice, Mercy, and Religion. And the King gives his promise, and, kneeling at the altar, confirms it with an oath upon the Holy Gospel. [1] H. S. Holland, D.D. "This free intercourse that passes between Ruler and Ruled is no child's play, no mere pretty ceremonial; it is the act of men in solemn earnest pledging their troth the one to the other. The act is broad and deep and strong as the national life. It embodies the experience of centuries. It has in it the stern breath of conflict and the anxious determinations of secured peace. The Great Charter is behind it, and the memories of Runnymede and Whitehall. It seals a concentrated purpose. King and people look each other in the face, and speak their minds out and give their word." And then, and not till then, the Archbishop will go forward with his hallowing office and perform the symbolic acts, and pronounce the benediction of the Highest upon the covenant between King and Commonwealth. He anoints with the sacred unction and girds with the kingly sword. He delivers the sceptre of empire and the emblematic orb which, "set under the Cross," reminds the King "that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our Redeemer." And then the crown, of pure gold enriched with gems each one of which is a history, is set upon the Sovereign's head, and the Archbishop blesses and the onlookers acclaim. "Blow, trumpets; all your exultations blow!" as King Edward VII. takes his seat on the throne of the Confessor and the Conqueror, of the Plantagenets and the Tudors, and receives by the mouth of all that is greatest in Church and State the proud homage of a self-governing people.