A wise and good clergyman, who was also a witty and powerful writer, the Rev. Sydney Smith, preached a sermon in St. Paul’s Cathedral on the Queen’s accession, in which he gave utterance to the hope that she would promote the spread of national education, and would “worship God by loving peace.” “The young Queen,” he said, “at that period of life which is commonly given up to frivolous amusement, sees at once the great principles by which she should be guided, and steps at once into the great duties of her station.” He then spoke again of peace and of education as the two objects towards which a patriot Queen ought most earnestly to strive, and concluded: “And then this youthful monarch, profoundly but wisely religious, disdaining hypocrisy, and far above the childish follies of false piety, casts herself upon God, and seeks from the Gospel of His blessed Son a path for her steps and a comfort for her soul. Here is a picture which warms every English heart and could bring all this congregation upon their bended knees before Almighty God to pray it may be realised. What limits to the glory and happiness of our native land, if the Creator should in His mercy have placed in the heart of this Royal Woman the rudiments of wisdom and mercy; and if giving them time to expand, and to bless our children’s children with her goodness, He should grant to her a long sojourning on earth, and leave her to reign over us till she is well stricken in years! What glory! what happiness! what joy! what bounty of God!” The preacher’s anticipations of a long reign have been fulfilled, and the bright hopes of that seedtime of promise and resolution can now be compared with the harvest of achievement and fulfilment. There is always a great gap between such anticipations and the accomplished fact; but it will be well for us all, high or low, if we are able, when we stand near the end of life and review the past, to feel that we have been equally steadfast to the high resolves of our youth, as the Queen has been to the words, “I will be good,” which she uttered sixty years ago. Footnote 1: Written for the Jubilee, June 1887. VII HARRIET MARTINEAU HARRIET MARTINEAU is one of the most distinguished literary women this century has produced. She is among the few women who have succeeded in the craft of journalism, and one of the still smaller number who succeeded for a time in moulding and shaping the current politics of her day. There are many things in her career which make it a particularly instructive one. Her vivid remembrance of her own childhood gave her a very strong sympathy with the feelings and sufferings of children; all mothers, especially the mothers of uncommonly intellectual children, ought to read, in the early part of Harriet Martineau’s autobiography, her record of her own childhood, and its peculiar sufferings.