Out of all these changing developments has come a military position in which the Sovereign no longer leads his forces in war but in which he commands a sentiment of loyalty as hearty, in the breasts of the Colonial soldiers ten thousand miles away from his home at Windsor, as ever did the personal presence of an Edward I., or a Richard the Lion-Hearted. Out of them has come a religious position in which the Sovereign is head of a particular Church and yet, as such, gives no serious offence to masses of his subjects who belong to other faiths and who receive through his Governments around the world absolute freedom of religious worship--almost as a matter of course. Out of the constitutional evolution has come the adaptation of the Monarchy to not only new conditions but to countries separated by oceans and continents from the mother-state, and the evolution of a system which combines 420,000,000 people under one Crown and one flag. In August, 1884, the _Times_ spoke of a correspondent amongst the Khirgese of Central Asia who stated that the people of that region had not the remotest idea of where or what England was--but they had heard of Queen Victoria; and a few years later Mr. Henry Labouchere, the inconsistent and bitter Radical, told the _Forum_ of New York that "were a Parliamentary candidate to address an electoral meeting on the advantages of a republic he would be deemed a tilter at a windmill." Such is a summary of the history and position of the British Monarchy. A thousand years ago it combined the seven little Kingdoms of England into one; to-day it combines the Kingdoms and Dominions and Commonwealths and Islands of a quarter of the earth's surface into one. The power of the Crown was once chiefly employed in making war and compelling peace by force of arms and military skill; to-day it is largely utilized in promoting peace and controlling diplomacy. The position of the Monarch was once that of the head of a class, or the leader of some distinct manifestation of public feeling, or the military chief of a great faction; to-day it is that of embodying the power of a united people, giving dignified interpretation to the policy of a nation, and serving as the symbol of unity to the masses of population in an extended empire.