And now the carriage halts, and the old archbishop offers simple and fervent thanks to Almighty God for the signal mercies vouchsafed through such long years to Victoria and her people. Then, as a climax, the whole concourse bursts into the strains of “God save the Queen.” Never has the National Anthem been so heartily sung, never before has it been so little of a demonstration and so much of a prayer. There is no lip-service here: Victoria’s throne is in the hearts of her people; she is theirs, and they are hers. Look at this little, old lady, whom all men, from duke to crossing-sweeper, are to-day hailing as their pride and joy. Look at her, and strive to realize the splendour of the great office which she has filled so long and so worthily. She is the sovereign lady of a dominion so wide in extent and so rich in resources that nothing like it has ever been seen before in the history of the world. Glance at the colonial procession which is even now wending its way through the streets, and you will marvel at the world-wide character of her sway. Here you see men of British race, dwellers in the most distant parts of the earth, all come from afar to grace their queen’s pageant, and all bearing themselves proudly in the eyes of their kinsfolk “at home.” Here, too, you see numerous foreign subjects of the queen, men of almost every variety of colour, creed, and language, equally proud to do her honour, equally ready to praise her beneficent sway. It is almost impossible for the aged monarch on this red-letter day of her life not to reflect on the wonderful changes which have transformed the world since that June morning sixty years ago when they waked her out of sleep and told her that she was queen. The vast Empire, for example, which has been so vividly brought before the minds of the British people to-day is very largely the creation of her reign. In extent it has nearly doubled itself since she came to the throne, and now covers almost one-fifth of the globe. In 1837 the colonial population was under 4,000,000. Now, excluding India, more than 18,000,000 of colonists are subject to her. India under her sway has doubled its native population, and to-day one-fifth of all the people on earth acknowledge her as their sovereign.