How many times in the history of the world has it been proved that Governments are paralyzed in a great national crisis, and powerless to avert a great national disaster! How often have the men composing the governing body lost their heads in emergency, and thrown aside their responsibilities in desperate dismay at the suddenly rising tide of difficulties, many of which they had not foreseen! But the Queen’s heart was true; her trust in God never faltered,--and her woman’s hand, so small and delicate, held all things in the clasp of a fearless love and faith such as we are told can remove mountains. One may say of her that she taught all her fellow sovereigns the dignity of sovereignty. There was no German Empire when she first came to the throne. There was no free or united Italy. England’s chief foes were France and Russia,--and may it not be said that they are her foes still? Yet in Russia the personal influence of our late beloved Monarch has been of weight, apart altogether from the ties of blood which unite her family with that of the Tsar. Her personal word,--the benign action of her quiet personal authority--these have smoothed over many animosities which might otherwise have become subjects of hot international dispute. The woman’s word and the woman’s touch are marvellous in their working for good if the woman herself be pure and true! When Bismarck, known as “the man of blood and iron,” called the Queen “the greatest Statesman in Europe” his remark was neither a flattery nor an exaggeration. It was strictly correct. The Queen possessed the two supreme gifts with which God endows unspoilt women, Instinct and Tact. While men with heavy logic and contentious disputes wearily argued pros and cons of various deep questions, the Queen, bringing her quick brain to bear on the subject in hand, easily sprang to a straight issue, and by a word here, a gentle suggestion there, skilfully guided slower perceptions and duller wits out of darkness into light. Her loss means much more than is at present apparent to Europe. The very fact of her sex commanded reverence and respect; a woman’s prayer has often proved more potent than a man’s command! Strange, beautiful and pathetic is the picture given to our thoughts of the dead Majesty of England,--white and still, lying in her snowy death-robes with the first snowdrops of the year and lilies around her, and the golden Cross shining above her,--that emblem of the Christian Faith which, in its simplest form, the Queen followed fervently without any faltering doubt or fear. The words of one of her favourite hymns were the daily echo of her own heart’s trust in the Divine,-- “Thy way, not mine, O Lord, However dark it be; Lead me by Thine own Hand, Choose out the path for me. * * * * * “Not mine, not mine the choice In things or great or small; Be thou my Guide, my Strength, My Wisdom and my All.”