income of the Church Missionary Society was £71,000. It is now
(d) In the next place, we ought to be thankful for the extraordinary advances which science has made during the half century of our gracious Sovereign's reign. We have bridged the Atlantic with our steamers, and brought our English-speaking cousins within a week of our shores -- a thing which I well remember Dr. Lardner declared to be impossible. We have covered the land with a network of railways, making journeys possible in a few hours, which formerly occupied days. We have opened communication with every part of the world by electric telegraph, and can send messages in a few hours, which formerly would not have been conveyed in as many months.
All these things, and many others, have budded, blossomed, and bloomed since Queen Victoria ascended her throne. They have added immensely to the comfort and convenience of modern life. They have practically annihilated time and space, and lengthened life, and enabled us to do an amount of work in twenty-four hours, which our grandfathers would have thought Quixotical, romantic, absurd, and impossible. But they are simple facts. Surely we ought to be thankful-
(e) Finally, and above all, we ought to be most thankful for the immense advance which the cause of religion, education, and morality has made throughout the realm since Queen Victoria came to the throne. Human nature, no doubt, is not changed. The millennium has not begun, and much evil abounds. But still, that man must be blind or obstinately prejudiced, who does not see an immense change for the better, both as regards duty to God and duty to our neighbours throughout the country, in the last half century. Church building, no doubt, is not everything, and bricks and mortar do not constitute religion. Yet the mere fact that 2000 new churches, besides Nonconformist chapels, have been built in England and Wales during the last fifty years, by voluntary efforts, and nearly thirty millions of money have been spent in restoring old places of worship and building new ones, speaks volumes. Even here in Liverpool and its suburbs, there were only 36 churches and about 70 clergymen in 1837. At this moment there are 90 churches and 185 clergy in 1837, the income of the Church Missionary Society was £71,000. It is now £232,000. The Pastoral Aid Society only received £7363. It now receives £50,122. -- In 1837, there were only 58,000 children receiving education
in all the schools of the National and British and Foreign School Societies throughout England and Wales. In 1885, there were nearly 4,000,000 under instruction and inspection. It is a striking fact that during the half century of Queen Victoria's reign, her Governments have spent fifty millions on education.
As to works of philanthropy and efforts to promote morality, time would fail me if I tried to recount them. The labours of men like Lord Shaftesbury and others have raised the condition of the working classes cent. per cent. The Ten Hours Factory Act, the legislation about women and children working in mines, the creation of ragged schools and reformatories, the rise and progress of the temperance movement, the many efforts to ameliorate the condition of the working classes by education, sanitation, public parks, and recreation grounds, hall these things have been the creation of the last fifty years. I call them healthy symptoms of our condition as a nation. I humbly confess that we are still very imperfect. There is still a vast amount of improvidence, wilful poverty, drunkenness, impurity, and Sabbath-breaking in the land which is greatly to be regretted. But these evils are less than they were in proportion to the population. And, at any rate, we see them, know them, and are honestly using means to prevent them. Surely our hearts, when we compare 1837 and 1887, ought to be deeply thankful.
On a day" like this it is meet, right, and our bounden duty to praise God. Let me earnestly entreat all whom I address to-day to turn from the black clouds in his horizon, to look at the blue sky, and to be thankful. Where is the nation on the face of the globe which has had such reason to thank God for the last half century as Great Britain? And who can deny that, in reckoning up the many blessings of that period, we have reason to thank God for the wise and beneficent reign of our Queen? There are names in the long roll of English kings which no Englishman can think of without shame. The memory of a Royal William, or Henry, or Edward, or James, or Charles, or George, is by no means always fragrant. But I doubt if the future historian will ever record the name of a monarch whose subjects will have had such cause to be thankful as we have for Queen Victoria.
And now to these praises and thanksgivings let us add an earnest prayer that the life of our beloved Sovereign may yet be spared to us for many
years, and that these years may be years of increasing happiness and usefulness to the end. We all know that she has had many sorrowful times to pass through. The deaths of the Prince Consort, the Princess Alice, and the Duke of Albany, were crushing trials which will never be forgotten. Let us pray that she may he spared further trials of this kind, that she may long continue to live in the affections of a prosperous, united, and contented people, and that when she is removed from this world of sorrow, she may enter with an abundant entrance into that kingdom where tears are wiped from all eyes, and receive that crown of glory which alone never fades away.
THE END Footnotes:
[32] For the figures in this paragraph I am chiefly indebted to my friend Sir James Picton, of Liverpool, a well-known master of statistics.
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