SOME GOOD, WHITE, THOUGHT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1160, 22 June 1911, Page 15

SOME GOOD, WHITE, THOUGHT.

THE MAJESTY 01' THIS DAY. [By Imogen.] George the L-'ifth, by the Grace of God, if the United Kingdoiji of Great Britain nul Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the seas, King, Defender of -lie Faith, Emperor of India, are all great words with a still greater meaning. Again, is upon his accession, they will be spoken, but amidst a pomp indescribable. All the pageantry, tho glory, tho might of the British Empire, temporal and spiritual, ft'ill be made visible and, from tho furIhermost principalities of tho world, kings and potentates will bo present to do honour to the crowning of King George the Fifth and Quecu Mary. The ceremonial prescribed for tho Coronation has been preserved almost intact', through religious reform and political revolutions for centuries. From the days of Harold, son of Godwin, who was crowned in Westminster Abbey by Aldred, Archbishop of York, in 1066. down to the present, nearly every British Sovereign " 1 has been crowned within the .Abbey, al- — most with the same ritual. n™ There can be no greater illustration of the conservatism of the British nation than in the matter of the Coronation service, faithfully adhered to through nil the centuries since then. Time may have modified a few of tho observances, such j as, for instance, that of the prostration J of the King before the altar on his arrival at the Abbey—a custom that can now be traced in the spreading of ensh-. ions and carpets before the first oblation and on which the King now kneels—but — still, only in a few instances have they been changed. From what long ages some of the rites have descended can be imagined when the justification of the ceremony of the presentation by the King, of an altar-cloth of clot'h-of-gold, and an ingot of gold, of a pound in weight, to tho Primate, who receives it in a golden basin, is to be found in the Scriptural command: "Thou shalt not appear before the Lord thy God empty." The Coronation service is not by any means a legal service, but a religious one. Like the kings of Israel. v/lin were priests as well as kings, the Sovereign is consecrated to his work, that of ruling his people and of -guarding the faith for, in the ideal, it is from God, and not 1 from the people, that he receives his lioyal authority. The most sacred and significant rite of the intensely impressive service is that of the anointing—n ceremony which has, of late, been somewhat overshadowed bv that of the crow inn». It is the most n ancient form of "sacring" a King, and has been handed down through centuries. It immediately follows that of the Oath, and is performed by tho Archbishop, who formerly anointed the Sovereign on tho palms of the hands .. . "on iiis breast, " in the middles of his back, on his twoo shulders, on his twoo • elbowes, and en r_ his head with the said oyle, making a 00 crosse.": Since the time of William the Fourth, the Sovereign is anointed only on the head and the hands. • The oii, which is poured from the beak of the eagle, into the Coronation spoon, has, sincc Anglo-Saxon times, been applied by the Primate's thumb, in >lie form of a cross. By this, the King is inducted into his office as a minister of God, and, only when that is done, may he receive the insignia of royalty from the Primate. . Nowhere in tho world can be found a finer or more majestic setting for such a sceno than that in Westminster Abbey. Historic, beyond all other places in Great Britain, it holds the records of England's greatness, and is the story of the nation itself. Founded and consecrated by Edward the Confessor (who in less than a • week after the consecration ceremony lav 3 buriod within its walls) it has seeii king niter kina crowned, and, sooner or later, brought" there for his last long sleepsNational sorrowings, national rejoicings, have all been held within its pre-oinctsi-'and the air is filled with tho sense ' of the presence of the mighty dead, be they kings, warriors, statesmen, poets, or benefactors of the nation. Probably these storied walls will look upon no greater E pageant, 110 more, impressive scene than that which takes place there to-day, and b„ those who, from the depths of their ignorance and their immense self-comnla-cencv, talk of England as "being effete" and falling from her pinnacle of greatness, could not but be shamed into silence, were they present. 1 Mother of us all, and great, not only "by virtue of hor vast dominions, but also by virtue of lier traditions and her ideals, she throws aside on such occasions the soberness and stolidity for which she i> a known, and from out of the hnricst of past centuries brings forth such oageantrv, such magnificence, such evidence w of her pride and power as to dumbfound | those who knew her not. It is small j wonder that the sight of the Dover cliffs j -even the stones and sticks of the way-side-stir the heart of the native-born jj wanderer, more than words can well ox- J pr*s«. It is "bushido," nothing less, and j only" the Japanese word explains it. j IE ancestry speaks, and undoubted 1\ it j does, then he who is crowned King to- | (lav should be impregnated with the life j anil spirit of his country, for his line ?oes 3 back to the days of the Saxons, when from King Egbert, and Oueen Bodburg descended by the houses that lnve since ruled Great Britain-Saxons, Nmnaiis, Plantagenets. Tudor?. Stuarts, and las.ly Guelphs Mixed, no doubt, but still there, 3 through all these hundreds of years. |