THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1947. ROYAL WEDDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26624, 21 November 1947, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1947. ROYAL WEDDING

r'fjwJKe coronation of his Majesty the Sixth there has royal event of greater in- ■■ the peoples of the British IJllOonwealth of Nations than the of the Princess Elizabeth Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh. Indeed, in some ways The interest on this occasion is even greater than that which was taken in the solemn pageant of the crowning. The reason is simple. A wedding is a happy family event, and in a very real sense the peoples who live under the British Flag are one family. Royalty is the. living symbol of their relationship one to another. In New Zealand to-day, as in every British Commonwealth and colony, in city and country, in mansion and cottage, there are people whose thoughts are centred on London and on the Abbey. There is in this fact a significance which will perhaps be appreciated more by those who live outside the family than by those who are members of it. To the outside nations it must be a demonstration that the secret of this unique association lies not in might nor in law, nor yet only in the kinship of blood, but in something which is spiritual. Those who are of this association accept the phenomenon as natural. We may even be unconscious that there is anything remarkable in it. This, again, is a proof that it is a sentiment which springs deep from the heart.

It is particularly fitting that .the wedding should be celebrated in Westminster Abbey. In that ancient pile the icings have been crowned for nearly a thousand years, and there, too, many of the ancestors of the bride, and of the bridegroom, have been married. It is a royal abbey, and ‘it is the home of much of English history. As the Princess stood before the altar she could hardly fail to be conscious of the continuity of the Empire and of the fact that her own person is the link between its past and its future. For her the ceremony must have held something of the significance of a rededication to the vows which she so movingly took in South Africa on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday. This time her husband also has consecrated himself to a high duty. It is. proper that,’ while we manifest a joyful interest in the wedding, in its colour and processional pomp, we also should be mindful of this deeper meaning. In the consciousness of our relationship with Great Britain, theic should be an appreciation that our destinies are indissolubly linked and that in the trials which beset England we have a duty to share. It is only with this full sense of responsibility and pride that we can give the most heartfelt meaning to the common expression of goodwill and the prayer: God bless the Princess Elizabeth and her royal consort.