A Tribute to Victoria's Book.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 52, 31 May 1884, Page 5

A Tribute to Victoria's Book.

The Rev. Robert Collyer spoke Sunday evening at the Church of the Messiah on Queen Victoria's book concerning her life in the Highlands. He said : "I am going to talk to you about the vork of a woman who, according to the ideasof rank entertained in the Old World, has not her equal in birth. It may be that many here also entertained such ideas, and regard dukes and earls and royal personages with that despairing longing which we term sour grapes. This book, written by this royal and noble lady, contains such a record as can be found nowhere else in the world. It is not hard to find out everything about the lines of English monarchs from Alfred down to this gracious author, Victoria. In the fierce light that beats about a throne everything is shown, and in that long line of royal personages there have been so few that were wise, so few that were mighty, and so many that were the reverse, that we cannot but appreciate Emerson's words : • God said I am tired of kings. I'll suffer them no more.' But with all that we know of them, good and bad, wise and foolish, we have to go back to Alfred the Great, the shepherd of his people, before we can find another royal bookmaker. Through that long line of centuries Alfred reaches out his hand and touches that of Victoria ; and both hands are as pure as the driven snow. Both overflow with domestic love, and centre it in the home rather than in the palace. Both were models of conjugal love. You will see from these remarks that I am not in harmony with the opinions that have been expressed about this book. I have read it, and I find it as wholesome as brown bread and milk. I can remember when Queen Victoria came to the throne ; how I contrasted my fate with hers, believing in my ignorance, that to be a queen was the summit of felicity for a woman, that all was joy and comfort for queens, and they knew no care and sorrow. As I read her book I felt that in her life there had been far more sorrow than in my own. This book is not the histoiy of the Queen Victoria of England, but of a woman who has been left a widow, from whose arms the husband of her youth was untimely reft, and who looks forward to meeting him in another world. " But the English do not like this book. They regard the Queen, or wish to regard her, as something superhuman, something more than a mere woman. They do not like her to show a gentle, loving heart under her gold and purple. They do not wish her to prove that she is own sister to ©very good woman everywhere. They prefer to think of her as a grand and beautiful abstraction with mysterious powers and terrible knowledge. And they are a little jealous of her preference for Scotland, of her being more mindful of the Forth and the Tay than of the Trent and the Thames. It was a tacit rebuke to England that the Queen believed she could live a purer, better life in the Highlands of Scotland than in the royal Windsor. Your Scotchman is certainly no better than he should be, but I do think he holds himself and his manhood higher than the Englishman. This royal widow felt that at Windsor she would have lived in splendid isolation — that is, gilded misery. But in the Highlands she could be free as air, visit neighbours, and live the life of a great lady without being forced to accept an adulation that was distasteful to her. John Brown gave to her the unflinching devotion that a henchman gives to his chief, and the Queen, with the warmth of heart of an honest, noble woman, appreciated his unselfish service, and commemorated her appreciation. I do not envy those who can see any more in this than the historic fealty of a Highland servitor and the grateful appreciation of a pure woman. The sneers are out of place, and do no credit to those who utter them or have written them." —"New York World."