associations of the past with the interests of the present. It is the
one name and place which, being beyond the reach of personal ambition,
beyond the need of private gain, has the inestimable chance of guiding,
moulding, elevating the tastes, the customs, the morals of the whole
community. It is the one name and place which, being raised high above
all party struggles, all local jealousies, over all classes,
ecclesiastical as well as civil, is the supreme controlling spring which
binds together in their widest meaning all the forces of the State and
all the forces of the Church. It is the one institution which by very
nature of its existence unites the abstract idea of country and of duty
with the personal endearments of family life, of domestic love, of
individual character."

It was the greatness of this national possession--one which had steadied
national progress and promoted peace in the midst of tumults and freedom
in the midst of disorder--which had, Dean Stanley thought, helped to
make the people pray that its destined heir should be worthy of his
noble inheritance. And then the speaker pointedly and clearly pictured
the increased and increasing responsibilities of the Prince of Wales
upon whom, henceforth, "as by a new consecration and confirmation,
devolves the glorious task of devoting to his country's service that
life which is in a special sense no longer his but ours, for which his
country's prayers, his country's thanksgivings, have been so earnestly
offered." The sermon concluded with a description of these great
responsibilities; an appeal to the Prince to begin life afresh and to
take the lead in all that was true and holy, just and good; a warning
that "of him to whom much has been given, much shall be required;" a
picture of a Christian England fighting evil in every form and in every
place and growing greater in all the elements of higher national and
individual life.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Prince of Wales in India

To make a Royal tour of the vast British possessions in Hindostan was an
inspiring idea. To constitute the Crown a tangible evidence of Imperial
power and a living object and centre of Eastern loyalty and respect was
a policy worthy of Mr. Disraeli and of the statecraft in which he had
once declared imagination to be an essential ingredient. To precede this
action by the purchase of the Suez Canal shares in order to safe-guard
the pathway to the Indian Empire and to succeed i