Shapcott Wensley
When I was a child and knelt on a big hassock in the rectory pew of a Suffolk church,I used to wonder,while flies droned against the greentinted diamondpaned windows,and the crowing of roosters came with drowsy sunshine through the open door,whether the dear,sadfaced lady in a widow's cap,whose picture hung in our nursery above the gray rockinghorse,knew that my father was praying for her good health.
I used to wonder,too,whether she ever reflected how at that particular moment,from one end of England to the other,men were breathing her woman's name into the hearing of the King of Kings,Lord of Lords,the only Ruler of princes.How wonderful for that little lady to think of this universal supplicationhow humbling,how uplifting!Did she bow her head very,very low,I wondered,as the choric prayer of England rose in the hush of those Sabbath morns from city to town,fromvillage and hamletthe voice of her great little England approaching the confidence of God on her behalf.
"Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady,Queen Victoria,and so replenish her with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit,that she may alway incline to Thy will,and walk in Thy way.Endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts;grant her in health and wealth long to live;strengthen her that shemay vanquish and overcome all her enemies;and finally,after this life,she may attain everlasting joy and felicity."
The innocent wonder of childhood lies far behind me on the dusty road of life.He who prayed and she for whom he prayed have both outsoared the shadow of our night.Other children play in that Suffolk glebe,a different voice wakes the Sabbath echoes in that village church,and another inhabits the majestic splendour of the throne of England.
Here in Canada,far away in the West,with the croon of the Pacific Ocean in my ears and the scents of a deep,cool,pine forest stealing into the candles through the opening of a tent,I find my wonderment following the ancient trail of a faraway childhood.Does Edward the Seventh,I asked myself,ever reflect that in all the zones of the world,night after night,year in,year out,at the old familiar call,"Gentlemen,the King!"men of Shakespeare's blood and Alfred's lineage spring to their feet,as at the sound of a trumpet,and the local welkin rings with the anthem of the British?Is he conscious,wheresoever he be at this moment,of the low,strong,rumbling Amen of our anthem,which rolls through the tent as we set down our glasses and resume our chairs"The King!God bless him."Every night,in every quarter of the globe,as constant as the stars,as strong as the mountains,this pledge of loyalty,this profession of faith by the cleanhearted British"The King!God bless him."
