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suddenly deprived of the hopes of its policy and the darling of its affections, by the death of the Princess Charlotte. She enjoyed the highest domestic happiness. Placed on the summit of society, to her every eye was turned, every hope was centored(sic), and nothing was wanted to increase her felicity and ours, but perpetuity. The wished-for hour came, but the mother and child died. With them died the hopes of the nation, and forebodings as gloomy as those of the present sad hour spread a dark pall over the land. In this hour, then, let it be remembered that if that Princess had not been taken from England, our present gracious Sovereign’s benignant reign would have occupied no space in our records. The great Prince, under whose loss we bow would have been a stranger to England. The virtues of which we are now deprived would never have been ours in this Prince had they not first ceased to be ours in another. Thus we are instructed by God that though others might be near to us, none are necessary to us but Himself; and we were constrained somewhat into that submissive and relying spirit which breathed, in the words of the text, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” It would have to be told in future times, how that our youthful student – the younger son of a German Prince – was by the choice of our Queen, raised as Prince Consort to be the right hand of the greatest sovereign of the world. He (the preacher) remembered well the radiancy with which youth, beauty and popular acclamation invested their earlier career. If, in the midst of those plaudits there were any who cherished a spirit of jealousy, not only watching the approaching of a foreign ascendancy, but looking for a factious opposition to domestic polocy(sic), or for the outbreaks of the passions of youth, they have been happily disappointed. Never had England been more free from undue influence from abroad; never had a Prince more respectfully regarded the prerogatives of a people; and never, perhaps, had a husband kept more honourably his plighted troth. The untried youth had lived twenty years before the eyes of all men, neither elated nor subdued. Placed suddenly upon the most giddy eminence, yet he had made no false steps. He had united, with excellence, studies almost incompatible, and had done it under circumstances most unfavourable. He had economised with beneficence, and elevated without extravagance; and while other princes had ruined their country by their taste, he, by his, had enriched ours. In that more domestic capacity into which our sympathies ventured but did not intrude, he was the loving consort of her whom we all loved, and helped to bear the burden of her mighty charges. He never failed nor flagged, and he rarely ever left her side, unless to do a work for her and us. The grief of a great Queen and a great nation now bore witness beyond gainsaying to his public and his private worth. He was -