OUR PICTURE today is that of beloved Queen Victoria when she was a little girl only eight years of age. In the background is Windsor Castle where she lived and reigned for many years.
There is something very sweet and gentle in her appearance in those early years of her life, and as we look upon her winning face, we are constrained to think that God’s overshadowing care was round about her, as indeed it was during her long life. She became ruler over a vast empire when she was just 14. After 60 years, she celebrated her diamond jubilee as queen. She reigned another four years and then died at the ripe old age of 82.
Princess Victoria’s father died when she was only a few months old, but she was blessed with perhaps the greatest blessing anyone can know on earth, apart from hang the Lord Jesus Christ as one’s Saviour. She had a godly mother who did all she could to train her daughter’s mind in “Whatsoever things are lovely,” and “whatsoever things are of good report” (Phil. 4:88Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8)). This godly influence and instruction bore good fruit. This doted God-fearing mother taught her child in the very earliest years of her life to lisp the blessed Saviour’s name.
Victoria enjoyed the natural freedom and simplicity of a little child. Often in the summertime the family would have breakfast outdoors, and Victoria, getting up from the table, would run to play or to gather flowers nearby. Her merry laugh could be heard amid the notes of the thrush in the groves around her.
A Christian man tells how one day while visiting a little churchyard in the country, he saw a lady, dressed in black, sitting with a little girl on a tomb stone. The lady was reading a book to the little child who was looking with tearful eyes in her mother’s face. They had been looking at the grave of “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” a humble Christian girl who had passed on to be with Christ. This contrast was striking — the humbler of the two had passed from earth to the palace of the heavenly King, while the princess was destined to live and to rule over a great dominion. The writer goes on to tell of having often seen her, now the Queen, going about among her people in the most kindly manner, visiting humble cottage folks, reading the Scriptures with them, and speaking to them of Christ and His salvation. Her many acts of kindness and sympathy for the suffering and sorrowful are well known, and when she went to her eternal rest, we are certain she was ready to dart and to be with Christ which is far better.
May her life and death, dear young reader, lead you to ask yourself if you too would be ready, if you were called to leave this world. It is well with her who was once queen, we know, because she trusted the Saviour. But how would it be with you throughout all eternity?
ML-09/10/1972