the Royal vault. There are two vaults beneath St. George's Chapel-the Gloucester and the Royal vault. The former was finally built up after the interment of her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, the last member of that branch of the House of Hanover. The Royal vault is kept apart exclusively for the coffins of the immediate members of the reigning family. Three gates close the entrance to this final resting-place of departed royalty; the keys of which are kept by the Sovereign, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Dean of the Chapels Royal. Except for the burial of the Queen Dowager, who was laid by the side of her Royal husband, this vault has not been opened since the death of William IV.

no more.

Here, then, is the end of human greatness. There will the remains of the father of a race of kings repose till the heavens be There seems reason to believe that of late the mind of the Prince had begun to take a decidedly religious turn. During his illness he continued to repeat the glorious hymn, "Rock of Ages," &c., which seemed to suit his state and refresh his soul. Other facts also are mentioned of a highly gratifying character. It is matter for regret, however, that during his latter days he was not attended by some matured, judicious, sympathetic Christian friend, who might have drawn out his Royal Highness, and soothed him by appropriate conversations. The hardships of greatness extend from the cradle to the grave.

Christian Instruction.

DEATH IN THE PALACE.*

A PRINCE hath fallen in our midst! Our Queen sits a widow in her palaces! The husband who was ever at her side, is removed this day to the silent halls of death. The father and counsellor of our princes hath ceased to dwell with us. Sorrow sits on the throne, and grief covers our island from one extremity to the other, as with a pall. A nation mourns his loss: for a void has been created, which every one sees and feels. The honours of the past were his. None envied their growing brightness. He was the nation's pride, and the monarch's stay. His place in the public esteem and the people's confidence was his own. He made *A Discourse delivered in Castle Square Chapel, Wisbech, on the day of the funeral of H. R. H. the Prince Consort, by the Rev. James Smith.

it-he sustained it well and honourably to the last. Coming among us a foreigner, none will think of Albert henceforth as other than a Briton. We feel his quiet worth—his true dignity— as he passes away from us. Not a pen fails to yield its tribute to him: not a voice is silent as to its grief. We all weep to-day the sudden and premature removal of the worthy husband of our gracious Sovereign. The sad tidings came upon us like the shock of some terrible convulsion of nature. "We were as them that dream." But the burial-kuell that tolls slowly and solemnly in our ears-the drapery of woe which everywhere casts its sincere and sombre hue—the gazette of state, which proclaims deaths as well as honours, all prove that it is a stern reality over which we weep.

Our

Feel we not that it was a mighty hand that gave to us this keen sorrow-that created this painful void? A greater than monarchs is here-THE KING OF KINGS—without whose permission death crosses no threshold-claims no victim. tears but declare the weakness alike of human love and power that could not detain the departed—that must resign him to the dust. We bow before the Supreme Arbiter of life and death. We confess His inscrutable providence. We meekly yield to that omnipotent will, against which we are as feeble to contend as a child battling with the tempest. A nation at worship is the only meet expression of a nation in sorrow! “Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker," and as we gather round this princely bier read. in the divine words of the oldest book, the ultimate fate of human greatness-the sure and common lot.

The words of Job, and the mournful event which calls us together, alike impress us with

I. Life's Uncertainty.

All unstable things are its chosen and most fitting emblems. "Tis but a meteor, which is gone at the moment of its greatest splendour-a flickering flame, which the breeze that fans and brightens may in a moment extinguish—a flower that fades and drops from its stem ere its blossoming is full-a vision which flees at the period of its brightest promise, and when gone never returneth.

and

The flower that cometh up in beauty is soon cut down; such is man. Even the mountain," which seemeth to stand strong, soon falleth; and “the hope of man" on earth is destroyed suddenly.

How quickly the living and loved pass away and are missed for ever in their homes and haunts below. The languor of sickness succeeds the flush of health-the countenance is changed, and man departs-and he who was with us yesterday and dwelling at our side, is gone to-day "the way whence he shall not return."

Mysterious, awful Death! how great thy havoc-how swift and sad thy devastations. Tis but a change and not an end of being

which thou dost bring. Yet what a change! so sudden-so complete the altered image which thine effacing fingers produce makes us doubt if it can indeed be the form we loved and gazed upon awhile before.

Yet though life's winged course is so quickly gone, we are prone to forget the solemn truth which daily events and ever present emblems teach. We need the startling fact, the electric shock, the stunning blow, such as that by which the nation has been lately paralysed, to rouse us to consideration.

Read then, O man, to-day, at the tomb of Albert, how frail thou art! Even "man in honour abideth not"-yea, 66 man at his best state is altogether vanity." See the illustrious Prince, but yesterday pursuing athletic and manly sports-or charming multitudes by his graceful manners and eloquent address-or cheerful and happy in that royal circle which was the home of his affections; and so soon after (to the surprise even of those who dwelt with him, much more to the absent and stranger) faint with sufferinghelpless as a child-chilled in death, and to-day coffined in darkness. He had hopes and projects for the future as confident as thoubut these prospects are broken off, these hopes destroyed for ever. The noble structure which his wisdom had helped to plan-his patriotism suggested-his rank supported, shall proclaim as it rises how the doings of man outlive him-and shall be inaugurated not by his presence at the side of our beloved Queen, but rather by his escutcheon, before which each passer-by will grow sad and silent. Oh, utter vanity of all earthly ambition and public distinction, if life is so soon to be gone, and this life were our all! Poor and to be pitied indeed is he who holds his bliss for no longer term and on no more certain tenure than this fleeting existence. The noble Prince, prostrate suddenly by the breath of fever, cut off in the midst of his days and honours, warns all from his grave to-day, whatever their rank or wealth, who are but men of this world, and have their portion in this life."

'

II. We have here also an affecting picture of Man's humiliation and fall.

We are "in the body," and however beautiful or symmetrical it may be, it is "a humiliated body." It has become the instrument of sin-it is under sentence of death-and that sentence is on all men. There is no exception, no excuse, no escape. Neither honour, rank, talents, no, nor the love of others, can detain the body from corruption, when death, the impartial leveller, smites. As certain as nature wears and changes, so must man sicken and die. The flood rises and sweeps away the living flowers and the things that grow out of the earth, but the mountain also falls in its season. The pebbles in the rivulet's bed are worn by the ever-flowing waters, but the rock is also removed out of its place. Disease prevails against all. There is no discharge in that war. All pass away in turn, and see corruption.

Yes! it is a humbling thought; the breath of fever will quench the genius and exhaust the life that a nation's applause and royal love cannot retain-and in a few short days arrest the philanthropic labours, still the noble heart, and change the admired countenance of the best of princes!

Who can reflect on that altered countenance on which death hath so recently set his imperious and ghastly seal-now wearing, we are told, a more than usual pallor-and think that the cheerful smile wont to play there hath vanished-the beaming eye is sunk in its socket, and its fire departed-the hand, now cold and rigid, returneth no embrace-and the form of dignity and graceful action, is now prostrate and motionless "till the heavens be no more"-that corruption hath set its dark impress where grace and beauty were once traced-so that the Royal Lady whose love he worthily received, and the sons and daughters she bare to him, forbear to gaze on that countenance any more:-and his friends and attendants, who delighted in his smile, or felt honoured in his service, retire with tears from his side, and leave him alone to-day with death, and loathsomeness, and utter darkness,-who can think of this affecting contrast-this great change, without feeling "how weak, how abject," though "august, is man?" High or lowly the countenance is changed at last. The tenant of the palace becomes the prey of the worm, and man goeth down to dust and silence.

There is a solemn, tender lesson around this tomb of the Prince, from which, as Royalty is now pondering it, all the world's great ones might learn. Genius will be quenched, and honours fade, and wealth fail, and all earth's joy and greatness wither at the approach of death. The lofty looks will then be humbled, and the gaudy pageants close in inevitable corruption. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." The mansion is preliminary to the mausoleum. Life's most captivating pursuits-pleasures gayest dreams, conduct at length to earth-damp and cavernous darkness -and death and the worm shut up the scene with all!

O Sin, fell destroyer of our race, and parent of our death, what evils hast thou originated-how hast thou marred the image of God and laid prostrate him who was created to wear it! But the great soul can never die.-It liveth on and liveth ever. "The actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust;" and the Saviour from sin secures also a resurrection from death.

III. The event and the text teach us not less impressively and clearly God's Sovereignty.

God acts, indeed, in nature behind the laws which He has made and fixed-"second causes" involve "the great First Cause." The mountain is not upheaved, nor the rock thrown down; the floods do not rise, nor the flowers grow and fade without Him: but the words of Job emphatically assert that His agency is directly present and discernible in the departure of human great

ness-the failure of human life. There is a painful mystery, too, connected with this sudden removal of our lamented Prince in the midst of his days and in spite of the best medical skill, which throws us back at once on that one Sovereign Will which giveth not account of His matters, and doeth as pleaseth Him best. We look on that royal bier and feel, “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away."

This sovereignty of God is to be acknowledged in every instance of mortality. Our going out of life is at Heaven's only disposal. "Is there not an appointed time for man upon the earth?" Diseases come and go-events transpire and results ensue but all is within the control and under the cognizance of the Infinite, and without Him nothing can happen. To doubt this would be to dethrone the universal Governor. This fact relieves our troubled hearts. Grief might goad us to madness without this soothing thought. It seems strange to us to see a wise and prudent Prince taken away in his prime-fallen suddenly when most needed, whilst the miserable linger on, and the wicked strengthen themselves. But our grief is chastened and subdued by this thought. Our faith instructs us. 66 We are silent. 'It is the Lord." We would substitute devotion and awe for rebellion and repining. "Thou didst it," our Father and God; and all is right that pleases thee, in whose hand is the fate of empires-the movements of princes -the breath of every living thing.

I intrude not on the privacy of the palace of death. I cross not the threshold where our noble Prince breathed his last accents amid those who loved and wept over him; but as his sudden removal bids all the living "Prepare" to meet their God, I am bound to tell you, with the fidelity of a Christian pastor, that no works of public usefulness-no deeds of private virtue-no correctness of religious sentiment, nor even boldness of religious profession-no mere act of dying homage—the necessary turning away from the world and life when you can retain your hold no longer-nor even that on which so many rest their dying and delusive confidence, "the taking of the last sacraments of the church," will avail to bring comfort in a death-hour, or secure your eternal happiness. Only a living faith in Christ, a faith which dwells in the heart and moulds the life, a whole-hearted trust in Jesus, can give peace at the last. The divine message is to all-to the honourable and humble in degree, alike-"Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven"-but "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!"

It will hardly be expected that I should say much concerning the excellent Prince, for nearly twenty-two years the beloved Consort of our Queen, whose funeral obsequies are this day celebrated with universal sorrow. All the journals of our free press have told the story of his many virtues and his lamented decease. His near relation to the sovereign hath increased the sympathy, and it is