mediately exclaimed, "Thank God, thank God, the Princess is safe." Her Royal Highness still remaining composed, thoughgreatlyexhausted, and no symptoms of danger appear ing visible, the great officers of state left Claremont at 11 o'clock, and the Prince Leopold shortly after retired to an adjoining apartment to compose himself as far as possible after the distressing scene he had witnessed. A little after twelve, an unfavourable change was observed in her Royal Highness; her quiet left her; she became restless and uneasy; and the medical attendants were in consequence seriously alarmed. From half past twelve, the restlessness iucreased, and convulsions followed, till,nature quite exhausted, this amiable and beloved Princess breathed her last at half past two on the morning of Thursday the 6th instant; Prince Leopold being with ber to the last moment. The instantaneous effect of this distressing event upon the public mind can scarcely be described. For several days nothing else was spoken or thought of; every place of amusement was closed; even business of importance was in many cases suspended; the daily journals were filled with the mournful subject; the press teemed with eulogies and regrets; the sable em-, blems of real and unaffected grief were every where visible; and not a heart seemed to respond to any other theme, but the virtues, the accomplishments, and the untimely loss of the lamented Princess. The sensation was not confined to our own shores; for, as far as details have arrived, the subjects of his Majesty, wherever residing, have evinced the same lively grief which afflicted their fellow-countrymen at home; and have exhibited to the nations of Europe, that, whatever may be our minor differences, loyalty and attachment to the reigning family are still ruling principles among us.-The foreign courts have issued the usual orders for state mourning. Among the numerous mourners on this occasion, it would be unpardonable not to mention the Husband and the royal father, each of whom has evidenced the most affecting grief. The regent, from his station in the country, could not regularly attend the funeral of his daughter; but the Prince Leo pold, to whom no such restriction applied, expressed his intention of performing this last melancholy office. He had refused to leave the spot after the fatal event; and, indeed, throughout the whole scene has exhibited a most affecting and interesting spectacle. And who can be surprised at it? for they were so admirably matched, their hearts so united, their union had presented so uninterrupted a scene of British comfort, their minds and tastes were so congenial, it had been such a home of happiness, and there was so large a promise of many years' continuance of that happiness, that, independent of political prospects, the sudden event must have left indeed a painful void in his heart. May he derive consolation from that Source whence alone it can be obtained,and where we trust he may be enabled to seek it!-His conduct to the Princess has been truly exemplary. Their chief daily pleasure appears to have been mutual instruction. Her Royal Highness bad read much, and with discrimination, especially since her marriage; and one of her most pleasing occupations was to accompany her illustrious consort in his study of the English language, in which he was so diligent, that he has been able to read our best writers on history and jurisprudence. It appears, also, that they were strict observers of the Sabbath, and that the Prince regularly read to her, after the Church service, one of our standard English sermons. It is also a matter placed beyond doubt, that they had established the daily worship of God in their family, which was regularly attended by every branch of their household. Even in death (for the Princess remained sensible to the last), she evidenced her affection for her consort by keeping her eyes constantly fixed upon him, and frequently extending her hand to meet his. Various other little incidents have transpired, all of which prove the reality and strength of their mutual attachment. Every thing connected with the Princess appears endeared to him by fond recollections. For some time the bonnet and cloak which she wore in her last pedestrian excursion with him, were kept constantly before his eyes. They were hung by her hands upon a screen in the sitting parlour; nor would the Prince either allow them to be removed, or any person whatever to touch them. The funeral obsequies took place on Wednesday the 19th of November, at Windsor, whither the remains of the mother and child had been conveyed in melancholy procession the day before. We must pass over the remainder of the ceremonial, which was conducted with all the magnificence due to the occasion. Amidst the illustrious personages who were present as mourners, and all of whom, as well as the vast concourse of spectators, testified the deepest sympathy and distress, every look was fixed on one individual, who never raised his eyes from the coffin in which was deposited the object of all his earthly hopes and enjoyments. As soon as the serervice was concluded, the desolate survivor returned to Claremont, where he intends, it is said, (after a short journey to the Continent, in order to recover his health and spirits,) to reside during the remainder of his life, and to carry on those improvements upon the estate which he had projected with one who must never behold their completion. the kingdom participated in the general grief; and never did we witness a sorrow so deep, so universal, so overpowering. On no fast or thanksgiving day have we ever observed in the metropolis so complete a cessation of all temporal concerns. Every public office, every private establishment, was entirely closed up. The streets were free from every bustle, but that of the general population, clothed in mourning, hastening to the places of worship. So sublime and affecting an illustration of national sensibility has been rarely exhibited to the world. Uninflu enced by any mandate of temporal authority, and prompted only by their unfeigned sorrow, and, we trust, their profound reliance upon the consolations of religion, all ranks and classes voluntarily suspended their affairs, and with humble, awful earnestness, filled our temples, to supplicate the Throne of Mercy. A whole people thas prostrate before God, that they might express the anguish of their hearts, implore forgiveness of the past, and mercy for the future, was a spectacle which we hope will not be forgotten. We doubt not this is but a specimen of what prevailed throughout every part of the United Kingdom. The sad solemnity at Windsor was matter of precedent and necessary form, which the high rank of the Heiress of Britain demanded: it might have been ordered, and it must have been executed, whether the heart went with it or not; but far different was the case with that new and voluntary homage which was paid to a beloved Princess by a mourning nation. Windsor was not, however, the only scene of mourning on this solemn occasion. Every part of The whole of these circumstances evidences very strongly the general feeling of the nation, that the loss sustained has been of no ordinary kind. In ascertaining, however, its real extent, it is necessary to abstract for a moment from our contemplation the peculiar circumstances which have rendered, and that justly, the decease of the Princess Charlotte more affecting than any event of a similar kind with which we are acquainted. The rank and personal attractions of her Royal Highness, her recent marriage, and all the touching incidents connected with her life and death, have cast around her tomb a melancholy interest beyond what could have been expected to arise from a merely national calamity. But, even independently of those parts of this dispensation of Providence which more immediately apply to the feelings and the heart, and which, perhaps, have been a principal cause of the national sympathy so feelingly exhibited on the occasion, we think, that, upon the most fair and unexaggerated estimate, the loss of such a Princess, at such a season, is far beyond the measure of a common deprivation. In a moral point of view, we had augured much benefit to the country from the future influence of those virtues which have endeared the youthful pair to the nation at large; and had hoped, that, under such exalted patronage, a taste for retired and domestic pleasures, and all the amenities of a truly rational, and peaceful, and charitable life, might have become even fashionable in the higher ranks of the British court. In a political point of view also, we looked forward with great hopes to the future government of a Queen who, in many very important respects, bade fair to dignify and adorn the throne of her ances tors. The inconveniences, also, which may eventually arise with respect to the succession to the Crown (though they appear to have been greatly magnified) are by no means unimportant. In a family so numerous as the royal household, many of whom are not be youd the middle stages of life, it is not probable that the country will ever require to be indebted to a foreign nation for a king to sway its sceptre; yet, on the other hand, a succession of short reigns, or even a long minority, is no inconsiderable evil; to say nothing of the keen disappointment of exchanging such a certainty as appeared before us, for an uncertainty, which, though it may be eventually overruled by Providence for good, cannot fail in the mean time to afflict the mind of every wise and disinterested lover of his country. We certainly do not ever expect to see Red and White Roses disputing the throne of Great Britain — the laws and usages of the nation are too well settled and recognised to render such ominous forebodings at all probable; -and we think much that has been said respecting the difficulties attending the succession, at once visionary and mischiev ous—yet, after all, the calamity is doubtless most serious in its aspect; and, if we were specifically called upon to conjecture one of the probable causes of this Divine infliction, we should scarcely besitate to enumerate the late public discontents and symptoms of disaffection to the government of the country. At a time when the nation had risen to the height of its splendour, and when the return of universal peace called for the most grateful acknowledgments for the Divine mercies, we perceived on every side a rebellious murmur, which, not content with venting itself upon a few real or supposed grievances, went to the full and awful length of desiring a com. plete revolution in the government of the country. Perhaps some of those misguided men, who "would not have a king to reign over them,” may be induced, by the general terror expressed at the very apprehension (certainly a most groundless apprehension) of such a calamity, to consider at once the absur dity and the wickedness of their seditious machinations. Possibly these alarms of the public, with what has appeared from the press, as well as the numerous and weighty discourses which on the day of general mourning were delivered from the pulpit, falling on minds already prepared and softened by sympathy, may create more deep and lasting reflections respecting ourtrue duties and our solid interests, than would have occured to us during years of uninterruped prosperity. If what we have lately felt and heard shall have tended to invigorate sound and truly British principles, even the present blighting of our hopes may become the promise of a new spring to our greatness, and a blessing of no vulgar or transient magnitude. But there is still a more important view in which a Christian observer must regard this national calamity. What a lesson has it taught us of the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and the supreme importance of securing a blissful entrance into a world where chance and change are unknown! With what new interest, if possible, has it invested every thing relating to death and to eternity! - Of what service at this moment are all the distinctions of birth, and the trappings of a court, to her whom we deplore, and who, at the Eternal Throne, can have nothing to plead but that same "Blood of Sprinkling" which was shed as much for the peasant as the prince. Arrayed in the righteousness of a Redeemer, how blessed the summons, even thus in early you.h, to meet the Omniscient Judge, and to enter into the joy of our Lord! Destitute of this, how awful and irremediable the reverse! We have witnessed an event which comes home to every beart, and which we are seriously disposed to hope will not be suffered to plead in vain. If ever any national calamity called upon us" to remember our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wis dom," it is this. To the immediate members of a court, who, enveloped with worldly fascinations, are, perhaps more than almost any other class of persons, liable to be tempted to seek their happiness CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 191. un on earth, and to forget a hereafter, this mournful scene appeals as with the voice of inspiration. If youth, or health, or the anxious love and solicitude of a parent and husband, if the tears and affections. of a nation, could have saved her, she had not fallen who then shall plead exemption from a certain and speedy, and perhaps, like hers, an untimely, grave? But a few weeks since, amidst all the gay and sparkling lovers of pleasure, of grandeur, or ambition, who but would gladly have exchanged places with her who now lies lifeless in the tomb of her fathers? Alas! how soon is the phantom dissolved! Youth, and rank, and vigour were availing. Without notice or warning, though we would trust not without preparation; "one was taken and the other left." We looked, and all was gay and hopeful and enchanting;-in a moment the illusion vanished, and a pallid corpse only remained of all that we had so loved and envied and admired. Perhaps such an extraordinary providence, such a palpable proof of the frail and transitory nature of all earthly blessings, such a public and overwhelming appeal to our hopes and fears and sympathies, was wanted to teach us a lesson which it is the great object of the world at large to forget. We cannot easily forget this. We wish we were as certain that the warning conveyed by it would not be neglected; and that the young, the gay, the thoughtless-and how much more the sick and the aged!— may be excited to serious reflection upon the most important, because the only permanent and eternal, object of human concern. Happy is it for man, amidst all the uncer tainties of life, that the Blood of a Redeemer is still availing to pardon sin, and to cleanse from its impurities! Happy is it that no one, who penitently applies for mercy through faith in a crucified Saviour, shall be excluded from its enjoyment! The world 5 F may, and must, disappoint its votaries; its grandeur must fade; the hand of death must obliterate all its glories; its highest hopes and prospects must be soon bounded by those confines which none can pass to return again, and which the present solemn event proves may be infinitely nearer than in the gaiety of youth and health we are apt to suspect. But, amidst all, it is a blessed consideration, and in fact it is the only legitimate source of true satisfacration and repose, that "the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers ;"-a kingdom accessible to all, and beyond the power of those uncertainties which disturb earthly successions, and oftentimes in a moment snatch the crown from the expecting wearer. It is this contrast of earth with heaven; of change and disappoint ment and mortality, with "glory and honour and immortality and eternal life;" and the consequent necessity and importance of making a right choice, amidst the daily and hourly seductions to a wrong one, that we wish to impress upon our own hearts and those of our read. ers. We feel unwilling to leave a theme so fraught with awful monition; we would reiterate again and again, the momentous warning, "Prepare to meet thy God!" a warning the importance of which every thing in life impresses more deeply each succeeding hour upon our hearts; and which at this moment sounds from the royal tomb in accents which have reached the remotest corners of the land. And shall it be heard in vain! Shall we part with what was so lovely and pleasant to us as a nation-shall the voice of providence sp ak so forcibly at once to our understandings and our heartsand all in vain? Sincerely do we trust otherwise: devoutly do we hope, that He who has afflicted us, for reasons infinitely wise and merciful, may dispose our hearts to receive the solemn warning; and that every family and individual which have mourned at the tomb of our beloved and lamented Princess, may be induced to inquire more seriously than ever into the necessary preparation for an eternal change, and receive, through the death and merits of a gracious Redeemer, 66 an abundant entrance" into that heavenly world where "mortality shall be swallowed up of life." There were two or three other subjects of public intelligence, which we had intended to notice; but the length to which we have extended our remarks upon the present mournful topic forbids us to enter upon them in the present Number. OBITUARY. REV. PHILIP GURDON. SOME account of so great and eminently good a character as the late Rev. Philip Gurdon, of Assington Hall, in the county of Suffolk, seems due to the Christian world. He was descended from a very ancient and respectable family in the county of Suffolk, being the eldest son of the Rev. Philip Gurdon, vicar of Bures St. Mary and rector of Mount Bures, in that county. He received his classical education at St. Paul's School, and was afterwards fellow of Magdalen College, in the University of Oxford. It was during his residence in this seat of learning that he first imbibed those religious views which |