Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 3 (1908).djvu/54

40 SPECIAL PRAYERS [CHAP. XXIII accepting the Governorship of Guernsey, specially begged that this might not exclude him from active service—a circumstance which he mentioned to the Prince at the time. Both these have the reputation of very good officers.

The Queen does not wish anything to be arranged prospectively now, but would recommend the subject to Lord Hardinge’s future consideration.

OSBORNE, 21st August 1854. The Queen must repeat what she has frequently done, that she strongly objects to these special prayers which are, in fact, not a sign of gratitude or confidence in the Almighty—for if this is the course to be pursued, we ought to have one for every illness, and certainly in ’37 the influenza was notoriously more fatal than the cholera had ever been, and yet no one would have thought of having a prayer against that. Our Liturgy has provided for these calamities, and we may have frequent returns of the cholera—and yet it would be difficult to define the number of deaths which are to make “a form of prayer” necessary. The Queen would, therefore, strongly recommend the usual prayer being used, and no other, as is the case for the prayer in time of War. What is the use of the prayers in the Liturgy, which were no doubt composed when we were subject to other equally fatal diseases, if a new one is always to be framed specially for the cholera?

The Queen would wish Lord Aberdeen to give this as her decided opinion to the Archbishop, at all events, for the present. Last year the cholera quite decimated Newcastle, and was bad in many other places, but there was no special prayer, and now the illness is in London but not in any other place, a prayer is proposed by the Archbishop. The Queen cannot see the difference between the one and the other.

LONDON, 1st September 1854. Lord Aberdeen, with his humble duty, begs to lay before your Majesty the pensions proposed to be granted on the Civil List at this time. The only case requiring any special remark is that of the children of Lord Nelson’s adopted daughter. There seems little doubt that the person referred to was really Lord Nelson’s daughter, according to evidence recently