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In the Abbey were gathered from nine to ten thousand spectators, of the noblest families of the land, and dressed in their most effective attire, while the lights brought out the glitter of thousands of gleaming gems. The queen herself, while dressed in rich black, wore a bonnet of white Spanish lace that glittered with diamonds.

As she entered the Abbey the organ pealed forth the strains of a triumphal march. There followed a Jubilee Thanksgiving Service, brief and simple, and special prayers by the Archbishop of Canterbury. As a finale to the impressive scene the queen, moved to deep emotion, embraced with warm affection the princes and princesses of her house, and, with a deep bow to her foreign guests, withdrew from the scene, to return to the palace over the same route and through similar demonstrations of enthusiastic loyalty.

All over England and Ireland and in the colonies the day was celebrated by joyous celebrations, and in foreign lands, especially in the United States, the British residents fittingly honored the festive occasion.

On the following day, in Hyde Park, London, the queen drove in state down a long and happy line of twenty-seven thousand school-children, who had been made happy by a banquet and various amusements, besides being given a multitude of toys. The special feature of the occasion was the presentation by the queen of a specially manufactured jubilee-ring, which she gave with a kind speech to a very happy twelve-year-old girl who had attended school for several years without missing a session.

There was also a review of fifty-six thousand volunteers at Aldershot, a grand review of one hundred and thirty-five warships at Spithead, and other ceremonies, one of the chief of which was the laying by the queen, on the 4th of July, of the foundation stone of the Imperial Institute in the Albert Hall, this Institute being intended to stand as a sign of the essential unity of the British Empire.

The well-loved queen of the British nation was to live to celebrate in health and strength another jubilee year, that of the sixtieth anniversary of her reign, a distinction in which she stands alone in the history of the island kingdom. George III., who came nearest, died a few months before the completion of his sixty years’ period. Had he lived to fulfil it there would have been no celebration, for he had become a broken wreck, blind and hopelessly insane, a man who lived despised and died unmourned.

But Victoria, though nearly eighty years of age, had still several years to live and was fully capable of performing the duties of her position. No monarch of England had reigned so long, none had enjoyed to so great an extent the love and respect of the people, in no previous reign had there been an equal progress in all that conduces to happiness and prosperity, in none had the dominion of the throne of Great Britain so widely extended, and it was felt for many reasons desirable to make the Diamond Jubilee, as it was termed, the occasion for the most magnificent demonstration that either England or the world had ever yet seen.

In all its features the observance lasted a month. It was not confined to the British Isles, but extended to the dominions of the queen throughout the world, in all of which some form of festive celebration took place. But the chief and great event of the occasion was the unrivalled procession in London on the 22d of June, 1897, an affair in which all the world took part, not only representatives of the wide-sweeping possessions of the British crown, but dignitaries from most of the other nations of the world being present to add grandeur and completeness to the splendid display.

To describe it in full would need far more space than we have at command, and we must confine ourselves to its salient features. It began at midnight of the 21st, at which hour, under a clear, star-lit sky, the streets were already thronged with people in patient waiting and the bells of all London in tumultuous peal announced the advent of the jubilee day, while from the vast throng ringing cheers and the singing of “God Save the Queen” hailed the happy occasion.