justified for the great pains he had been at to prepare the kingdom for invasion.

But great as Alfred was in war, he was still greater in peace. His conception of the responsibilities of kingship made him a leader in all good works. He felt himself directly responsible to God for the uses he made of his opportunities, and so far as we can see had no ambition that was not for the bettering of his people and in the interests of justice and mercy. Even in the midst of war he devoted himself to the government of his kingdom, to study, to charity, to the task of rebuilding the shattered states, and to religious devotion. His whole private fortune he gave up to the maintenance of the army, to the building of cities, to the encouragement of art and literature, to charity, to the founding and endowment of schools and abbeys, and to the necessary expenses of his establishment.

When the war closed, the kingdom was in a state bordering on anarchy. The administration of justice had either fallen into desuetude entirely, or it had become so corrupt as to be worse than useless. Bands of robbers infested the country and pillaged the inhabitants. Towns had been destroyed and fire steadings burned from Plymouth to Canterbury. There was no law in Wessex save that of the strong. hand. The grossest ignorance prevailed both among churchmen and the laity. Alfred tells us himself that "Learning. had fallen to so low a depth among the English nation that there were very few on this side of the Humber who were able to understand their church ritual or to translate an epistle out of the Latin into English. . I cannot think of one able to do so on the south side of the Thames." All this he changed by unremitting patience and unwearying energy. The aldermen of the shires were ostensibly the chief judges, but since scarcely any of these could read or had any acquaintance with the law, the actual administration of justice had fallen into the hands of inferior officials. How scandalous the conduct of these officers had become:

we may judge from the fact that Alfred had to hang fortyfour of them in one year for maladministration of the laws. One Freberne was hanged for sentencing Harpin to death when the jury was in doubt and would not find a verdict of guilty; and Segnar, because after Elfe had been acquitted he condemned him to death. "The King made the strictest inquiries into the course of justice, as well as into all other matters," says Florence in the Chronicles; "reviewing with much shrewdness nearly all the judgments pronounced throughout the kingdom at which he was not himself present. If he perceived any iniquity in these decisions, he gently remonstrated with the judges, either personally or through trusty friends, on their unrighteous decrees, inquiring whether they proceeded from ignorance or malevolence. If the judges asserted they had given judgment so because they knew no better, he discreetly reproved their inexperience and ignorance in such words as these: 'I marvel much at your presumption in that having, by God's favor and my own, taken upon you an office and station belonging to wise men, you have neglected the study and practice of wisdom. Either, therefore, at once resign the execution of the temporal authority now vested in you, or apply yourself to the study of wisdom much more earnestly than you have hitherto done.'" And the chronicler goes on to tell us that the aldermen betook themselves to the study of justice with great assiduity.

A code of laws known as Alfred's Dooms was compiled by him with great care. The spirit in which they were offered may be guessed from reading what he himself says about them: "I, King Alfred, collected these laws, and I ordered them to be written. And many things which my predecessors had held, and which pleased me, I retained; and many, which displeased me, I rejected, by the advice of my wise men, and commanded to be observed otherwise. But I was unwilling to interpose much of my own, because we know not how far they may please our descendants. I,

Alfred, King of the West Saxons, showed these to my wise mẹn, and they said, 'Let them be observed.'"

Alfred re-created the spirit of literature in England by the eager welcome he accorded learned strangers at his court, by the establishment of schools for both boys and girls, by his practical encouragement to harpers, poets, historians, and skilled artisans, and by his own literary labors. Whether Alfred was the founder of Oxford University is, I believe, a moot question; it is, at least, certain that he founded schools of learning as well as abbeys. He was himself one of the most important writers of the period. He translated the history of Orosius, Bede's history, Boethius' "Consolations of Philosophy," and other works, and was also the author of much original work, and a poet and musician of no mean ability. So keen was the scientific spirit in him that he sent out several ships on tours of geographical exploration, and kept a record of the discoveries made. Nor was he content with setting artisans to work, but was himself an inventor, among his contrivances being one for telling the time by means of burning candles of equal size.

"Alfred mec heht gewyrcan" (Alfred had me worked) is the inscription on the famous jewel discovered in 1693 at Newton Park, and the inscription stands true for everything that was done in England during his reign. From the setting of a jewel to the saving of a kingdom, he did everything by himself. He was the animating force whose vivid spirit stirred the sluggish Saxon into life. We may well be amazed at the consuming energy and wonderful versatility of the man.

He was the best balanced and even-souled man England has ever known, spite of the painful disease which afflicted him so many years. To his scholars he appeared the scholar, to his artisans and stewards a man of business, to his musicians a balladist, to his soldiers an intrepid leader and inspiring general, to the whole nation England's Darling,

England's Herdsman, England's Comfort. There was something about him that reminds us of the Jewish prince David. Both were possessed of every bodily accomplishment, an abounding courage, a frank engaging countenance, and, above all, a nearness to God that is as rare as it is inspiring. Like David, Alfred must also have been oppressed by the soul-loneliness that comes to him who lives in advance of his age. "Desirest thou power?" he cries. "But thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows-sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred."

Soldier, sailor, scholar, sportsman, scientist, inventor, poet, saint, business man, humanist, philanthropist, lawmaker, and every inch the king! For all time he stands forth as the first Englishman, be the second who he may. He encouraged science, manufactures, and commerce. He established law and order in a country given over to misrule. He stamped out the heathen idolatry that was gaining a hold on the people. He built the first English navy. He fought in fifty-six battles by land and sea, and never struck a blow that was not in defense of his native land. He codified the laws on which the English common law was based. He built schools and churches in a land devoid of both. He created a national spirit, and saved Wessex and England for the English; and this made it possible for his son and his grandsons to incorporate all England into one nation. But for his singular forbearance and love of justice, he might have made himself overlord of all the country. But he was no imperialist, and the dream of the conqueror did not tempt him. He was a humble-minded Englishman, content to do the work that was given to his hand. Doubtless it never crossed his mind that any rare quality of greatness was in him. To us it is given to know that he stands without peer, first of his race throughout the ages.

THE NEW NATIONALISM

BY ARTHUR ERNEST DAVIES, PH. D.

ECENT events have been forcing upon public attention a series of interesting questions about which, within comparatively short time, it was taken for granted no differences of opinion were permissible or possible. This is the more impressive because they relate not to matters of expediency or policy, but involve debate about the fundamental nature of the Constitution which professedly defines the character and limits the scope of the United States government. If taken in connection with the development of national thought during the past decade, it is something more than professional pride which in 1899 led the American Bar Association to take steps to bring before the President the importance of the one hundredth anniversary of the appointment of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States; and the official recognition of the Chief Executive in his last annual message is one of those acts which meet the approval of all parties alike. So recently have the virtues and work of John Marshall been recounted, that the task may the more properly be declined; but we cannot forbear remarking upon one feature, a somewhat comprehensive and fundamental one, as it shows how thoroughly he was in accord with what has come to be the tradition, if it was not the original intention, of the Supreme Court of the United States. His preeminence is not due to, nor is his interest for us to-day connected with, the supposition that he was an innovator in the region of constitutional law. According to Professor Simeon E. Baldwin, of the Yale Law School, it has always been held that "as the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, any legislative statute inconsistent with it was no law