A Tribute to Alfred.

Thames Star, Volume XXX, Issue 9047, 20 April 1898, Page 4

A Tribute to Alfred.

In the Guildhall, Winchester, in connexion with the approaching commemoration of the raillenay of King Alfred the Great, Sir Walcer Besant recently delivered a lecture on the subject of the commemoration to a large and enthusiastic audience. The lecturer by way of preface, remarked that after Alfred's earnestness of religious belief the most noteworthy point was the freedom of his institutions, The Paxons of Alfred's time were much like their descendants of today in essentials, but as yet ignorant of patriotic sentiment. There was no Eng'tnd or Britain; only a large island divided among eight nations, or ten" nations, or five nations accordirg to the year of our Lord. It was part of the work of Alfred to make it possible to weld the different nations into one; to croate little bj little the love of country in place of the old love of tribe. As David fought primarily for his own little country, for Judaea, so Alfred fought for Wessex, but perhaps without his knowledge for England also. He might, like the King of Mercia, have fled to Rome and religious life ; in fact, he fought them for nine long years, growing every year weaker, and at the end he found himself all but deserted, the country devastated, religion destroyed. Small wonder that when he had taken rofuge on a little hill rising out of a broad marsh (Athelney out of JSedgemoor), he should dream that he saw and listened to Cuthbert, the Saxon saint. Thence he sent out his messengers to the Somersetshire ijplk. Then, when spring arrived, Alfred appeared once mcc as one risen from the dead ; once more he raised the Wessex standard of the golden dragon. What followed was like a dream, or like the uprising of the French undei- Joan of Arc. The people sprang cc arms at once. On the first encounter they inflicted a crush ing defeated on the Danes ; ia one battle, on one field, the country was recovered ; and the Danish chieftain, " this logical Pagan," was baptized because he recognized that Alfred's gods had proved their superiority in amazing and decisive fashion. Then began Alfred's work of restoring the kingdom, His beginning was to organise the national defences. He restored the walls cf London and rebuilt the gates, so that when next the Danish invaders come, 200 years later, they found themselves stopped on their way up the Thames by a fortified town. Other walled cities were added later— Winchester, York, Exeter, Canterbuiy; but London came first. Then he looked to the line of defence, building ships longer, heavier, and swifter than those of the Danes, and soon he had a hundred ships to command the Channel. Alfred first gave us the command of the seas. Eudyard Kipling, our patriot poet, said— " Tv c nave fed our sea for a thousand years, " And she calls ue. still unled, "Though there's never a wave of all her waves " But marks our English dead," It was Alfred who first sent out the English blood to redden those waves in defence of hearth and home. To him, no doubt, came the dream of personal ambition, of conquering the whole country ; he put it aside. Green | had pointed out that " Alfred is the only instance in the history of Christendom, of a rulp.r who put aside every personal aim in order to devote himself wholly to the welfare of those whom he ruled." His code of laws stood out pre-eminent among the monuments of his reign. He did not invent it, but realizing that successful institutions must be the outcome of the national character, he took for foundation the codes of Ina for Wessex, Offa for Mercia, and Ethelbert for the Jutes. Two main principles, the provision of equal justice for all degrees of men and the recognition of the Christian religion as the law of God and the basis of all laws, guided the whole. Alfred did not require all his subjects to be governed by the Mosaic Law, but he set it side by side with his own for purposes of com parison. Again, Sir W.Besant quoted Rudyard Kipling, whose words " might be the very words of Alfred ": — " Keep ye the law: be swift in all obedience " Clear the land of evil; drive the road and bridge the ford. " Make ye sure to eaoh his own, " That he reap where he has sown, •' By the peaoe among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord !" Alfred was the pioneer of universal education—an ideal which had been realized in our day. He encouraged, also, commercial relations with foreign countries. To him, lastly, we owed the foundations of our literature - the most noble literature \h% world had ever seen. A splendid procession passed before the imagination, of men and women who bad raised a nation cr restored fallen ideals. Savonarola, Francis of Aseisi, Joan of Arc, our own Queeu Elizabeth, the Tsar Peter. But the greatest, most noble, most godlike figure of them all was that of the ninth century Alfred : " Who reverenced his conscience as a king; '', W^ose Sflory was redressing bunun wronar."