How can such great tasks, which would have sufficed to fill up the lifetime of an author, have been accomplished during that of a king whose reign was partly taken up by his wars against the Danes? The good order which prevailed in all the undertakings of Alfred can alone answer this problem. Subject to violent attacks of sickness, loaded with work and with cares, he had divided his time into three parts: the first belonged to his regal duties; the second to his religion, to prayer and study; the third was devoted to his repasts, to sleep, and to bodily exercise; but the portion allotted to sleep was very short. The king was often awake during a great portion of the night, and having neither a clock, nor a sand time-measurer, he was struck with the idea of having some tapers or candles made, which should burn for a certain time, and by means of which he should be enabled to count the hours. Unluckily, however, a gust of wind would sometimes penetrate into the royal tent and make the candles burn too rapidly, and then the king would suddenly lose all means of reckoning the time, until the sun came to give him its infallible direction. {58} His strength was quickly consumed in this struggle against human weakness. When scarcely fifty-two years of age, Alfred was dying. He sent for his son Edward: "Come and stand beside me," he said; "I feel that my last moment is near; we must part. I am going to another world, and you will be alone with all my riches. I beg you, for you are my beloved child, strive to be a good master and a father to your people. Relieve the poor, support the weak, and apply yourself with all your might to the redress of wrongs. And then, my son, govern yourself according to your own laws; then the Lord will help you and will grant you His supreme reward. Invoke Him that He may advise and direct you in your difficulties, and He will help you to accomplish as well as possible your designs." It was in the same manner that, three hundred and fifty years later, when dying upon the shore at Tunis, St. Louis recommended his son to France. Great kings and great Christians both, although very different in character and ideas, Alfred and St. Louis both deserved the name of "pastors" of their people, which the gratitude of Englishmen has accorded to Alfred. He died on the 20th of October, 901, after having reigned twenty-nine years, and he was interred at Winchester, in the monastery which he had founded there. It is not there, but at Wantage--at the spot where he was born--that the grateful memory of England caused the celebration of the jubilee on the occasion of the thousandth anniversary of the birthday of Alfred the Great. On the 25th of October, 1849, a vast concourse of people went to Wantage to do honor to the memory of a king so much beloved. The assemblage decided on the publication of his complete works, a monument less durable than the gratitude graven by his deeds on the heart of his people. {59}