The tradition with regard to Henry's conduct immediately upon his father's dissolution, as we gather it from various writers who lived near that time, is one as to the full admission of which even an eulogist of Henry of Monmouth needs not be jealous; much less will the candid enquirer be apprehensive of its effect upon the character which he is investigating. The tradition then is, that Prince Henry was attending the sick-bed of his father, who, rousing from a slumber into which he had sunk for a while, asked him what the person was doing whom he observed in the room. "My father," replied Henry, "it is the priest, who has just now consecrated the body of our Lord; lift up your heart in all holy devotion to God!" His father then most affectionately and fervently blessed him, and resigned his soul into the hands of his Redeemer. No sooner had the King breathed his last, than Henry, under an awful sense of his own unworthiness, and of the vanity of all worldly objects of desire, conscious also of the (p. 334) necessity of an abundant supply of divine grace to fit him for the discharge of the high duties of the kindly office, to which the voice of Providence then called him, retired forthwith into an inner oratory. There, prostrate in body and soul, and humbled to the dust before the majesty of his Creator, he made a full confession of his past life. Whether the words put into his mouth were the fruits of his biographer's imagination, or were committed to writing by Henry himself, (a supposition thought by some by no means improbable,) they are the words of a sincere Christian penitent. Henry, as we have frequently been reminded in these Memoirs, seems to have made much progress in the knowledge of sacred things, and to have become familiarly acquainted with the Holy Scriptures; and his confessional prayer breathes the aspirations of one who had made the divine word his study. He earnestly implores "his most loving Father to have mercy upon him, not suffering the miserable creature of his hand to perish, but making him as one of his hired servants." After he had thus poured out his soul to God in his secret chamber, he went under cover of the night to a minister of eminent piety, who lived near at hand at Westminster. To this servant of Christ he opened all his mind, and received by his kind and holy offices, the consolations and counsels, the strengthenings and refreshings, which true religion alone can give, and which it never withholds from any one, prince or (p. 335) peasant, who seeks them with sincere purpose of heart, and applies for them in earnest prayer.