e new arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou
shalt crown the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth
laborers into thy harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou
shalt send forth new laborers to new seedtimes, whereof the harvest
shall be not yet."

EDWARD A. FREEMAN

Born in 1823, died in 1892; educated at Oxford, remaining
there as a fellow until 1847, and later for many years an
examiner there in Modern History; made Regius professor at
Oxford in 1884; published his "Conquest of the Saracens" in
1856, "Federal Government from the Foundation of the Achaian
League to the Disruption of the United States" in 1863, this
work being never completed; "The Norman Conquest" in
1867-79, "Historical Essays" in 1871, "Some Impressions of
the United States" in 1893, and many other volumes on
general and local history.

THE DEATH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR[58]

The death-bed of William was a death-bed of all formal devotion, a
death-bed of penitence which we may trust was more than formal. The
English Chronicles,[59] after weighing the good and evil in him, sends
him out of the world with a charitable prayer for his soul's rest; and
his repentance, late and fearful as it was, at once marks the
distinction between the conqueror on his bed of death and his
successor cut off without a thought of penitence in the midst of his
crimes. He made his will. The mammon of unrighteousness which he had
gathered together amid the groans and tears of England he now strove
so to dispose of as to pare his way to an everlasting habitation. All
his treasures were distributed among the poor and the churches of his
dominions. A special sum was set apart for the rebuilding of the
churches which had been burned at Mantes, and gifts in money and books
and ornaments of every kind were to be distributed among all the
churches of England according to their rank. He then spoke of his own
life and of the arrangements which he wished to make for his dominions
after his death. The Normans, he said, were a brave and unconquered
race; but they needed the curb of a strong and righteous master to
keep them in the path of order. Yet the rule over them must by all law
pass to Robert. Robert was his eldest born; he had promised him the
Norman succession before he won the crown of England, and he had
received the homage of the barons of the Duchy. Normandy and Main