th me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the
honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as

"Clay in your Majesty's gracious hands,
"Fr. St. Aldan, Canc.
"March 25, 1621."

To the world he kept up an undismayed countenance: he went down to
Gorhambury, attended by troops of friends. "This man," said Prince
Charles, when he met his company, "scorns to go out like a snuff." But
at Gorhambury he made his will, leaving "his name to the next ages and
to foreign nations;" and he wrote a prayer, which is a touching evidence
of his state of mind--

"Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my
Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou (O Lord) soundest and
searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts; thou knowledgest
the upright of heart, thou judgest the hypocrite, thou ponderest
men's thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their
intentions as with a line, vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid
from thee.

"Remember (O Lord) how thy servant hath walked before thee;
remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in
mine intentions. I have loved thy assemblies, I have mourned for
the divisions of thy Church, I have delighted in the brightness of
thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this
nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first
and the latter rain; and that it might stretch her branches to the
seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and
oppressed have been precious in my eyes: I have hated all cruelty
and hardness of heart; I have (though in a despised weed) procured
the good of all men. If any have been mine enemies, I thought not
of them; neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I
have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy
creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have
sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found
thee in thy temples.

"Thousand have been my sins, and ten thousand my transgressions;
but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart,
through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal upon thy altar. O
Lord, my strength, I have since my youth met with thee in all my
ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable