to
struggle with ignorance, stupidity and superstition at home. To lead men
out of captivity is a thankless task. They always ask when you take away
their superstition, "What are you going to give us in return?" They do
not realize that superstition is a disease, and that to give another
disease in return is not nice, necessary or polite.

Alfred died, at the age of fifty-two, worn out with his ceaseless labors
of teaching, building, planning, inventing and devising methods and
means for the betterment and benefit of his people.

After his death, the Danes were successful, and Canute became King of
England. But he was proud to be called an Englishman, and declared he
was no longer a Dane.

And so England captured him.

Then came the Norman William, claiming the throne by right of
succession, and successfully battling for it; but the English people
reckoned the Conqueror as of their own blood--their kith and kin--and so
he was. He issued an edict forbidding any one to call him or his
followers "Norman," "Norse" or "Norsemen," and declared there was a
United England. And so he lived and died an Englishman; and after him no
ruler, these nine hundred years, has ever sat on the throne of the
Engles by right of conquest.

Both Canute and William recognized and prized the worth of Alfred's
rule. The virtues of Alfred are the virtues that have made it possible
for the Teutonic tribes to girdle the globe. It was Alfred who taught
the nobility of industry, service, education, patience, loyalty,
persistence, and the faith and hope that abide. By pen, tongue, and best
of all by his life, Alfred taught the truths which we yet hold dear. And
by this sign shall ye conquer!

[Illustration: ERASMUS]

ERASMUS

We see not a few mortals who, striving to emulate this divine
virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a feeble and
disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject and burdening the
wretched ears of their hearers with a vacant mass of words and
sentences crowded together beyond all possibility of enjoyment. And
writers who have tried to lay down the principles of this art have
gained no other result than to display their own poverty while
expounding abundance.

--_Erasmus on "Preaching"_

ERASMUS

Erasmus was born in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-six, and died in Fifteen
Hundred Thirty-six. No thinker of his time influenced the world more. He
stood at a pivotal poi