“To Thee, O God, I call and speak.  Hear, O hear me, Lord! for Thou art my God and my Lord; my Father and my Creator; my ruler and my hope; my wealth and my honour my house, my country, my salvation, and my life!  Hear, hear me, O Lord!  Few of Thy servants comprehend Thee.  But Thee alone I love,[8] indeed, above all other things.  Thee I seek:  Thee I will follow:  Thee I am ready to serve.  Under Thy power I desire to abide, for Thou alone art the Sovereign of all.  I pray Thee to command me as Thou wilt.”

[Footnote 8:  Meaning—­not that he is of those few, but that, without comprehending, at least, as a dog, he can love.]

You see this prayer is simply the expansion of that clause of the Lord’s Prayer which most men eagerly omit from it,—­Fiat voluntas tua.  In being so, it sums the Christian prayer of all ages.  See now, in the third place, how far this king’s letter I am going to read to you sums also Christian Policy.

    “Wherefore I render high thanks to Almighty God, for the happy
    accomplishment of all the desires which I have set before me,
    and for the satisfying of my every wish.

“Now therefore, be it known to you all, that to Almighty God Himself I have, on my knees, devoted my life, to the end that in all things I may do justice, and with justice and rightness rule the kingdoms and peoples under me; throughout everything preserving an impartial judgment.  If, heretofore, I have, through being, as young men are, impulsive or careless, done anything unjust, I mean, with God’s help, to lose no time in remedying my fault.  To which end I call to witness my counsellors, to whom I have entrusted the counsels of the kingdom, and I charge them that by no means, be it through fear of me, or the favour of any other powerful personage, to consent to any injustice, or to suffer any to shoot out in any part of my kingdom.  I charge all my viscounts and those set over my whole kingdom, as they wish to keep my friendship or their own safety, to use no unjust force to any man, rich or poor; let all men, noble and not noble, rich and poor alike, be able to obtain their rights under the law’s justice; and from that law let there be no deviation, either to favour the king or any powerful person, nor to raise money for me.  I have no need of money raised by what is unfair.  I also would have you know that I go now to make peace and firm treaty by the counsels of all my subjects, with those nations and people who wished, had it been possible for them to do so, which it was not, to deprive us alike of kingdom and of life.  God brought down their strength to nought:  and may He of His benign love preserve us on our throne and in honour.  Lastly, when I have made peace with the neighbouring nations, and settled and pacified all my dominions in the East, so that we may nowhere have any war or enmity to fear, I mean to come to England this summer, as soon as I can fit out