life applied in the real meaning of those words. You cannot imagine
it, but you _can_ prove it. Are any of you willing, simply as a
philosophical experiment in the greatest of sciences, to adopt the
principles and feelings of these men of a thousand years ago for a
given time, say for a year? It cannot possibly do you any harm to try,
and you cannot possibly learn what is true in these things, without
trying. If after a year's experience of such method you find yourself
no happier than before, at least you will be able to support your
present opinions at once with more grace and more modesty; having
conceded the trial it asked for, to the opposite side. Nor in acting
temporarily on a faith you do not see to be reasonable, do you
compromise your own integrity more, than in conducting, under a
chemist's directions, an experiment of which he foretells inexplicable
consequences. And you need not doubt the power you possess over
your own minds to do this. Were faith not voluntary, it could not be
praised, and would not be rewarded.

If you are minded thus to try, begin each day with Alfred's
prayer,--fiat voluntas tua; resolving that you will stand to it, and
that nothing that happens in the course of the day shall displease
you. Then set to any work you have in hand with the sifted and
purified resolution that ambition shall not mix with it, nor love of
gain, nor desire of pleasure more than is appointed for you; and that
no anxiety shall touch you as to its issue, nor any impatience nor
regret if it fail. Imagine that the thing is being done through you,
not by you; that the good of it may never be known, but that at least,
unless by your rebellion or foolishness, there can come no evil into
it, nor wrong chance to it. Resolve also with steady industry to do
what you can for the help of your country and its honour, and the
honour of its God; and that you will not join hands in its iniquity,