He was engaged diligently and industriously in repairing injuries,
redressing grievances, and rectifying every thing that was wrong.
He exacted rigid impartiality in all the courts of justice; he held
public servants of every rank and station to a strict accountability;
and in all the colleges, and monasteries, and ecclesiastical
establishments of every kind, he corrected all abuses, and enforced a
rigid discipline, faithfully extirpating from every lurking place all
semblance of immorality or vice. He did these things, too, with so
much kindness and consideration for all concerned, and was actuated
in all he did so unquestionably by an honest and sincere desire to
fulfill his duty to his people and to God, that nobody opposed him.
The good considered him their champion, the indifferent readily caught
a portion of his spirit and wished him success, while the wicked were
silenced if they were not changed.

Alfred's children had grown up to maturity, and seemed to inherit,
in some degree, their father's character. He had a daughter, named
Æthelfleda, who was married to a prince of Mercia, and who was famed
all over England for the superiority of her mental powers, her
accomplishments, and her moral worth. The name of his oldest son was
Edward; he was to succeed Alfred on the throne, and it was a source
now of great satisfaction to the king to find this son emulating his
virtues, and preparing for an honorable and prosperous reign. Alfred
had warning, in the progress of his disease, of the approach of his
end. When he found that the time was near at hand, he called his son
Edward to his side, and gave him these his farewell counsels, which
express in few words the principles and motives by which his own life
had been so fully governed.

"Thou, my dear son, set thee now beside me, and I will deliver thee