There was his double red mark down the
page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me,
"For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank
Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of
Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous
kindness," and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he
turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words
more familiar to me: "Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy
favour to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the
United States, and all others in authority"--and the rest of
the Episcopal collect. "Danforth," said he "I have repeated
these prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five
years." And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me
down over him and kissed me; and he said, "Look in my Bible,
Captain, when I am gone." And I went away.
But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired
and would sleep. I knew he was happy, and I wanted him to be
alone.
But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found
Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had
something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's
badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.
We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the
place where he had marked the text--
"They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is
not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for
them a city.
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