warden:
"It is rightly the duty of every true Christian man to pray for all
mankind! Well, well; but they are so many, so infinitely many; and I,
like every other man, have my own little world, inside the great world,
as it were, and that is my dear old, staunch town of Nuremberg. Never
have I been beyond its precincts, and it contains all on earth that
is dear and precious to me. To me the citizens of Nuremberg are all
mankind, and our city and so much as the eye can see from this tower all
my world, small though it may be. I could ever find some good matter for
thought in Nuremberg, something noble and well-compact, a fine whole. I
have never sought the boundaries of the other, greater world."

Yet, that his world was in truth wider than he weened, was plain to us
from the prayer he murmured wherein we could hear my brothers' names,
albeit land and seas parted them from him. And after that, for a space
all were silent, and he lay gazing at the bone crucifix on the wall; and
at last he besought Dame Giovanna to lift him somewhat higher, and he
drank again a little more, and said right softly as he cast a loving
glance upon us each in turn: "I have looked into my own heart and gazed
on Him on the Cross! That is our ensample! And I depart joyfully--and if
you would know what maketh death so easy to me; it is that I have needed
but little, and kept little for myself; and whereas I was wont to give
away what other men save, I came to know of a certainty that all the
good we do to others is the best we can do for ourselves. It is that, it
is that!"

And he stretched forth his hand, and when we had all kissed it, he cried
out: "My God, I now can say I thank Thee! What to-morrow may bring, Thou
alone canst know! Margery, Ann, my poor children! May the bright day
of meeting dawn for you! May Heaven in mercy protect the youths beyond
seas! Here, close at hand is Mistress Kreutzer with her orphan children,
you know them--you and Master Peter--they are in sore need of help--and
the good we do to others. But come close to me, come all of you--and the
little ones likewise."

And we fell upon our knees by the bed, and he spread forth his hands and
said in a clear voice: "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord lift
up his countenance upon you and be merciful unto you."

And then he sighed deeply, and his hands fell, and Dame Giovanna closed
his eyes.

Yea! Death had come easy to this simple soul. Never knew I any man who
gav