told him
everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country
and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word
about this infernal Rebellion!
"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more
and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a
glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away.
Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,'
which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right
place,--and so it did. 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 favor 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 those 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, Danforth, 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.'
"On this slip of paper he had written:--
"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not
some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that
my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:--
"'_In Memory of_
PHILIP NOLAN,
_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_, He loved his
country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at
her hands.'"
THE LAST OF THE
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