“We waited, and waited, on the Court House steps, and I had about decided he was not coming, when we looked up the street, and saw him.
“He took an iron square, and measured my height, wrote a description of my features, and asked me if there were any scars on my body. I knew of none, except a small one the size of a silver dime, on the back of my neck, caused from the deep burning of a fly blister. I showed him that.
“He kindly fixed up the papers, and handed them to me. I kept them closely guarded, till my oldest daughter, Mary Waters, was going to move to the State of Ohio to live, and not knowing what might happen to her there, she asked me for them, and I willingly gave them to her. I always regretted that I did not keep a copy, for it would be a curiosity to the present generation.”
As she quietly sat, and told me all this, her grand daughter, Eleanora Carr Johnson, was an attentive listener, never having before heard such details of antebellum history. The afternoon seemed too short; so pleasant was the interview that I regretted not having gone oftener, to see her. She referred incidentally to a little prayer book, “Morning and Night Watches,” by Rev. J. R. McDuff, D. D., from which I had often read to her, in days gone by, and expressed a desire to hear a certain chapter once more.
Feeling that she would enjoy hearing it, I had carried the little book along with me, and read to her as follows: “May it be mine to cheerfully follow the footsteps of the guiding Shepherd through the darkest, loneliest road, and amidst thickest sorrows may I have grace to say, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’”
“Lord, increase my faith, let it rise above all trials, and difficulties. And if they arise, may they only drive me closer to Him who has promised to make me more than conqueror. I am a pilgrim, pitching my tent day, by day, nearer heaven, imbibing every day more of the pilgrim character, and longing more for the pilgrim’s rest.
“May I be enabled to say, with the chastened spirit of a passing world, ‘Here I have no continuing city.’
“May this assurance reconcile me to all things.
“Lord, hasten Thy coming, and Thy kingdom.
“Scatter the darkness that is hovering over heathen nations.