It wasn't easy to speak and to face the services, and that they meant the real end of my rectorship, my active ministry. There were dear friends and very loyal parishioners there. And I think you know my love for Christ Church and for Cincinnati, and my inexpressible appreciation of all that this church and city have given me. It is terribly hard to try to realize that after this summer I shall no longer be rector of Christ Church--and all that that has meant and means--and in very deep gratitude I saw the many, and my mind and heart were very full. Indeed I hope I shall not "retire" from the friendships, and from the life of the people and city. Thank you more than I can say for what only you could so write. I have had a very rare opportunity, and very privileged forty years, and I hope the coming years--or weeks or months, whatever God wills--will bring in their own way the same high things and find me worthy of them, and chief of them, worthy of your friendship and faith. He had given the church and city a lifetime of service, loyalty, and love, and the place he held in the affections of his people had been abundantly made known to him. In July before the last Sunday he was scheduled to preach, he was stricken by a heart attack, and so his ministry came to a close without further sadness of farewell. He spent a few weeks in the hospital, and improved sufficiently to journey to his beloved Cranberry Isles accompanied by his wife and daughter. But a doctor, knowing what others did not realize, broke down and wept when Mr. Nelson left the hospital. His friends and he himself felt confident that a protracted rest would do the work of healing. In August he sustained another and a more severe attack, and as the chilling, autumn winds blew in from the Atlantic they brought him to the Phillips House in Boston. He saw no one at first, but then he grew restless, and the doctor permitted visitors. There were many, and as he was making no progress, he was moved to the old family home in North Marshfield, near Cape Cod. There as a boy he had roamed the spacious, rambling house and the bright fields, and there his parents had lived the last twenty-five years of their lives. The lovely, old home with its atmosphere of peace brought back many tender memories. In the absolute quiet of these surroundings which he loved, he lingered some two weeks. With another attack he lapsed into unconsciousness, and his boyhood friend, the late Dean Philemon F. Sturges of Boston, came down to be with the family. On the morning of October 31st as the end approached, Dean Sturges knelt beside him and in the dear familiar words of the Prayer Book said, "Lift up your hearts," and the family bravely responded, "We lift them up unto the Lord." The Dean continued, "It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and _in all places_, give thanks unto Thee, O Lord." It was meet and right