"Divine service is to be performed to-morrow in the several brigades and divisions. The commander-in-chief earnestly recommends that the troops not on duty shall universally attend, with that seriousness of deportment and gratitude of heart which the recognition of such reiterated and astonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us." In the midst of this rejoicing, Washington received the sad intelligence that his step-son, John Parke Custis, was lying at the point of death. Mr. Custis accompanied his mother, Mrs. Washington, to Cambridge, the first winter of the Revolution, and became one of her husband's aides. He was taken sick after the army invested Yorktown, and no hope of his recovery was entertained. He longed to live, however, to witness the surrender of Cornwallis. On the day of the ceremony of capitulation, he was taken from his bed and conveyed to the place, where he might behold the scene. The ceremony over, he was willing to be conveyed to Elthain, where he was taken immediately. Within thirty hours thereafter, the message came to the general that Custis was in a dying condition. At midnight Washington, accompanied by a single officer and groom, started on horseback for Elthain. By rapid riding he reached there in the morning twilight. "Is there no hope?" he said to Dr. Craik, who met him at the door. The doctor shook his head. Bursting into tears, Washington stepped into an adjoining room to indulge his grief, requesting to be left alone. While bowed in sorrow there, Custis expired. On entering the chamber of death, Washington lovingly embraced the weeping wife and mother, now a widow, tears responding to tears, his deep sorrow showing how dearly he loved the departed one. When he was able to control his grief, he turned to the group of sorrowing friends, and said: "From this moment I adopt his two youngest children as my own." His presence being demanded at Yorktown, without rest or refreshment he mounted a fresh horse, and returned thither before his absence was known, except to some of his aides. It deserves to be recorded that the capture of Cornwallis could not have been accomplished without the co-operation of the French fleet; so that the reader has before him the remarkable fact that, in Washington's early military career, he joined the English to conquer the French, while in his closing military life, twenty-five years thereafter, he joined the French to conquer the English. Another example of the divine blessing upon small battalions was furnished by the surrender at Yorktown. Cornwallis planned, during the siege, to withdraw his troops over the river in sixteen large boats, which he collected for the purpose, and, having reached Gloucester Point, escape to New York. On the night arranged for the flight, a violent storm arose, so that it was impossible for him to cross the river. That was his last, lost opportunity. Divine Providence thwarted his purpose, and gave victory to American arms.