And, what may well be deemed idiosyncratic in these days, he was punctual in the performance of all his minor duties to the Senate, attending its sittings to the moment, attending all the committees to which he was appointed, attending all the funerals of the members and officers of the Houses, always in time at every place where duty required him; and refusing double mileage for one traveling when elected from the House of Representatives to the Senate or summoned to an extra session. He was an habitual reader and student of the Bible, a pious and religious man, and of the "_Baptist persuasion_," as he was accustomed to express it. I have a pleasure in recalling the recollections of this wise, just and good man, and in writing them down, not without profit, I hope, to rising generations, and at least as extending the knowledge of the kind of men to whom we are indebted for our independence and for the form of government which they established for us. Mr. Macon was the real Cincinnatus of America, the pride and ornament of my native State, my hereditary friend through four generations, my mentor in the first seven years of my senatorial, and the last seven of his senatorial life; and a feeling of gratitude and of filial affection mingles itself with this discharge of historical duty to his memory. * * * * * Mr. Benton called his sketch, which appears in his _Thirty-years' View_, "Retiring of Mr. Macon." It is well done, and interesting also because it is what one great man said of another. Yet I confess with some mortification that I have never seen it in print in North Carolina except in Benton's book. To the foregoing admirable sketch by Benton I subjoin the following copious extracts from the _Memoir of Nathaniel Macon_ by Weldon N. Edwards, published in July, 1862: