We were created for You by yourself,
and towards You our face is set.
We acknowledge You,
our maker and creator;
we adore your wisdom and pray
that it may order all our life.
We adore your goodness and mercy, and
beg them ever to sustain and help us.
To withdraw gracefully from the public stage and by securing a season of virtuous repose after a life of action – to place a kind of sacred interval between this world and the next, is a piece of practical wisdom which I fear is in few hands.