Gilead

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, a kind of last testament to his remarkable forebears. 

''I told you last night that I might be gone sometime... You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother''s. It's a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.''