The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

A LETTER FROM DANIEL WEBSTER.

383

Mr. Thomas's young brother, Ray Thomas, had been Mr.
Webster's private secretary, and had died in Washington in
his service, early in the year 1840. Mr. Webster was very
much attached to the young man, who was highly gifted
and much beloved,.lie sought to comfort the bereaved
mother and his brother and sisters in their affliction, and
wrote them several consolatory letters, one of which Mr.
Thomas gave me, and which I here append. It reveals Mr.
Webster as other than the ambitious public man and the
scheming politician. The letter is dated Washington, D. C.,
March 24, 1840.
"41To-day, dear friend, you will reach home, and will soon perform the last
solemn rites, and leave your beloved brother to sleep with kindred dust.
You will then have done, my good friend, all that love and friendship can
do; and must reconcile yourself without murmuring to the will of God.
His providence is mysterious, but what we know not now we shall know
hereafter. Everything is well, because everything is in His hands, without
whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground. I am aware that your
mother and sisters will be profoundly penetrated with grief; they will shed
many tears; but pray them to be comforted, and enjoy gratefully the recollections connected with the beloved brother, now that they can see his face
no more.
" I have lost children dear to me as drops of my own heart's blood. I
have lost other reatives and friends, sometimes cut down by most sudden and awful strokes; and I have suffered most keenly from these bereavements. Yet I thank God that those children and those friends have lived.
The pain occasioned by their loss is more than compensated by the pleasure
of being conscious that they have lived, and that they do live, and that the
death of the body cannot annihilate their spiritual existence. There is
gratification, though a melancholy one, in the recollection connected with
a beloved object, even when deceased. The past is a treasure wellsecured, and safe against all occurrences.
" And now, dear Henry, and all the members of the family, since love
and affection can do no more, leave your son and brother in the hands of
God. Be thankful that he has lived on earth so long, and weep not as
those with%+ out hope. Hisdeath, whý-Ofich hs hapene so arly mus hav