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 ...

392

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

"Are there many people, sir, who accept the views you
have advanced to-night?"
"Yes, a large number, and they are rapidly increasing."
"Do you belong to a denomination?"
"Oh, certainly! You must have heard of the Universalist denomination. This is a Universalist church, and I am
an ordained minister of the Universalist denomination."
Yes, I had heard of the Universalist denomination, but
unfavorably always, as if it were outside the pale of Christian organizations. But I had not thought of this particular
church, with its minister and congregation, as constituting
an integral part of that body. I continued my questionings.
" Then your denomination must have literature,- books,
papers, tracts, magazines?"
"We have."
"Where are your headquarters? I wish to investigate
these doctrines, and to pursue a course of reading that will
be educational."
"I have a small library of standard theological works,
and the best and latest magazines and papers on these
subjects. They are at your service. I live at 'The Point,'
only two doors below you, and you have a calling acquaintance with the family with whom I board."
I accepted the offer, and made an appointment to meet
him at his library, the next day, on my return from school.
As I was unable to make a selection, I accepted the works
recommended by my new friend, and was soon deep in
a course of theological reading and study. I was not
interested in all the books he loaned me. Those which
were devoted to the exegesis of Scripture texts, then in dispute between the orthodox and liberal sects, I discarded
altogether. It seemed too monstrous, too impossible a