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 ...

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THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

the race in the mastery of the material world has been
accompanied by a corresponding development of intellectual power, and the conquest of man by himself. Then
came a comprehension of right and wrong, and a moral
standard was uplifted, which has been immeasurably
advanced during the last century. It has come at last to
include the golden rule, which is as fundamental in the
world of duty and happiness, as is Newton's law of gravitation in the world of matter It has organized our charities,
enlarged our system of education, abolished slavery, infused
itself into society, it seeks the extinction of war, and calls
for the elimination of public abuses, and the purification of
government. It will yet relieve the battle of life of its
hardness, its hopelessness, and its brutality.
We are approaching the era when war shall be no more.
The world is ready for it. Unconsciously, and unintentionally, the powers that be have been preparing for it. For
they have increased the destructive power of the enginery
of war so marvelously, that the nations employing it against
each other will both suffer almost irreparable injury.
When a handful of men can blow up a navy, and another
handful can annihilate an army, war ceases to be war, and
becomes assassination. If we should wake to-morrow to
find that all civilized nations had agreed to arbitrate their
quarrels, that all armies were to be disbanded, all fortifications to be dismantled, and the giant battle-ships transformed into vessels for peaceful uses, how much the world
would gain by the change!
Ten million of soldiers, in European camps, or in readiness
for war, now withdrawn from productive industries, would
be returned to their families, and to the farms and workshops of the world. The women of Europe, now dewomanized and dehumanized by being thrust into the employments