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 ...

62

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

it would, I should never see them again throughout eternity.
I was devoured with immense concern for all whom I loved,
and while I did not regard myself as a Christian, I prayed
earnestly and anxiously for those who were dear to me, and
who were, as the phrase was, "out of the ark of safety."
Night after night I have wakened my father and mother
from their sleep, and insisted upon their rising' to pray for
the salvation of my younger sisters. My mental distress
forbade me to sleep, and I could not bear my trouble alone.
When my father would remonstrate, and ask, " Is there not
danger that you may also be lost? Have you made your
peace with God?" I would reply, "No, I expect to be lost,
but I don't care if they are saved; I am strong and healthy,
and can bear it, but they are so small and delicate they cannot. They must be saved, father!"
Under the teaching and influence of both parents, my
pastor, Sunday-school teacher, and others, I passed through
almost every phase of religious experience during the first
fifteen years of my life. My mother tried to comfort me in
the despair that sometimes overtook me because there was
so little hope for the majority of the world. "You must
not take everybody's burden on your shoulders," she would
say. "You are too young to worry over these matters!
Leave them to God, our Father. He cares for the world,
and all will come out right. He hasn't made us to hate us
and torture us. Oh, no, my daughter, God is our Father!"
But I had much less faith in her knowledge of these matters
than in that of my father. He was my prophet, priest, and
king, and I never doubted that he was correct. I always
went to him for the solution of problems that puzzled me,
the explanation of difficult texts of scripture, and the anxieties that robbed me of a child's happiness.
I became a member of the First Baptist.Church of Bos