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 ...

730

HAS THE NIGHT OF DEATH NO MORNING?

of lif3, which has been packed with -marvels, and has taught
m3 what is highest and best and most enduring, I will believe Thee, 0 God, though thy promise of the future may
seem impossible. The life that I have lived I feel to be
preparatory, and prophetic of one greater, now out of
sight."
I am convinced that a belief in the existence of the soul
after death depends very much upon our manner of living.
The higher we attain, and the more we strive after what is
best and noblest in life, the more we take hold of immortality, the surer we are of our heavenly destiny. And there
are those, whose lives are so noble, and who go through life
shining brighter and brighter, like the sun as it tends to the
zenith, that they coast near to the heavenly shore, and need
no word wasted on them in argument, since they are already convinced.
Victor Hugo, a man of great attainments, who had
served the cause of liberty and truth, and rendered invaluable service to his fellows, when near the close of life, said:
" For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in
prose and verse. History, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song, - I have tried all. But I feel
I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me.
When I go down to the grave, I can say, like so many others, ' I have finished my day's work.' But I cannot say, ' I
have finished my life.' My day's work will begin again the
next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley,- it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open with the dawn.
I improve every hour, because I love this world as my fatherland, and because the truth compels m- My work is
only a beginning. My monument is hardly above its foundations. I would be glad to see it mounting and mounting
forever. The thirst for the infinite proves infinity "

THE END.