n order that those who come
after us may be happier than we. Every day Science is yielding us some
new knowledge that will make living in the future still easier than
now."

"I cannot conceive," I said, "how you are to be improved upon."

"When we manufacture fruit and vegetables from the elements, can you not
perceive how much is to be gained? Old age and death will come later,
and the labor of cultivation will be done away. Such an advantage will
not be enjoyed during my lifetime. But we will labor to effect it for
future generations."

"Your whole aim in life, then, is to work for the future of your race,
instead of the eternal welfare of your own soul?" I questioned, in
surprise.

"If Nature," said Wauna, "has provided us a future life, if that
mysterious something that we call Thought is to be clothed in an
etherealized body, and live in a world where decay is unknown, I have no
fear of my reception there. Live _this_ life usefully and nobly, and no
matter if a prayer has never crossed your lips your happiness will be
assured. A just and kind action will help you farther on the road to
heaven than all the prayers that you can utter, and all the pains and
sufferings that you can inflict upon the flesh, for it will be that much
added to the happiness of this world. The grandest epitaph that could be
written is engraved upon a tombstone in yonder cemetery. The subject was
one of the pioneers of progress in a long-ago century, when progress
fought its way with difficulty through ignorance and superstition. She
suffered through life for the boldness of her opinions, and two
centuries after, when they had become popular, a monument was erected to
her memory, and has been preserved through thousands of years as a motto
for humanity. The epitaph is simply this: 'The world is better for her
having lived in it.'"

CHAPTER VII.

Not long after my conversation with Wauna, mentioned in the previous
chapter, an event happened in Mizora of so singular and unexpected a
character for that country that it requires a particular description. I
refer to the death of a young girl, the daughter of the Professor of
Natural History in the National College, whose impressive inaugural
ceremonies I had witnessed with so much gratification. The girl was of a
venturesome disposition, and, with a number of others, had gone out
rowing. The boats they used in Mizora for that purpose were mere cockle
shells. A sudden squall arose fr