Excerpt from Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey: Who Died in the Penitentiary of Maryland, Where He Was Confined, for Showing Mercy to the Poor Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, is a decree against which mortals struggle in vain. Not only does the body return to the earth, but the actions and words perish with it. The ancients lifted the marble from its bed, and bade the chisel shape it into the form of a living man - but it was only a likeness, imperfect and unable to perpetuate the man that once lived and walked and acted. Types and the press have furnished us with a cheaper mode of preserving the words and actions of men. Yet how small is the sum of them. Far more is lost than can be preserved. Still we love to survey the skeletons of the extinct races of animals. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.