become "Lady Principal" of his elegant school for young women, adjoining Central Park, where I was to have just what and just as few classes as I chose, and a salary of twenty-four hundred dollars per year. The other was from Mrs. Louise S. Rounds of Centenary M. E. Church, Chicago, one of the women who had gone to the City Council on that memorable night of March, 1874, and she wrote in substance as follows:

"I was sitting at my sewing work to-day, pondering the future of our young temperance association. Mrs. O. B. Wilson, our president, does all she can and has shown a really heroic spirit, coming to Lower Farwell Hall for a prayer-meeting every day in the week, though she lives a long distance from there and is old and feeble, and the heat has been intense. She can not go on much longer and it has come to me, as I believe from the Lord, that you ought to be our President. We are a little band without money or experience, but with strong faith. I went right out to see some of our leading women and they all say that if you will agree to come, there will be no trouble about your election. Please let me hear at once."

I can not express the delight with which I greeted this announcement. Here was my "open door" all unknown and unsought-a place prepared for me in one true temperance woman's heart and a chance to work for the cause that had in so short a time become so dear to me. I at once declined the New York offer and very soon after started for the West.

The first saloon I ever entered was Sheffner's, on Market street, Pittsburgh, on my way home. In fact, that was the only glimpse I ever personally had of the Crusade. It had lingered in this dun-colored city well nigh a year and when I visited my old friends at the Pittsburgh Female College I spoke with enthusiasm. of the Crusade, and of the women who were, as I judged from a morning paper, still engaged in it here. They looked upon me with astonishment when I proposed to seek out those women and go with them to the saloons, for in the two years that I had taught in Pittsburgh these friends associated me with the recitation room, the Shakspeare Club, the lecture course, the opera, indeed, all the haunts open to me that a literary-minded woman would care to enter. However, they were too polite to desire to disappoint me, and so they had me piloted by some of the fac

character, most of Along the stony

totums of the place to the headquarters of the Crusade, where I was warmly welcomed, and soon found myself walking down street arm in arm with a young teacher from the public school, who said she had a habit of coming in to add one to the procession when her day's duties were over. We paused in front of the saloon that I have mentioned. The ladies ranged themselves along the curbstone, for they had been forbidden in anywise to incommode the passers-by, being dealt with much more strictly than a drunken man or a heap of dry-goods boxes would be. At a signal from our gray-haired leader, a sweet-voiced woman began to sing, "Jesus the water of life will give," all our voices soon blending in that sweet song. I think it was the most novel spectacle that I recall. There stood women of undoubted religious devotion and the highest them crowned with the glory of gray hairs. pavement of that stoniest of cities rumbled the heavy wagons, many of them carriers of beer; between us and the saloon in front of which we were drawn up in line, passed the motley throng, almost every man lifting his hat and even the little newsboys doing the same. It was American manhood's tribute to Christianity and to womanhood, and it was significant and full of pathos. The leader had already asked the saloon-keeper if we might enter, and he had declined, else the prayer-meeting would have occurred inside his door. A sorrowful old lady whose only son had gone to ruin through that very death-trap, knelt on the cold, moist pavement and offered a broken-hearted prayer, while all our heads were bowed. At a signal we moved on and the next saloon-keeper permitted us to enter. I had no more idea of the inward appearance of a saloon than if there had been no such place on earth. I knew nothing of its high, heavilycorniced bar, its barrels with the ends all pointed towards the looker-on, each barrel being furnished with a faucet; its shelves glittering with decanters and cut glass, its floors thickly strewn with saw-dust, and here and there a round table with chairs — nor of its abundant fumes, sickening to healthful nostrils. The tall, stately lady who led us, placed her Bible on the bar and read a psalm, whether hortatory or imprecatory, I do not remember, but the spirit of these crusaders was so gentle, I think it must have been the former. Then we sang "Rock of Ages" as I thought I

had never heard it sung before, with a tender confidence to the height of which one does not rise in the easy-going, regulation prayer-meeting, and then one of the older women whispered to me softly that the leader wished to know if I would pray. It was strange, perhaps, but I felt not the least reluctance, and kneeling on that saw-dust floor, with a group of earnest hearts around me, and behind them, filling every corner and extending out into the street, a crowd of unwashed, unkempt, hard-looking drinking men, I was conscious that perhaps never in my life, save beside my sister Mary's dying bed, had I prayed as truly as I did then. This was my Crusade baptism. The next day I went on to the West and within a week had been made president of the Chicago W. C. T. U.

CHAPTER II.

THE OPENING WAY.

No words can adequately characterize the change wrought in my life by the decision I have chronicled. Instead of peace I was to participate in war; instead of the sweetness of home, never more dearly loved than I had loved it, I was to become a wanderer on the face of the earth; instead of libraries I was to frequent public halls and railway cars; instead of scholarly and cultured men I was to see the dregs of saloon and gambling house and haunt of shame. But women who were among the fittest gospel survivals were to be my comrades; little children were to be gathered from near and from far in the Loyal Temperance Legion, and whoever keeps such company should sing a psalm of joy, solemn as it is sweet. Hence I have felt that great promotion came to me when I was counted worthy to be a worker in the organized Crusade for "God and Home and Native Land." Temporary differences may seem to separate some of us for awhile, but I believe with all my heart, that farther on we shall be found walking once more side by side. In this spirit let me try to tell a little of our story.

One day in September, 1874, a few ladies assembled in one of the Young Men's Christian Association prayer rooms adjoining Farwell Hall, and elected me their president. One of them came to me at the close of the meeting and said, "We have no money, but we will try to get some if you will tell us your expectations as to salary." "Ah," thought I, "here is my coveted opportunity for the exercise of faith," and I quietly replied, "Oh, that will be all right!" and the dear innocent went her way thinking that some rich friend had supplied the necessary help. It was known that my generous comrade, Miss Kate A. Jackson, had taken me abroad for a stay of over two years, so the ladies naturally concluded that she was once more the good fairy behind the scenes. But this was not true. She had not approved my entrance upon temperance work. She was a thousand miles away and knew nothing of my needs.

Having always been my faithful friend I knew she would help me in this crisis, but I chose not to tell her, for I had a theory and now was the time to put it to the test. To my mind there was a missing link in the faith of George Müller, Dorothea Trubel and other saintly men and women who "spoke and let their wants be known" by means of annual announcements, reports, etc., so I said to myself, "I am just simply going to pray, to work and to trust God." So, with no financial backing whatever, I set about my work, opened the first "Headquarters" known to Woman's Christian Temperance Union annals-the Young Men's Christian Association giving me a room rent free; organized committees for the few lines of work then thought of by us; started a daily three o'clock prayer-meeting at which signing the pledge and seeking the Lord behind the pledge were constant factors; sent articles and paragraphs to the local press, having called upon every editor in the city and asked his help or at least his tolerance; addressed Sunday-schools, ministers and massmeetings and once in awhile made a dash into some town or ⚫ village, where I spoke, receiving a collection which represented financially "my little all." I remember that the first of these collections was at Princeton in October of 1874 and amounted to seven dollars, for I had small reputation and audiences in proportion. Meanwhile, my mother, who owned her little home free from incumbrance, held the fort at "Rest Cottage," Evanston, dismissed her "help" and lived in strict seclusion and economy. I was entertained by different ladies in the city or was boarded at a nominal figure by my kind friend Mrs. William Wheeler, one of the truest of my coadjutors. Many a time I went without my noonday lunch down town because I had no money with which to buy, and many a mile did I walk because I had not the prerequisite nickel for street-car riding. But I would not mention money or allow it named to me. My witty brother Oliver, then editor of the Chicago Mail, who with all his cares, was helping mother from his slender purse, and who had learned my secret from her, said, "Frank, your faith-method is simply a challenge to the Almighty. You've put a chip on your shoulder and dared Omnipotence to knock it off." But for several months I went on in this way and my life never had a happier season. For the first time I knew the gnawings of hunger whereat I used to smile and