elected him has not maintained the principle of prohibition, and has been overpowered by the enemy. I went to Maine and worked on a non-partisan basis, as all amendments to constitutions must be worked, not being submitted to parties but to electors. While I heard some of the grandest pleas to which I ever listened from Republicans, as I did from Democrats, the Democratic press was silent concerning it, and the Republican press in the larger places said very little. But on Thursday before the election the Republican papers of Portland and Augusta came out against it. Mrs. Stevens, state W. C. T. U. president, lives three miles out of town, and the fact was telephoned to her before daylight. On Friday the Democratic papers said, "The Republicans have gone back on Prohibition," but Democrats knew too well its value to the state to take such action and rallied their forces to its support. On Saturday the Republicans, being frightened, declared, "The articles. of Thursday were not official, but only the opinions of individual editors." At the polls at Portland, where I visited every precinct, I repeatedly heard the argument: "The amendment must be defeated or Mr. Blaine will lose." While Democrats undoubtedly hoping that very result, endorsed it and voted for it; and it is generally conceded that the amendment was carried largely by the vote of the Democrats. We all know they are not in favor of the principle; the Republicans are not pledged to it, and there is not an enforcing power in the state. Unless there should be such a prohibition uprising in the country as to create a strong sentiment I believe Maine is already turned backward and will go downward.

I have written all this, not because I feel it necessary to defend my position, or because you demand it, for I would gladly have written it all the way; but I am glad to have you know how continuous and straightforward have been my processes of thought. And I can say to you what I could not say to another, that each time a new light or conviction seemed to come to me, I took it to the Lord. I have been blessed with wonderful nearness to Him, and He has, I believe, marvelously revealed Himself. I have sometimes waited before Him pleading promise after promise given to His children who know nothing, who can do nothing of themselves, and His very glory has appeared to

be in my soul. Then I have gone forth into the world (for I have surely known what it is to be apart with none but God) and proclaimed the truth with unwonted power and without a doubt.

Again, I have prayed as earnestly, but have suddenly found myself praying, it may be for you or some other person or thing, without a special thought of that for which I came, and I have said it is not God's will. I have nothing to do with it. Praise be to His holy name! Another experience has been that no conclusion would be reached at the throne, and having the thought I would arrange for its presentation in prayer and it would not come to my mind; and not understanding for a while I tried the experiment two or three times with the same result, until now, after presenting a wish to the Lord and having no assurance I do not attempt to speak it again until He brings it to my mind; and sometimes He does not and I am perfectly satisfied.

Since the campaign has closed I have not made a partisan reference. I never spoke as last fall and since. At the close of my Sabbath speech at Chickering Hall, Rev. Dr. Brown, chairman of the General Assembly temperance committee, came to the platform with his wife and thanked me over and over. Dr. Graves, of Newark, Dr. Honeyman, of Plainfield, where I spoke twice on the Sabbath, and Dr. Cuyler-all Presbyterians, also Dr. Thompson, Baptist, of New York, have much encouraged and sustained me by their words; yet they all know that when a campaign is on us again I am likely to do as I did during the last.

Have I done right? And am I right when praying for you never to ask that the Lord will bring you where He has brought me? I have not been able to do it; I have said: He is thy servant; thou hast ordained that thy praise shall be perfected through him. I bring him to Thee in the arms of faith for Thy blessing, which I pray may be full and never ceasing.

This letter has thus been quoted at length because it gives such a rare insight into the mental and spiritual processes of this wonderful woman.

The writer once heard a lawyer say in a public speech that Mary A. Woodbridge could draft a better temperance

law in fifteen minutes than the state of Ohio has ever passed. She studied the question thoroughly in its every phase. There is probably not an American statesman in public life to-day who has so complete a mastery of this greatest question of government as she had. She knew the past and present laws, the financial and social and moral bearings of every kind of legislation, being as minutely acquainted with everything pertaining to the question as James G. Blaine was with the tariff question. Yet she took her wealth of information and her strength of intellect and laid all before God in prayer like a little child and humbly sought divine guidance. She did not lean to her own understanding. No Hebrew priest or seer or ruler ever sought wisdom and direction from God more reverently and truly than did she.

President Finney once said to the writer: "I did not get my theology from books and commentaries but from the Bible, and on my knees." This great woman literally studied her civic questions and came to her conclusions on her knees! Who shall say that she and her companions were not right? If our statesmen, so called, had her strength, her thoroughness and her methods, this nation would soon be purged of its giant iniquities, and we should be the redeemed of the Lord.

GIVING UP HER PAPER-SPEECH AT CHICKERING HALL, NEW YORK—INTERVIEWED-CONFLICT—

DIVISION-PAIN.

M. Renan says: "The multitude has no voice; it knows but to feel and to stammer; it needs an interpreter, a prophet, who shall speak for it. Who will be this prophet? Who will tell of its suffering, denied by those whose interest it is to be blind to them." To you, dear timid ones, has come this honor, to voice the sobs of little children, the heart-breaks of women, the groans of drunkards; to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves; to show that the Christian system finds its fullest scope, its most perfect development, under a popular form of government; that a popular form of government is only possible under the peaceable rule of the Lord Jesus Christ in human hearts. What a mission! what a dignity! Let every woman, with Mary, answer, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord."-J. Ellen Foster.

'But," some one objects, "we are a 'Christian' Temperance Union. Let us not descend to politics." Yea, verily! Because we are Christians let us lift politics to a higher level. Reflect that upon Christ's shoulder the government should be; and remember that we live in a country where the majority rules by ballots rather than bayonets. To my thought this line of reflection leads irresistibly to the conclusion that Christians, in proportion as they are such, should be a constant factor in politics.

Beloved sisters, we belong to a national movement; one that shall bring North and South side by side. We must put away old issues and battle-cries outworn. We must have a great unifying party along the lines of longitude. We must rally side by side with the lovely women of the South, who fight for "God and Home and Native Land." The women of the Crusade must lead in this movement. It never was their call to follow. May you speak once more unto the children of Israel that they may go forward.-Frances E. Willard.

I'

T is no flowery path which the reformer treads. It is not an easy task to oppose the iniquities and cure the vices of a people. Moses was opposed, Jeremiah was imprisoned, Paul was mobbed and stoned, and the Son of God

was crucified. "If they have persecuted me they will persecute you also." Mary A. Woodbridge found it true. She could not lag; she was born to lead. She marched faster than some would follow, and so was stoned alike by friend and foe.

All the recognized National leaders of the National W. C. T. U., with one exception, and an overwhelming majority of the membership went over to the Prohibition party in that crucial year, 1884. It was a time that tested women's souls. Mrs. Woodbridge threw off every hindrance that might trammel her perfect freedom of action, or impede her race in the path conscience marked out. Conscious of the delicacy of her situation as state president and editor, and unwilling to compromise or misrepresent any who had not yet come up to her position, she refused election to the presidency of the Ohio W. C. T. U., and resigned her position on the Amendment Herald. The following statement, printed in that paper September 25, 1884, explains itself. The firmness of its moral principle and the sweetness of its Christian spirit are unsurpassed:

FROM MRS. WOODBRIDGE.

To the Executive Committee of the Ohio W. C. T. U.:

DEAR SISTERS:-I have carefully considered your proposition yesterday made through Mrs. E. J. Phinney, our loved president, viz.: "my continuance as editor of the Amendment Herald with liberty of full and free expression of thought."

Had such offer been made at an earlier date, I would gladly have accepted, but two months having intervened since my resignation was forwarded to headquarters (as found below) during which time the only proposition made me was accompanied by such provisos that I could not withdraw it, engagements have been made that cover several months. This fact, with impaired health, renders it imperative that I decline added labor.

Though no longer holding official position in the union,