daily visitations, with persuasion, prayer, and song, and Scripture readings, the drinking places of the town were reduced from thirteen to one drug store, one hotel, and two saloons, and they sold 'very cautiously.' Prayer-meetings were held during the entire winter and spring, every morning (except Sunday), and mass-meetings in the evenings, at the Methodist Church one week and at the Presbyterian the next. This is, in brief, the story."

There were scores of prominent leaders whose names might well be mentioned, but Mother Stewart (Mrs. E. D.) of Ohio, was one of the outstanding Crusaders in the state and nation. Her personality and work were unique. In the south, as well as throughout the north, she thrilled her audiences as she pictured the adventures and power of the marvelous Crusade. Her fervent appeals awakened public sentiment for total abstinence and the closing of the saloons by law. She was the first American woman to carry the Crusade impulse across the sea; and her enthusiasm greatly helped in the formation of the British Women's Temperance Association.

At the Crusade Anniversary Convention held September 7-14, 1923, in Columbus, Ohio, Anna A. Gordon entitled her presidential message, "The Marching Mothers of the Crusade."

"To Ohio's hallowed soil we have come," she said. "On the victorious battle-ground of the Crusade State we are to let the mighty memories of thousands of Crusade marching mothers have their complete, profound, pentecostal way with us. So shall we more adequately meet the challenge of the old crusade by the march of the new crusade -a 'March of Allegiance' to the polling booths of 1924.

"Fortunate are we of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union to inherit the holy Crusade spirit kindled on thousands of Crusade altars by these women called of God. Their daring courage, their persistent faith, their superb attack on the strongholds of the liquor traffic forever will be the wonder-feature in the story of our great and victorious reform. The Crusade was an anguished protest of home-loving, cultured, ballotless women. It began in the winter of 1873 and, according to one chronicler, 'In fifty days it drove the liquor traffic, horse, foot and dragoons out of two-hundred fifty towns and villages, increased by one hundred per cent the attendance at church and decreased that at the criminal courts in almost like proportion."

"At the height of their dauntless adventure, a sweet-voiced Quaker woman led her band to the chief saloon in an Ohio village. 'What business have you to come here'? roared the affrighted dealer. Going to the bar she laid down her Bible and said, "Thee knows I had five sons and twenty grandsons, and thee knows that many of them learned to drink right in this place, and one went forth from here maddened with wine and blew his brains out with a pistol ball; and can't thee let his mother lay her Bible on the counter whence her boy took up the glass, and read thee what God says: "Woe unto him that puttest the bottle to his neighbor's lips?'

"Like a prairie fire the Crusade swept across our continent. Frances E. Willard, as a young teacher, had an enthralling glimpse of it in Pittsburgh, when she knelt in front of a saloon with a praying band. Another prohibition hero, Henry W. Blair, termed this Christian uprising a great moral commotion, in which woman escaped and learned her power, never again to be caged.' Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, first president of the National W. C. T. U., characterized it as a 'flash of heavenly light, a mighty spiritual swirl, a staggering blow that sent the rum-power reeling toward its fall.' Hundreds of dram-shops were closed, countless barrels of alcoholic drink gurgled into the gutters as church bells pealed forth the people's joy.

"One of the many attempts of the liquor trade to ridicule the marching mothers was made in January, 1874, at Canton, Ohio. A spectacular poster advertising the 'Great American Crusade Circus and Menagerie' was pasted on the doors of churches and the homes of Crusaders. Its chief decorative attraction was an American eagle gracefully carrying in his talons something strongly resembling our emblematic white ribbon. 'A partial list of animals' appeared with a brief description of each-a clue to the Crusader's name. Associated with the 'female rhinoceros,' 'laughing hyena,' 'northern gorilla,' 'American tiger,' and many others, we find 'The American deer—a very fine looking doe, better looking than the majority of the other animals that are allowed out of their cages-captured at Ida Island.' This Crusader of Canton, none other than our honored Ida Saxton McKinley, later became the beloved mistress of the White House.

"A few of the elect souls in Ohio and other states who forever wear the halo of the Crusade are: Mrs. Eliza J. Thompson, Mrs. M. G. Carpenter, 'Mother' Stewart, Mrs. H. C. McCabe, Mrs. W. A. Ing

ham, Mrs. Mattie McClellan Brown and Mrs. Abbie F. Leavitt of Ohio; Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, Mrs. E. E. Marcy and Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller of Illinois; Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer and Mrs. Dr. Gause of Pennsylvania; Mrs. Esther McNeil, Mrs. Mary C. Johnson and Miss Margaret Winslow of New York; Mrs. Mary A. Livermore and Mrs. Susan A. Gifford of Massachusetts; Mrs. Dorcas J. Spencer and Miss Emma Janes of California; Mrs. Hutchins Hills, Mrs. Fenner and Mrs. O. H. Wendell of New Hampshire.

"Forty-three years before the Ohio Crusade, in Auburn, New York, a saloon crusading band of women was led by Mrs. Delecta Barbour Lewis. This impressive incident occurring during the boyhood of her son, Dio, led him later in life when a popular lyceum lecturer publicly to urge this method upon the women in saloon-cursed communities. Fortunately for accurate history of the Crusade miracle, Dr. Lewis wrote in 1874 the vivid story of his early life and the winter of 1873.

""There was trouble at our house when I was a small boy. My father had forgotten everything but drink. There were five of us small people. Our mother, with her own hands provided for all. She earned and cooked our food, cut and made our clothes-in brief, was father, mother, general provider, cook, housekeeper, and nurse. In addition to all this, she was the victim of abuse and violence. Often she would cry in the presence of her children, and sometimes, when she could bear it no longer, she would drag her weary limbs up into the garret. We knew what she went up there for, and sometimes, we could hear her say, 'O God, help me, help me! O Lord, how long, how long?' Then she would keep very still for a while. When she came down to us again, her cheeks were wet, but her face shone like an angel's. She taught us to pray. We grew up with a very large estimate of the power of prayer. The day was never so dark at home that mother could not go up into the garret and open the clouds. Today, more than forty years after those darkest times, I believe in my heart that woman's prayer is the most powerful agency on earth.

"Nineteen years ago, when I first began to speak in public, I prepared a lecture upon the potency of the prayers of women in grogshops, which during those years I have delivered more than three hundred times. Lecturing before the lyceums of Ohio during December, 1873, I gave two evenings to the discussion of woman's prayer-meetings in saloons. In Hillsboro and Washington Court House, where