the ground and followed the liquor in, and remained holding an
uninterrupted prayer-meeting all day and until eleven o'clock at night.
The next day--bitterly cold--was spent in the same place and manner,
without fire or chairs, two hours of that time the women being locked
in, while the proprietor was off attending a trial. On the following
day, the coldest of the winter of 1874, the women were locked out, and
remained on the street holding religious services all day long. Next
morning a tabernacle was built in the street just in front of the house,
and was occupied for the double purpose of watching and praying through
the day; but before night the sheriff closed the saloon, and the
proprietor surrendered. A short time afterwards, on a dying bed, this
four-day's liquor-dealer sent for some of these women, telling them
their songs and prayers had never ceased to ring in his ears, and urging
them to pray again in his behalf; so he passed away."

From this beginning the new temperance movement increased and spread
with a marvelous rapidity. The incidents attendant on the progress of
the "Crusade" were often of a novel and exciting character. Such an
interference with their business was not to be tolerated by the liquor
men; and they soon began to organize for defense and retaliation. They
not only had the law on their side, but in many cases, the
administrators of the law. Yet it often happened, in consequence of
their reckless violations of statutes made to limit and regulate the
traffic, that dealers found themselves without standing in the courts,
or entangled in the meshes of the very laws they had invoked for
protection.

In the smaller towns the movement was, for a time, almost irresistible;
and in many of them the drink traffic ceased altogether. But when it
struck the larger cities, it met with impediments, against which it beat