irresistible, divine, to pray in the saloons, became convinced, as weeks
and months passed by, that theirs was to be no easily-won victory. The
enemy was rich beyond their power to comprehend. He had upon his side
the majesty of the law, the trickery of politics and the leagued
strength of that almost invincible pair--appetite, avarice. He was
persistent, too, as fate; determined to fight it out on that line to the
last dollar of his enormous treasure-house and the last ounce of his
power. But these women of the Crusade believed in God, and in themselves
as among His appointed instruments to destroy the rum-power in America.
They loved Christ's cause; they loved the native land that had been so
mindful of them; they loved their sweet and sacred homes; and so it came
about that, though, they had gone forth only as skirmishers, they soon
fell into line of battle; though they had ignorantly hoped to take the
enemy by a sudden assault, they buckled on the armor for the long
campaign. The woman's praying-bands, earnest, impetuous, inspired,
became the woman's temperance unions, firm, patient, persevering. The
praying-bands were without leadership, save that which inevitably
results from 'the survival of the fittest;' the woman's unions are
regularly officered in the usual way. They first wrought their grand
pioneer work in sublime indifference to prescribed forms of
procedure--'so say we all of us' being the spirit of 'motions' often
made, seconded and carried by the chair, while the assembled women
nodded their earnest acquiescence; the second are possessed of good,
strong constitutions (with by-laws annexed), and follow the order of
business with a dutiful regard to parliamentary usage. In the first,
women who had never lifted up their voices in their own church
prayer-meetings stood before thousands and 'spoke as they were moved;'
in the second, these same women with added experience, and a host of
others who have since enlisted, impress the public thought and
conscience by utterances carefully considered. The praying-bands, hoping