the
women of the State had organized a Woman's State Temperance Society,
and advertised a Convention to meet the following week at Delavan, the
populous shire town of Walworth County, fifty miles distant in the
interior. Thither the friendly Leaguers proposed to take us. Meantime
it was arranged that Mrs. F. and I should address the citizens of
Milwaukee. A capacious church was engaged for Sabbath evening, from
which hundreds went away unable to get in. But neither clergyman nor
layman could be found willing to commit himself by opening the
services; and with "head uncovered," in a church in which it was "a
shame for a woman to speak," I rested my burden with the dear Father,
as only burdens are rested with Him, in conscious unity of purpose.

Mrs. F. addressed the audience on the physiological effects of
alcoholic drinks. I followed, quoting from the prophecy of King
Lemuel, that "his mother taught him," Proverbs xxxi., verses 4, 5, 8,
9, "Open thy mouth for the dumb; in the cause of all such as are
appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead
the cause of the poor and needy." The spirit moved audience and
speaker. We forgot ourselves; forgot everything but "the poor and
needy," the drunkard's wife and children "appointed to destruction"
through license laws and alienated civil rights.

At Delavan we met a body of earnest men and women, indignant at the
action of the Executive Committee of the League, to which many of them
had contributed funds for the campaign, and ready to assume the
responsibility of my engagement, and the expenses of Mrs. F., who in
following out her original plan, generously consented to precede my
lectures with a brief physiological dissertation apropos to the object
of the canvass. The burden of the speaking, as planned, rested with
me, provided my hitherto untested physical ability proved equal, as it
did, to the daily effort.

In counsel with Mrs. R. Ostrander, President of the Society, and her
sister officials, women of character and intelligence, I could
explain, as I could not have done to any body of equally worthy men,
that in justice to ourselves, to them, and to the cause we had at
heart, we must make the canvass in a spirit and in conditions above
reproach. "I can not come down from my work," said Miss Lyon, founder
of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, when importuned to rebut some
baseless scandal. To fight our way would be to mar the spirit and
effect of ou