I am to lose sight of the old familiar landmarks; old things are passing from me, whose love is for old things. I am pushing out all by myself into the wide, wide sea. The writing of the story of Mary's life, together with essays and articles of general interest for the papers and magazines, "took the harm out of life for a while." In all her writing, as in her teaching and later in her public speaking, her instinctive faith in people was the secret of her power and influence as a leader. "For myself, I liked the world, believed it friendly, and could see no reason why I might not confide in it," she said. When another sorrow, the loss of her father, threatened to darken her life for a time, a friend came to the rescue and "opened a new door" for her--the door of travel and study abroad. They lived for two and a half years in Europe, and made a journey to Syria and Egypt. During much of this time Miss Willard spent nine hours a day in study. She longed to make her own the impressions of beauty and the haunting charm of the past. "I must really enter into the life of each place," she said, "if it is only for a few weeks or months. I want to feel that I have a right to the landscape--that I'm not just an intruding tourist, caring only for random sight-seeing." But Miss Willard brought back much more than a general culture gained through a study of art, history, and literature, and a contact with civilization. She gained, above all, a vital interest in conditions of life, particularly those that concern women and their opportunities for education, self-expression, and service. The Frances E. Willard that the world knows, the organizer and leader in social reform, was born at this time. On her thirtieth birthday she wrote: I can _do_ so much more when I go home. I shall have a hold on life, and a fitness for it so much more assured. Perhaps--who knows?--there may be noble, wide-reaching work for me in the years ahead. It seemed to Miss Willard, when she returned to her own country, that there was, after all, no land like America, and no spot anywhere so truly satisfying as Rest Cottage in Evanston, where her mother awaited her home-coming. A signal honor awaited her as well. She was called to be president of her alma mater; and when the college became a part of the North-Western University, she remained as Dean of Women. At this time many towns and cities of the Middle West were the scene of a strange, pathetic, and heart-stirring movement known as the Temperance Crusade. Gentle, home-loving women, white-haired mothers bent with toil and grief, marched through the streets, singing hymns, praying, and making direct appeals to keepers of saloons "for the sake of humanity and their own souls' sake to quit their soul-destroying business." Their very weakness was their strength. Their simple faith and the things they had suffered through the drink evil pleaded for them. A great religious revival was under way.