“We have got to take these things to home sister Minkley, in order to realize ’em. Yours and mine, are as far apart as the poles when we are talkin’ about such things. As a general rule we can bear other folks’es trials and sufferin’s with resignation. When it is your brother, and husband, that is goin’ the downward road, we can endure it with considerable calmness; but when it is a part of my own heart, _my_ Willie, or _my_ Charley that is goin’ down to ruin, we feel as if men and angels must help rescue him. When it is mine, when it is mother’s boy that is lyin’ murdered by this trade of death—when the cold snow has drifted down over the shinin’ curls that are every one wove into her heart strings, and the colder drifts of disgrace and shame are heaped over his memory—how does the poison look to her that has killed her darling? How does the law that sanctions the murder seem to her? Then it is that yours and mine draw near to each other. It is the divine fellowship of suffering our Lord speaks of, that brings other hearts near to ours, makes us willin’ to toil for others, live for them, die for them if need be. It was this, that sent forth that wonderful Woman’s Crusade, made tender timid women into heroes willin’ to oppose their weakness to banded strength. It was this that made victory possible to them. “When a king was chosen in the old time to lead the people of the Lord to victory, he was consecrated by the touch of a royal hand. And it was these women, weak and tender, touched with the divine royalty of sorrow, that God chose to confound the mighty. “And other great souled women, who loved the praise of God better than the praise of the world, joined ’em; they swept over the land, the most wonderful army that was ever seen. Conquerin’ minds and hearts, instead of bodies, with tears and prayers for weapons. Hindered not by ridicule, helped by angels, enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, conquerin’ in His name. What was the Crusade to the Holy Land that I have heerd Thomas J. read about, to this? That was to protect the sepulchre where the body of our Lord was once laid, but this was to defend the living Christ, the God in man.” I don’t know how much longer I should have kep’ on, for I seemed to feel more and more eloquent every minute—if I hadn’t all of a sudden heerd a little low modest snore right in front of me, and I see sister Minkley was asleep, and that brung my senses back as you may say, and when I took a realizin’ sense of my situation, and see how still the school-house was and everybody a listenin’ to me, I was completely dumbfounded to think I had spoke right out in meetin’ entirely unbeknown to me. Cornelius Cork the President was a sheddin’ tears, though bein’ a man he tried to conceal ’em by blowin’ his nose and coughin’ considerable hard. But coughin’ couldn’t deceive me; no! the whoopin’ cough couldn’t, not if he had whooped like an Injun’s warwhoop. I see ’em, I had my eye on ’em.