a cry that entered into the ear of God and brought a dim sense of coming help, a consciousness that God knew and cared and had something better in reserve. The plough of pain had torn up the fallow soil of woman's heart; the harrow of suffering had mellowed, and tears of agony, wept for ages, had moistened it; now the seed of thoughtful and determined purpose was ready to be sown, out of which was to spring the plentiful harvest of action. Behind were the long dreary wastes of agony, marked with the myriad grave mounds of lost loved ones, over which woman's face had bowed low, while the heart within was breaking; before stretched the wide unknown, full of possibilities. Should it unfold the same sad story of patient, passive' suffering, or grow bright with the burnished armor and glad with the hopeful songs of women gathering to the battle, filed against the fell destroyer of their hopes? As the Spirit of God brooded over the primeval void and brought therefrom order, light, beauty and life, so the spirit of suffering brooded above the torn and saddened heart of womanhood, till at last the angel of awakening appeared, and the heart that had dumbly, patiently endured, stirred to the impulse of defence, and opened to the thought of freedom. The hour had struck, the call had come. The "arrow had been hidden in God's quiver," waiting His time. When His ringers guide to the mark, what can the arrow do but fulfil its mission? CHAPTER II. AWAKENING. In the history of oppressed nations, it has often happened that years of suffering have but kindled the desire for freedom and kept it alive, fanned by every fresh act of cruelty and injustice, until, at last, it has burst forth in a fire, which has destroyed the wrong, illuminated the right, and the oppressed people have gone free. In individual lives, there are not wanting those who have come through the white heat of affliction, purified and made free from the bitterness and selfishness of earth and crowned with a noble purpose-- to relieve the sufferings of others, to be, in a sense, God's voice, God's messenger to the helpless, and to be in His hands for the deliverance of the oppressed and enslaved. So in this temperance cause. For years women had asked, as Paul had asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and it had seemed that the answer came only in the closer pressing to their lips of the cup of suffering. As they still pleaded, spreading the white wings of prayer over their dear ones, suddenly there came to them the inspiration, which led to the crusade, an inspiration from the heart of God.