told them the circumstance of my selecting it.
The women sobbed so I could hardly go on. When I had finished,
I felt inspired to call on a dear Presbyterian lady to pray.
She did so without the least hesitation, though it was the
first audible prayer in her life. I can't tell you anything
about that prayer, only that the words were like fire.

When she had prayed, I said--and it all came to me just at the
moment--"Now, ladies, let us file out, two by two, the smallest
first, and let us sing as we go, 'Give to the winds thy
fears.'"

We went first to John ----'s saloon. Now, John was a German,
and his sister had lived in my family thirteen years, and she
was very mild and gentle, and I hoped it might prove a family
trait, but I found out it wasn't. He fumed about dreadfully and
said, "It's awful; it's a sin and a shame to pray in a saloon!"
But we prayed right on just the same.

Next day the ladies held another meeting, but decided not to make any
visitations, it being Christmas day, and the hotel-keepers more than
usually busy and not likely to listen very attentively to our
proposition.

On the twenty-sixth, the hotels and saloons were visited; Mrs. Thompson
presenting the appeal. And it was on this morning, and at the saloon of
Robert Ward, that there came a break in the established routine. "Bob"
was a social, jolly sort of fellow, and his saloon was a favorite
resort, and there were many women in the company that morning whose
hearts were aching in consequence of his wrong-doing. Ward was evidently
touched. He confessed that it was a "bad business," said if he could
only "afford to quit it he would," and then tears began to flow from his
eyes. Many of the ladies were weeping, and at length, as if by
inspiration, Mrs. Thompson kneeled on the floor of the saloon, all
kneeling with her, even the saloonist, and prayed, pleading with
indescribable pathos and earnestness for the conversion and salvation of
this and all saloon-keepers. When the amen was sobbed rather than
spoken, Mrs. Washington Doggett's sweet voice began, "There is a
fountain," etc., in which all joined; the effect was most solemn, and
when the hymn was finished the ladies went quietly away, and that was
the first saloon prayer meeting.

There was a saloon-keeper brought from Greenfield to H---- to be tried
under the Adair law. The poor mother who brought the suit had besou