choices. When the demands of the war are over, her clear eyes see the "duty nearest," in directions which still appealed to the old chivalrous instincts. Now we do not find her contented with the sewing-circle and the newspaper letter and neighborhood celebrity. It is not enough to relate past army exploits to admiring vestries, and to fold the hands over a pleasant reputation for patriotism.

What is the next crisis? Who are the most defenceless? Where is the coming battle-field? Which is the authoritative reveillé? What now most needs the sympathy and sense of a strong woman? Who so keenly, who so promptly as her own sad sex? Who so darkly, who so deeply as the tempted and the outcast?

One of the most touching incidents ever found in woman's work for women is related of Mrs. Livermore while she was living in Chicago.

One night while she was busy with her children, a sharp ring at the door summoned her on a strange errand. The messenger came from a house "whose ways take hold on death." A woman, an inmate of this place, lay dying, and had sent for her, desiring her presence as a spiritual adviser through the final agony.

"Go," said the husband, "you will be safe enough. And I will see that the police look after you. You'd better go."

Mrs. Livermore returned the simple and beautiful answer "that she was putting her children to bed, and would come as soon as this was done."

"Don't wait for that," pleaded the messenger, "or the girl may be gone. She's very low, and has set her heart on seeing you."

So, without delaying to hear the " Amen " to "Now I lay me," the mother kissed her babies, and went out from her Christian home upon her solemn errand. She was received with great respect in the house of sin. The poor girl was dying of hemorrhage of the lungs; she was far sunken away, but in mental distress that stoutly held death off.

She be

A THRILLING INCIDENT OF CHICAGO LIFE.

1. THE NIGHT SUMMONS FOR MRS. LIVERMORE.

DYING GIRL. 8. NURSING SOLDIERS IN UNION HOSPITALS.

wailed her sins, she feared her future, she clung to the pure woman with desperate arms. Mrs. Livermore got upon the bed beside the girl and held her firmly.

"Who are you, and where are your friends? Can you tell me?"

"I'll never tell you! I'll never tell anybody. They don't know where I am. They've advertised for me all these years. My father and mother are respectable people. They don't know I care, and they never shall know. I won't disgrace them so much as to tell you."

The visitor asked if she should not send for a minister, but the girl clung to her, crying:

"I want you, you! I want nobody but you!"

So the pathetic scene went on: "Do you want me to pray for you?" "Can't you trust in Christ to forgive your sins? God is your Father. Don't be afraid of your Father! Can't you believe that He will save you? Listen, He is glad to Christ died to save you."

save you.

As she prayed the girl interrupted her with piteously humble cries: "Oh, Lord, hear what she says!" "Yes, God, listen to her." "Oh, God, do!" "Do, do!". as one who dared not lift up so much as her eyes unto heaven for herself. After her death, which occurred quickly and quietly, the face wore, it was said, one of the most pathetic expressions ever seen upon the dead, "as if she were about to break into tears.” It was afterwards learned that the poor creature was the daughter of a Methodist minister.

Into the work for the elevation and enfranchisement of women, and into the temperance movement for the salvation of men, Mrs. Livermore, after the war released her, turned her leisure and her force. Both of these movements have found in her one of their ablest champions, and the leaders in these causes know what singularly reliable influence they have found in her, and know how to value it as only toilers in "causes

can.

Perfectly fearless, thoroughly equipped, as strong as the hills, and as sweet as the sun, she has stood serenely in the

front of every movement against oppression, vice, and ignorance, with which she has identified herself, observing in her selection a wise reserve, which has given her influence its remarkable value. "Reform" is a hot-headed charger, dragging at its chariot-wheels a hundred eccentricities. Quiet people look on warily at the cranks and quips, the mixed motives, the disorder, the crudeness and rudeness, the ignorance and mischief which often follow the onrush of progress. The term "agitator" has crystallized the popular distrust of effort in which there is so much more gust than seems necessary to keep the weather sweet. One such sound, sane life as Mrs. Livermore's does more to create public confidence in genuine social improvement, and in the figures that stand unselfishly in its foreground, than it is possible to overestimate. One does not find her mixed in all the "ins" and "outs." We never see her with the intellectually maudlin or the morally dubious. Some of us, debarred by circumstances from investigating the merits, not of principles (which must be our own affair), but of applications, are accustomed to depend on her judgment as we would on a magnet, in the vexatious decisions which must be made by the least who has given heart and hand to any philanthropic or social movement.

What are the merits of this association? What is the value of that step? Who compose the "ring" behind such a vote? Which is the safe, wise, delicate way to tread? Where is the sense of this thing? From the study, or the sick-room, or the nursery, the remote or busy woman looks off, weighing perhaps conscientiously the value of her modest name, or contribution, and hampered by her inevitable ignorance of the machinery of the world. At a few firm figures she glances with assurance. Mary Livermore is one of these guideboards. Her name on an appeal is a synonym for its wisdom. Her appearance on the platform of a society is a guarantee of its good sense. To "follow this leader" is always safe.

Mrs. Livermore's labors as a reformer have been greatly facilitated, and of late years chiefly expressed, through her