a few of the college professors who had made the pledge in the First Church.  Their experience and suffering were the same as his; for their isolation from all the duties of citizenship had been the same.  The same was also true of Henry Maxwell, who plunged into the horror of this fight against whiskey and its allies with a sickening dread of each day’s new encounter with it.  For never before had he borne such a cross.  He staggered under it, and in the brief intervals when he came in from the work and sought the quiet of his study for rest, the sweat broke out on his forehead, and he felt the actual terror of one who marches into unseen, unknown horrors.  Looking back on it afterwards he was amazed at his experience.  He was not a coward, but he felt the dread that any man of his habits feels when confronted suddenly with a duty which carries with it the doing of certain things so unfamiliar that the actual details connected with it betray his ignorance and fill him with the shame of humiliation.

When Saturday, the election day, came, the excitement rose to its height.  An attempt was made to close all the saloons.  It was only partly successful.  There was a great deal of drinking going on all day.  The Rectangle boiled and heaved and cursed and turned its worst side out to the gaze of the city.  Gray had continued his meetings during the week, and the results had been even greater than he had dared to hope.  When Saturday came, it seemed to him that the crisis in his work had been reached.  The Holy Spirit and the Satan of rum seemed to rouse up to a desperate conflict.  The more interest in the meetings, the more ferocity and vileness outside.  The saloon men no longer concealed their feelings.  Open threats of violence were made.  Once during the week Gray and his little company of helpers were assailed with missiles of various kinds as they left the tent late at night.  The police sent down a special force, and Virginia and Rachel were always under the protection of either Rollin or Dr. West.  Rachel’s power in song had not diminished.  Rather, with each night, it seemed to add to the intensity and reality of the Spirit’s presence.

Gray had at first hesitated about having a meeting that night.  But he had a simple rule of action, and was always guided by it.  The Spirit seemed to lead him to continue the meeting, and so Saturday night he went on as usual.

The excitement all over the city had reached its climax when the polls closed at six o’clock.  Never before had there been such a contest in Raymond.  The issue of license or no-license had never been an issue under such circumstances.  Never before had such elements in the city been arrayed against each other.  It was an unheard-of thing that the President of Lincoln College, the pastor of the First Church, the Dean of the Cathedral, the professional men living in fine houses on the boulevard, should come personally into the wards, and by their presence