The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

434

434 THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

people in the gathering last night, whom I have never seen
inside our church, and whom our people never would have
invited here. I cannot believe your parishioners are responsible for this damage. But I will see that you have help in
putting your house to rights; you cannot do it alone."
To this we put in a vigorous (lemurrer; what help we
needed we would obtain. But I made an earnest plea
against being made the victim of another donation party,
and assured our friend that we preferred the commutation
of the gifts into money, even though the. sum was less than
the nominal value of the goods. It was not an easy thing
to persuade the parish to forego their annual frolic, in their
minister's house. It was a custom of generations, and had
never before been seriously opposed. They believed it better to reform the donation party, and admit guests only by
ticket. They were sure its objectionable features could be
removed, that the annual parish party could. be continued,
and they besought me to give it one more trial. But the
whole affair was so repugnant to me that I could not reconsider my decision. I promised them a continuance of their
annual visit to their minister's house, but arranged differently, so as to be pleasanter for all, and more agreeable to
me. My husband endorsed my position, and stood manfully
by me in the long debate - and the change was carried.
That was our first and last donation party, and the Stafford
parish never gave another.
The Maine Liquor Law was enacted June 2, 1851, and
Maine became the prohibition state that it is to-day. Imnmediately, all the New England and Northern states were
in a blaze. For a few years, the great question of deliver