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 ...

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S. THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

sive temperance work would absorb too much of the money
and time of their women members, - the ignorance of parliamentary law, which led many women, when voted down,
or compelled to abide by the adverse decisions of the chair,
or the house, to consider themselves aggrieved or insulted,
- the lack of money to carry on the work, and the faintheartedness of the workers, when means were devised for
the raising of funds, - all this, with many lesser annoyances,
rendered the office of president of the Massachusetts
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, during its first ten
years, anything but a sinecure.
The experience of years has changed all this. And if
the members of the Union throughout the country have lost
their early enthusiasm, it is because of a clearer comprehension of the magnitude of their work, and of its awful discouragements. They are more wisely informed concerning
the subject of inebriety than ever before, they understand
better the causes which lead to it, the methods by which it
should be treated, and are making a public sentiment, that
shall, by and by, manifest itself in the election of better
legislators and more effective temperance legislation.
Better than all else, they are almost unanimous in their conviction that the possession of the ballot is necessary to
women, when dealing with an evil protected by law and
defended by government, and they are working for the enfranchisement of women.
I have worked steadily for temperance, within and
without the organization, from its earliest beginnings; have
given thousands of addresses in its behalf in every section
of the country; have assisted to form organizations within
its lines, both of adults and minors; and have spoken from
the platform and the pulpit, at political meetings, and before
legislative committees, at Chautauqua assemblies and grove