I thoroughly believe that the only way to succeed with any vocation is to make it a part of your very self and weave it into your every thought and prayer.

You must love before you can comfort and help.

There is no place too lowly or dark for our feet to enter, and no place so high and bright but it needs the touch of the light that we carry from the Cross.

How shall we measure such a life?  Who can weigh love and hope and service, and the joy of answered prayer?  “An annual report of what?” she once asked the secretary of her organization.  “Report of tears shed, prayers offered, smiles scattered, lessons taught, steps taken, cheering words, warning words—­tender, patient words for the little ones, stern but loving tones for the wayward—­songs of hope and songs of sorrow, wounded hearts healed, light and love poured into dark sad homes?  Oh, Miss Burdette, you might as well ask me to gather up the raindrops of last year or the petals that fall from the flowers that bloomed.  It is true that I can send you a little stagnant water from the cistern, and a few dried flowers; but if you want to know the freshness, the sweetness, the glory, the grandeur, of our God-given work, then you must come and keep step with us from early morn to night for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.”

Until the very last she was on the roll of the active workers of the Woman’s American Baptist Home Mission Society.  In the fall of 1915 she decided that she must once more see the schools in the South that meant so much to her.  In December she came again to her beloved Spelman.  While in Atlanta she met with an accident that still further weakened her.  After a few weeks, however, she went on to Jacksonville, and then to Selma.  There she passed.

* * * * *

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory....  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?  When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?  Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NEGRO IN THE NEW SOUTH

1. Political Life:  Disfranchisement

By 1876 the reconstruction governments had all but passed.  A few days after his inauguration in 1877 President Hayes sent to Louisiana a commission to investigate the claims of rival governments there.  The decision was in favor of the Democrats.  On April 9 the President ordered the removal of Federal troops from public buildings in the South; and in Columbia, S.C., within a few days the Democratic administration