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 of
Governor Wade Hampton was formally recognized. The new governments at
once set about the abrogation of the election laws that had protected
the Negro in the exercise of suffrage, and, having by 1877 obtained
a majority in the national House of Representatives, the Democrats
resorted to the practice of attaching their repeal measures to
appropriation bills in the hope of compelling the President to sign
them. Men who had been prominently connected with the Confederacy were
being returned to Congress in increasing numbers