ember one Sunday, while the school was enjoying a good
sermon by a great bishop, I was in the shop melting some glue, with
which I glued patches on my only pair of pantaloons, which had reached a
condition where thread would no longer hold the patches on. I will not
tell what happened when the patches had been on for a few days.

But amid all these conflicting affairs of my school-days ran an immense
amount of pleasure, more than I had ever known before. I was gradually
coming to see things as they are in the affairs of men. I thought then,
and I still think, that no sacrifice was too great when there was such
a golden opportunity. To sit and listen to one Sunday evening talk by
Principal Washington was worth all the trouble one had to undergo for a
year.

Two years before I graduated I began to inquire what I was made
for--what calling should I follow? It was hard to decide. Mr.
Washington's teaching had impressed me that I should do something to
help those less fortunate than myself, and that in the very darkest
place I could find. My father had called me to his death-bed and said to
me: "Son, I want you to become a teacher of your people. I have done
what I could in that direction. The people need your services." I
recalled how in his last moments I had promised him I would carry out
his wishes. There was nothing else left for me to do but to go into
those dark places. But there was the rub; and every Sunday evening Mr.
Washington thundered that same theme: "Go into the darkest places, the
places where you are most needed, and there give your life with little
thought of self." I knew about those dark places. I had been born in one
of them. I had been spending my vacations teaching in them.

Once, while teaching in the State of Georgia, I boarded with a family
where there were fifteen besides myself, all sleeping, eating, and
cooking in the same room. There were three young women in the family.
When bedtime came I had to go out of doors and amuse myself with the
stars till all the women were in bed; then they would extinguish the
hearth-light by putting some ashes on it and let me come in and go to
bed. I had to keep my head under the cover the next morning while they
got up and dressed. I used to sleep with my nose near a crack in the
wall in order to get fresh air. One little girl in the family, while
saying her prayers one night, begged the Lord to let the angels come
down and stay with them that night. Her littl