No sketch of this woman's work should close without mention of her activities for the nation at large. Red Cross work or a Liberty Loan drive has alike called forth her interest and her energy. She has appeared on some great occasions and before distinguished audiences, such as that for instance in the Belasco Theatre in Washington in December, 1917, when on a noteworthy patriotic occasion she was the only representative of her race to speak.
Her girls have gone into many spheres of life and have regularly made themselves useful and desirable. Nearly two hundred are now annually enrolled at the school. The demand for them as teachers, seamstresses, or cooks far exceeds the supply. In great homes and humble, in country or in town, in Daytona or elsewhere--North, South, East, West--they remember the motto of their teacher and of the Master of all, "Not to be ministered unto but to minister;" and year after year they accomplish better and better things for the school that they love so well and through it for the Kingdom of God.
Two thousand years ago the Savior of Mankind walked upon the earth, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and the people hid as it were their faces from him. But one day he went into the home of a Pharisee and sat him down to meat. And a woman of the city, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, exceeding precious, and began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. And there were some that had indignation among themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? But Jesus said, Let her alone. She hath wrought a good work on me. She hath done what she could. Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
To-day as well as centuries ago the Christ is before us, around us, waiting. We do not always know him, for he appears in disguise, as a little orphan, or a sick old woman, or even perhaps as some one of high estate but in need of prayer. Let us do what we can. Let each one prove herself an earnest follower. To such end is the effort of Mary McLeod Bethune; and as we think of all that she has done and is doing let us for our own selves once more recall the beautiful words of Sister Moore: "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."