"Yes," answered Burke; "I've had a hard time, sheriff, but I haven't lost my religion."
"Burke," said the sheriff, "I have had you shadowed ever since you left jail. I suspected your religion was a fraud, but I am convinced that you are sincere, as you have lived an honest life, and I have sent for you to offer you a deputyship under me. You can begin at once."
Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.—Rom. 14:4.
Tribute to Burke's Honesty.
This was in 1880. When Mr. Moody was preaching in Chicago in 1890, Burke, who had not been off duty for the ten years, came to see him. During all that time there had been many changes in the administration of the sheriff's office, and they had changed every deputy but him. Finally they appointed the ex-convict treasurer of the sheriff's office. Mr. Moody preached in St. Louis again in 1895. A short time before his visit an evangelist was called away in the middle of the revival meetings. The committee wanted Burke to come and preach in his absence, but the sheriff said he had just levied on a jeweler's store and had not had time to take an inventory, and Burke was the man he could trust to put in charge of it.
VALENTINE BURKE
Fac-simile of photograph taken for the Rogues' Gallery.
VALENTINE BURKE
From a photograph taken in 1887, seven years after his conversion
He was held in such confidence by the police that they did a most unusual thing; they gave him a photograph they had of him in the Rogue's Gallery. He had his photograph taken again in 1887, and in sending a copy of this along with the original Rogue's Gallery photograph, to Mr. T. S. McPheeters of St. Louis, to show the change in his features, Burke wrote a note: