The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-22
ARE WRITTEN IN BLOOD,
Lessons Which Ministers Find
in the Mission
Tragedy.
Comments Upon What the City
Lacks in Morality and Virtu-
Gus Tone.

Particularly pointed was the sermon of
Rev. M. M. Gibson at the First United
PRESBYTERIAN Church. corner Golden Gate
avenue and Polk street, last evening. He
found an occasion in the Emmanuel
Church crimes for the taking up of several
objections to capital punishment and
answering them. He therefore selected
pretty strong text, as follows:
And Samuel said, GAS the sword hath made
women childless, so shall thy mother be child
less among women" And Samuel hewed
Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal-
/ Samuel XIV :33.
DR.. Gibson reviewed scriptural authori-
ties on the necessity and justice of capital
punishment from Genesis to Revelation.
He said, in speaking OF the Mission
murders:
The perpetrator of those crimes was fiend
no matter who or what he may have been.
do not care if he belonged to 1000 churches,
and was the superintendent of hundred sab
bath schools. The more intelligence, the
deeper the guilt; the better his environment,
the worse his crime. feel that it is time that
the ministers of justice took the sword and did
a little hewing like Samuel In Gilgal. When a
man shows the instincts OF ferocious beast,
and does not consider the innocence and help
lessness of young girls, what should entitle
him to any clemency. OF course, don't be-
lieye in Judge Lynch, and before Furnishing we
should first find the guilty man, and ], for one,
am not prepared to say that we have got the
right man.
There is too much romancing about crime in
San Francisco. It is the rich criminal who is
allowed to go Scott free. Let the criminal be
executed whether he comes from Mob Hill or
Tar Flat. Let us have eyen-handcd justice, re-
CARELESS of condition, standing, race or color.
Then only will the administration CT law be a
terror to evil-doers. Too many are allowed to
escape owing to the bubbles of law and short
comings of justice, until 1t has become the thing
for men to believe that they can handle the
pistol and commit crime with impunity. They
feel secure in an immunity from all punish
ment Why, here is the Supreme Court of the
State saying that ssundue haste should not be
shown in the execution of Fredericks," the
man who shot down my friend, Mr.. Herricki
The sermon of Rev. w. R. Goodwin at
the California street Methodist Episcopal
Church last evening, was evidently retail
iation. The pastor seemingly had in mind
the lud icrous attempt of saloon-keeper
last week to have all side entrances to
churches closed by the Board of Super
visors petition to that effect having been
inspired by the liquor sellers deductions
from the Emmanuel Church tragedy. The
text chosen was Hosea iv: 1-2.
Hear the word of the Lord, We children of
Israel: for the Lord hath q controversy with
the inhabitants of the land, because there is no
truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the
land.
Summed up, his discourse may be said to
be specification of the causes which lead
up to the commission of such crimes and
q suggesting of such cures as the pastor
thought would be effective. He said in
substance:
In San Francisco there have been $50 muir
ders committed within five years. and only one
Some forty murderers are now in jail. The city
is full of robberies, thefts, assaults and crime,
and the character of the community can be
fairly judged by the number of illegitimate
methods there are in vogue for the obtaining
of bling, lotteries and other meth
DDS of that ilk. 1t is place of general lawless-
ness, full of saloons and dens of vice, each q
pernicious source OF law-breaking and vio-
lence
Those who are sworn to uphold the laws of
the land are easily turned aside by hush
money, and men prominent in the community
find it necessary to keep their evil doings from
the light by the efficacious use of hush money
1t is place of contract marriages and
divorces l would say to the young woman
who is not willing to be married in her fathers
home or in the parsonage that she had better
remain unmarried and the young man who
proposes a contract marriage to her she should
shun as she would rattlesnake. The relations
between the sexes here are so VIGOROUSLY loose
that it is hardly to be wondered at that crime
is the apparent rule, rather than the excep-
And what are the causes OF this deplorable
state of affairs? l would say, first, lack of
fum home produces only hoodlum children.
The outdoor life of this city is one of night
houses, all productive of general licentious-
ness and crime. The second cause is lack of
moral and religious training and neglect of
church aud Sunday-school attendance.
The cure offer is religion in the home. 1t
makes drunkards sober, thieves honest and
the impure pure.
The picture, too, will change when we have
an honest and i'm partial press, the impartial
and DrOmnt admi N SfrQtiOn of law a
less, plain and devoted pulpit all crowned
with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. DR.. Eli McClish, pastor of Grace
M. i. Church, preached last evening from
the first two verses of the ninety-seventh
psalm:
around about him, but righteousness and judg-
ment are the habitations OF his throne.
The central idea of the pastors sermon
was to show how unexplalnable are the
ways of the creator and what unlocked
for means he sometimes employs to work
his ends; also what things are allowed to
happen and to exist which upon their face
seem to indicate the absence of the pro-
tecting hand of providence, but which may
really be some part of the great plan for
universal salvation.
Apropos of this last idea DR.. McClish
touched lightly upon the recent tragedy in
the Mission, and upon the lesson which it
taught. In the first place, he said, it
showed the need of more motherly infu-
ence and protection; it also disproved the
pagan idea that a place of worship, merely
from its character, is protection to life
and property. A church, the pastor said,
was sanctified only by its association with
the worship of God.
Upon the platform with DR.. McClish was
the Rev. DR.. George Gibson of the i'll
omened Emmanuel Church. He took part
in the service to the extent of reading the
scriptural lesson and pronouncing the
benediction. 1t was by the courteous in
vitation of DR.. McClish that he was