The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-05-02
Ghe Wessenger.
THE PULPIT ON RECENT CRIMES
AND OUTRAGES

only calling out severe and deserved
condemnation from the people and the
press, but eminent and eloquent devires
in the Christian denominations are
speaking out in clarion tones not to be
mistaken against the damning, detes-
table deeds recently performed IN
Georgia and other states. The appal-
ing brutality of the gang that mutilat-
ed and burned the scoundrel Hose is
enough to shock the civilized world
and to bring great reproach upon the
southern whites. Such Internal rage
and demoniac savagery might do for a
crowd of Infatuated men in some north
western state, but not for the ordinarily
humane l~ong-suffering and we'll be-
hayed south. The lynching Of Hose
and all the attending circumstances are
enough to arouse the whole southern
white people of the better kind TO a
full sense of the horror and to a deter
mination to unite in trying 20 prevent
~lynchings of all kinds. 1t is freely
conceded that so long as black devils
roam to raven and despoil, to rape IN
protected victims and to murder at will
the whites, that the temptation to seize
the reins of justice and to hang With
out awaiting the slow and very uncer-
tain process of the courts, but it must
be done to save civilization, to uphold
the good name of the south, and to re-
store law and order every where. 1t is
a difficult task no doubt, but it must
be essayed with all earnestness and
unanimity. How difficult it will be to
suppress all lawlessness and to restore
to the people the spirit of obedience TO
law will be readily seen if each white
man will bring to his own heart and
home the temptation to defend mother
and wife and daughters at every haz-
ard and with every appeal to direful and
swift vengeance. How the blood would
rush through every vein and anger take
possession of every true heart, If he
saw those dearer than life subjected to
the most cruel and devilish embraces of
fiends incarnate, and beheld all the
sufferings and weepings and agonies
consequent upon such diabolism.
But still violence and cruelties that
must shock every one open to the bet
ter instincts and feelings of nature
must be put down unless our dear
southland is to be given over to the
most outrageous crimes that disgrace
humanity. ~
Rev. DR.. Vance, of Nashville, Tenn.
a truly eloquent and able Presbyterian
devine, spoke words of burning force
and animating e%loquence in the extract
given yesterday from a recent address
of his at Atlanta. His concluding
words need repeating here:
THE time has come for every lover
rof the south to set the might of an an
. gered and resolute manhood against the
shame and peril of the lynch demon.
These people whose fendish glee
Ntaunts their victims as his flesh
crackles in the fCmes do not represent
the south. They SANDER the south. |
have not a syllable of apology for the
sickening crime they meant to avenge;
but it is high time we were learning
that la~wlessness is no remedy for crime.
For one, 1 dare to believe that the peo-
pie Of my section are able to cope with
crime, however ~treacherOus and defiant,
through their courts of justice, and l
plead for the masterful sway of a
righteous and exalted public sentiment
that shall class lynch law in the cate
CORY with crime"
Let us say here in all kindness that
the better class of negroes are as much
interested in suppressing crimes among
their race as the whites are interested
in surprising cruelties and desperate
vengeance on the part Of the whites.
The sure, the only sure way possible
TO q solution of the aggressive problem
now upon the south, is to have the bad
blacks who disgrace their race to put
an end to their infamous cruelties, their
Unsuitable lusts, and let the white wo-
men in the south walk in safety and
remain in their homes without fear of
.gnOleStatiOn.
This brings us to another eloquent
native southern's recent deliverance,
Rev. DR.. w. w. Landrum, the gifted
and effective Baptist minister. He
preached on Sunday night in Atlanta
upon The White Mans Burden" and
brought it directly home to his congre-
cation, his city, his state and the whole
south. He said a great deal that was
appropriate, pointed and interesting
and rose to eloquence at times. We
would like to copy at much length-a
half column or a column-if we had the
space We reproduce first from what
he said of the negroes as a burden
He said, in part, at this point:
WAR with all its horrors, brought
f. such grin. confusion, demoraliZa