The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-03
At HOME.

Those who nave read of the burning OF
Terre Haute and of persons taking
away portions Of il and raking the
ashes for bones to be used as relics can ask
with propriety If the American people,
after all, are more civilized than those who
are called barbarians. or if, as a Christian
people, we are much higher in the scale
Of decency than are those OF whom we
speak as heathens or pagans. The only
difference is that those whom we
look down upon as depraved do not at any
time rise above that condition. while our
d~epravity is a sort of paroxysm which
turks in the system like the disease of a
paralytic-sure to break out when occa-
sion. or. rather. excuse is offered. Re-
membering such degrading and fiendish
acts as that at Terre Haute, we cannot
turn to Chinese Boxer or naked Hottentot
and offer the complacent Pharisee's prayer.
In Indiana we boast the best public school
system in the world. We congratulate
ourselves on the smallest illiteracy among
the States. and thai only the smallest per-
centage of the children growing up in the
State are not taught to some extent in the
public schools. Granted that this is true;
is that real education which does not carry
10 the pupil an idea Of the difference be-
tween decency and such disgusting prac-
tees as occurred over the remains of the
miserable victim of lynchers-practices
that suggest the orgies of the cannibal?
Cannot the public schools be made 10
teach the first lessons in civilization and to
do something to elevate the tastes of the
young so that such exhibitions as that at
Terre Haute would fill them with horror
and disgust?
The church is a power in the world and
a great light in America, yet it seems at
times as if, in close proximity TO our
churches there are regions lying in the
darkness of heathenism. Such exhibitions
as that at Terre Haute painfully dis
close the fact that there are many thou
sands of human beings who are as ignor-
ant of the truths of Christianity as the
Hottentots and that their heathenism is as
dense and as fiendish as can be found in
the world. Possibly some of the mob that
took the life of the murderer, burned his
booy and carried away portions of it as
relics may imagine that they are Chris
tians, but they are not, because the Chris
tianity of the Sermon on the Mount is,
with all else. the gospel of refinement. Can
the Christian church do nothing TO reach
these people who can be melted TO such
orgies as is here referred to? Do its lead
ers confess inability to break down the
heathenism in cities which is within the
sound of church bells? Sometimes the OBJ
server suspects that such is the fact.
1t is not for the everyday newspaper to
suggest the methods of attacking heather
ism at home. There is, however. a method
might be observed by the directors of the
war upon darkness by all the churches.
Protestant and Catholic alike. The strong
and seasoned battalions are put upon the
firing line and TO make the charges, while
the weak and fresh troops are set to hold
the lines of communication and the de-
pots of supplies. The church reverses that
order; it keeps the able and the eloquent
in the large and strong churches and
sends the weak brother to the mission
church to preach in a feeble manner a flu
ture salvation. How would it do to put the
churches champions on the missions? a
further suggestion may be offered: 1t is
that the Christianity that will save hui
man beings in this life from the heathen-
ism of vulgarity and brutality-the Christ
who walked the earth-should be preached,
and less Of that so%ul-saving for a here
after.
1t is due to Terre Haute to say that in
regard to the heathenism which neither
education nor religion seems able TO reach,
it is not different from other cities. But
for the vigilance OF Indianapolis officials
ii is quite probable that an innocent man
would have been lynched by a mob and
that the heatnenish instincts would nave
led some portion of it to have seized
upon portions of his body for relics. No