The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-14
MOB SPIRIT DENOUNCED
AS RELIC OF BARBAR|SM
Lynching Declared from Pulpit to
Be Darker Crime than Pur-
pose of Atonement.
LAWLESSNESS IS SCORED

The present epidemic of lynchings
throughout the country was touched upon
by the Rev j. Cumming Smith in his ser
mon at the Tabernacle yesterday morning.
DR.. Smith spoke from the twenty-fourth
chapter of Acts, twenty-seventh verse, on
Paul
In speaking of the mob rule he said:
THE way some poor wretches, badly
reared or born, can violate the law is not
nearly. so serious as the way in which
mob of citizens can hold revolver at the
sheriff and drag "a fellow to his merciless
doom to stamp out crime by crime
deeper and darker by far" Continuing, he
said:
"In Ohio or Indiana, North or South. the
spirit of the lynching crowd means the
revival OF the worst forms of the inquisi-
ton and the forfeiture of our claim to
civilization. If the tardy in
pressing home crime then 1t lies with the
people 10 reform the courts. But to set the
courts aside and let a mass of men, ex-
cited, Infatuated and hot with revenge
constitute their own tribunal is a reversal
of progress and the essence of anarchy.
Let it once touch you circle and you
will realize its malignancy and passion.
But here again we note a prevalent
looseness al! along the line which gives
birth to a thousand such flashes of GRIM
inallty. The Oldtime fear for God or man
seems fading out How far this has grown
out of a corruption of the of the gospel
that 1t rescinded the rigor and majesty of
virtue, or how far the doctrine of the
fatherhood OF God has been distorted so as
TO blunt or bedim the element of inherent
justice and retribution it is not for me to
say. 1t Is always hard to trace things to
their cause.
But one thing is clear The gospel of
Paul includes all the masculine theology of
the Roman thinkers. 1t includes the ir-
reversible DEGREES of the conscience. Cal
vary includes the granite of Linai. 1t en-
thrones some spiritual realities which were
unknown to Roman wisdom, but il does
not revoke or pension off the mastery
jurisdiction of natural law"
The apostle has been impeached fOr
crimes running all the way from anarchy
to heresy, and one by one, before keen
eyed courts, he shakes off the charges. In
his regulations he displays the highest quail
ltles or diplomacy without surrenderfng his
MANHOOD. He is persuasive by putting him
self in the place of Felix and Feshus ano
then reasoning from their standpoint up tC
his own. This is not alone high art but
1t is the plain duty of a Christian advocat
There is the business man, with his de-
cided viewpoint; the lawyer with his, the
artist with his, the scientist with his; al
these emphatic and more or less virile and
self-assertive classes encircie the church
The example of Paul, whom nobody car
associate with cowardly or vacillating
policy, is in favor of looking fairly into
these surrounding intellectual opinions
Selling their germ of truth and then dra w.
! ing them to the Christ whose large faith
! includes every ray of truth everywhere
when Paul crossed from law to grace
| he took everything belonging to him. He
| discarded no baggage or bandbox; he sim
! ply added TO his previous baggage. Right
| eousness, temperance and judgment TO com,
! these were familiar articles of faith to tn,
Roman thinkers, who followed the light Of
| nature.
| Felix probably expected something very
| spectacular or ghOstly or alluringly vagu,
and mystic from the apostle of new creed
] He was surprised TO find the new magica
! preacher stand on his level and proclaim
! the eternal laws of nature and reason anC
! conscience. Nevertheless there is som,
| higher difference.
| our Christian pulpits never emasculat,
! the gospel by leaving out the eternal obliga
| ton of virtue and obedience. So far, heath
| en- and Christian seers touch the sam,
| chord. The Christian goes farther and sur
rounds the schedules of moral obligation
/ with such conception of God as love anC
! fOrgiving in His temperament as 10 rein
| force the mere edicts OF nature or con
! science.
And it is just this reinforcement we al
! require. and not the outlawry OF conscience
| in these easy-gOing times. Not the over
! throw, therefore. or revocation Of law mus
be whispered. but its imperious and ever
! lasting necessity. Our country is overrun
ming with soft, mellifiuOus and unmanl,
! deductions from the love of God. which III
! at the root of the grave epidemic of care
lessness in social and public duties.