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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN,
SATURDAY. DECEMBER 22, 1WJ«.
UNBELIEF TRIED BY THE TEST OF SCIENCE!
By REV. JAMES W. LEE,
PASTOR TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH
I x the last chapter of this Inquiry tv.
• considering the almost over
whelming trend of unbelief In tev
of last century.
, r(r „ John'Romanes, one of the
ih ;,t men of the period, declared:
■■If matter and force have been eter-
I .0 far as the human mind can
can discover no need of a su-
'^tnr mlnd to explain the varied phe-
prfjU of existence. Man has truly
SiTme m a new sense, the measure of
universe, and In this, the latest
' s most appalling of his soundings,
? melons are returned from the in-
voids of space and time by which
IIsurrounded, that his Intelligence,
SU all its noble capacities for love
a deration, is .vet alone, destitute
S? kith or kin in this universe of be-
ln An,i here again the same assertion
nut in still more positive form:
••rooking to the present condition of
«*culatlve philosophy, I regard it ns
55 utmost importance to have clear.
Inn that the advance of science
2' now entitled us to assert, without
X least hesitation, that the hypothe
cs if mind in nature Is as certainly
Superfluous to account for any of the
SEnnmena of nature as the sclentlflc
SJctrine of the persistence of force
ami the indestructibility of matter is
^Huxley whs teaching that the funda
mental proposition “is that the whole
living and non-living is the result of
♦he mutual interaction, according to the
finite laws, of the forces possessed by
, e molecules of which the primitive
nebulosity Of the universe was com-
nnsH and that “the existing world lay
potentially in the cosmic vapor.”
Tyndall was saying that ‘all our phi
losophy. all our poetry, all our science,
and all our art. Plato. Shakespeare,
yewton and Raphael, are potential In
♦he Arcs of the sun.”
It was the opinion of Spencer that
h a< k of the universe,’ back of life,
mind. art. c hurch and state there was
only boundless, unconditioned Inscru-
tible boiling energy. The great men
who were leading the revolt against
God and mind and purpose in the uni
verse were not revelling and rejoicing
In their newly discovered truth. But.
having, as they thought, found It. they
regarded it to be their solemn duty to
declare It. though the universal appli
cation of It to practial life might lead
tu wreck and ruin.
In the early stages of his conversion
to atheism. Romanes saw what was in
volved In his godless creed; so in his
“Candid Examination of Theism”
wrote:
"So far as the ruination of Individual
happiness Is concerned, no one can
have a more lively perception than my
self of the possibly disastrous tendenev
Qf my work. * • • I am not asham
ed to confess that with tills virtual
negation of God the universe to me has
lost Its soul of loveliness; and although
from henceforth the precept to ‘work
while it Is day’ will doubtless but gain
an Intensified meaning of the words
that ‘night eometh when no man can
work,* yet when at times I think—as
think at times I must—of the appalling
contrast between the hallowed glory of
that creed which once was mine and
the lonely mystery of existence as now
I find it, at such times I shall ever feel
it impossible to avoid the sharpest
pang of which my nature Is suscepti
ble.”
Romanes seemed to be deeply grieved
that his life had not been spent and
completed In an age of faith before the
awful discoveries which left no place
for God In the universe had been made.
The following quotation from his “Can
did Examination of Theism” is a cry of
anguish wrung from a lonely and de
spairing soul:
“If it had been my lot to have lived
in the last generation I should certainly
have rested In these ‘sublime concep
tions’ as in an argument supreme and
irrefutable. 1 should have felt that the
progress of physical knowledge - could
never exert any other .Influence on
Theism than that of ever tending more
and more to confirm that magnificent
belief by continuously expanding our
human thoughts into progressively ad
vancing conceptions, ever grander and
yet more grand, of that tremendous
Origin of Things—the mind of God.
Such would have been my hope, such
would have been my prayer. But now,
how changed! Never, In the history of
man. has so terrific a calamity befallen
the race as that which ail who look
may now behold advancing like a del
uge, black with destruction, resistless
In might, uprooting our most cherished
hopes, engulfing our most precious
reed and burying our highest life in
mindless desolation. Science, whom
erstwhile we thought a very angel of
God, pointing to that great barrier of
Law, and proclaiming to the restless
sea of changing doubt—‘Hitherto shalt
thou come, but n« further, and here
shall thy proud waves be stayed;* even
science has now herself thrown down
this trusted barrier; the floodgates of
infidelity are open and Atheism over
whelming Is upon us.”
John Addington Symonds, another
great spirit and contemporary of Ro
manes, had the moral life and hope
within him frozen into apathy by the
unbelief it was thought new discover
ies in science had made necessary.
From the depths of his heart he
speaks when he says;
"Then with my cries I beat agafnst
the blue heavens. On the tops of
mountains among the Alps, I have sent
the passion of my spirit upward. But
not un echo answers me. I see noth
ing but the facts of the miraculous
universe, my brain and yours being
perhaps Its chief miracle. * • • Wo
are undergoing the greatest cataclysm
of thought that the world has ever suf
fered, and in the midst of it some must
perish. Like Balaam, there are many
who must prophesy of a star they will
not see.”
Within thirty years. thinkers and
leaders of scientific thought have
changed completely. Twenty-four
years after Tyndall’s famous assertion
that matter contained the promise and
the potency of all forms of life, Pro
fessor Sir William Crookes, president
of the British Association, in 1898, ex
actly reversed the words of Tyndall and
said that he,saw in life the promise and
the potency of all forms of matter. In
twenty-four years the world's greatest
thinkers passed from a conception that
regarded the universe as a machine, to
the view that held ft to be an organ
ism. It Is a significant evidence of the
scientific value of belief In God to
note that the atheistic theory, though
supported by the most influential scien
tists of the age, cannot hold its own
through a single generation without
collapse and ruin.
Most of the great scientists who were
materialists in the seventies, came
round to a different point of view be
fore the close of the century. George
John Romanes wrote that wonderful
book, “Thoughts on Religion,” in re
ply to his former work, “A Candid Ex
amination of Theism.”
Professor Emil DuBois-Reymond,
who began with the materialists, broke
with them completely In his speech
on ‘‘The Limits of Natural Science.”
Haeckel refers to him as the all-pow
erful secretary and pronounced this
deliverance, the address “Ignorabimus."
DuBois-Reymond was born in 1818, two
years before Herbert Spencer. He was
in Germany equally as distinguished
REV. J. W. LEE.
as was Spencer In England. He de
clared in the address referred to above
delivered in 1872: “At some special
point in the development of life on
the earth, which we do not know, there
appeared something new, hitherto un
precedented, a thing incomprehensible,
like the essence of matter and force,
and like the first beginning of motion.
The thread of intelligence reaching
away back into the endless past is
snapped, and our knowledge of nature
reaches a chasm, across which no
bridge, no pinion, can carry us. This
new and Incomprehensible thing is
Consciousness. I am about to demon
strate, I believe, in a very conclusive
way, that consciousness is inexplicable
by material conditions, not only in the
present state of our knowledge, which
Indeed, every one admits, but it will
always remain Inexplicable by such
conditions.
It is altogether ancf forever Incon
ceivable that It should be otherwise
than a matter of indifference to a num
ber of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, ox
ygen, etc., how they are placed and
move. One can in no way see how,
out of their Interactions, consciousness
can arise. The two things are incom
mensurable.”
Professor Rudolph Virchow, direc
tor of the pathological Institute of
Berlin from 1856 to "the year of his
death In 1902, was born one year after
Herbert Spencer, in 1821. He pro
foundly influenced the thought of the
last century. IJe also begun nis career,
as a materialist, but changed his views
and In “The Fredom of Science in the
Modern State/’ says in opposition to
the descent of man fromMhe ape by
mere natural evolution:
*1 am now specially engaged In the
study of anthropology, but I am bound
to declare that every positive advance
which we have made In the province
of prehistoric anthropology has actual
ly' removed us further from the proof
of such a connection of man with the
ape. When we study the fossil man
of the quaternary period, who must,
of course, have stood comparatively
near to our primitive ancestors in the
order of descent, or rather of ascent,
we find always it man, just such men
as are now. * * * The old troglo
dytes, pile-villagers, and bog-people,
prove to be quite a respectable society.
They have heads so large that many a
living person would be only too happy
to possess such. • • • Nay, if we
gather together the whole sum of the
fossil men hitherto known, and put
them parallel with those .of the present
time, we can decidedly pronounce that
there are among living men a much
larger number of individuals who show
a relatively Inferior type than there are
among the fossils known up to this
time. * * • Not a single fossil skull
of an ape or an ‘ape-man* has yet
been found that could really have be
longed to a human being. Every addi
tion to the amount of objects, which
we have attained as materials for dis
cussion, has removed us farther from
the hypothesis propounded.”'
“In Germany Wilhelm Wundt,” says
Haeckel, "is considered to be the ablest
living psychologist; he has the Inesti
mable advantage over most other phi
losophers of a thorough zoological, an.
atomical and physiological education.
What seems to me, however, of special
importance In Wundt’s work is that
he extends the law of the persistence
of force for the first time to the pys-
chic world."
Thirty years after his lectures on
human and animal psychology. In 1892,
Wundt published a second work. The
Important principles of the first edition
are entirely abandoned in the second.
Wundt himself says In the preface ta
the second edition that he has eman
cipated himself from the fundamental
errors of the first, and that he learned
many years ago to consider the work a
sin of his youth. In the first edition
he is purely materialistic,. In second
edition purely spirtuallstlc. In the first
psychology is treated as a physical sci.
ence, thirty years afterwards he finds
psychology to be a spiritual science.
The break down of the atheistic, the
ory was first seen* in the realm of the
practical life. This is declared in the
words of Romanes, where In his
"Thoughts on Religion 1 ’ he says:
"It .does not appear to me that the
modifications which my views have
undergone since the publication of my
previous ‘Candid Examination of The
ism’ are due so much to purely logical
processes of the intellect, as to the sub
conscious (and therefore more or less
unanalysable) influences due to the
ripening experiences of life.”
And again Romanes declares in his
‘‘Thoughts on .Religion:''
"When I wrote the preceding treatise
(tlie ‘Candid Examination of Theism*)
I did not sufficiently^ appreciate the
Immense Importance of human nature,
as distinguished from physical nature,
in any Inquiry touching Th^sm. But
since then I have seriously studied an
thropology (including the science of
comparative religions), psychology and
metaphysics, with the result of clearly
seeing that human nature Is the most
Important part of nature as a whole
whereby to investigate the theory of
Theism. This I ought to have antici
pated on a priori grounds, and no doubt
should have perceived, had I not been
too much Immersed In merely physical
research.”
Jchn Addington Hymonds did not
come back to the Christian faith before
he died, but he put on record his view of
what he called "the anxious, yearning,
impotent, God-desiring, hungry and
thirsty, exiled, foot-sore, feverish, blind,
passionate, unhappy, skepticism of the
perlod In which lie lived. "I feel sure,”
he says, "that the hubltual condition of
skepticism enfeebles and debases the
mind so that a long continuance of it
renders the spiritual sight more and
more confused. • • • I feel that the
most genuine and noble form of skep
ticism by withdrawing the support of
the paternal God, by obscuring the fu
ture after this life ends, by denuding
the soul of moral Ideas and fixed prin
ciples, renders a man more lax In-hia
ethical conceptions, more socially In
dolent, less capable of energetic ef
forts, less angry against evil, less en
thusiastic for good. * • * Such
skepticism is like a blighting wind.
Nothing thrives beneath It. How can
a man who has not made up his mind
about the world and immorality, who
seeks and cannot find God, care for
politics, for Instance? He Is thrown
back on merely personal and selfish
tastes or Interests. He is aimless in
life. He has no point d’appul, no root,
but sprawls, lying like an uprooted
plant, which belongs to nothing, can
attach itself to nothing, and gapes for
any chance drop of rain to moisten its
fast-withering suckers."
William K. Clifford said: “It can
not be doubted that the theistlc belief
is a cpmfort to those who hold It.
and that the loss of It is a very pain
ful loss.” In the same connection he
declares of those like himself who have
parted with theistlc belief: “We have
seen the spring sunshine out of an
empty heaven to light up a soulless
earth; we have ^plt with utter loneli
ness that the Great Companion is
dead.”
Herbert Spencer closes his autobiog
raphy with a sentence showing that
while he could not see his way clear to
accept the solution of the problem of
existence given by the religious creeds,
he wished solutions could be found. He
says: “Thus religious creeds, which
In one way or other occupy the aphere
that rational interpretation seeks to
occupy and falls, and falls the more
It seeks. I have come to regard with
a sympathy, based on community of
need, feeling that dissent from them
results from inability to accept the
solutions offered. Joined with the wish
that solutions could be found.”
By changing the words woe, woe,
used by Goethe, into science, science,
his lines would fitly describe skeptical
period:
“Science, Science,
Thou hast destroyed
The beautiful world
With powerful fist;
In ruin *tis hurled.
By the blow' of (evolution) a demigod
shattered the scattered
Fragments Into the void we carry, de
ploring
The beauty perished beyond all restor
ing!”
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT
IHHIHHMd
IMHMMMMMMHMMl
| By REV. EVERETT DEAN ELLENWOOD, j
PASTOR UNIVERSAL1ST CHURCH
sLL the world has gone a-shopping.
IX The Christmas presents must be
* * purchased and the days that re
main are few. The streets are thronged
with bundle-burdened men and women
and children. In the stores hurried
and harried salespeople rush madly
ibntt frying each his best to “wait on
me next, please." und to answer hun
dreds of questions and secure correct
mailing and shipping directions, and,
amid it all. to keep sweet and smiling.
For the most part. It appears to be a
time of unusual joy and cheer. Most
nf the hurrying throngs wear happy,
hopeful faces und laughter seems to
hate drowned, for once, the mournful
cadence of a world’s lament. But hero
and there in the thoroughfare’s ebb
an l flow one may catch a glimpse of
an anxious troubled face, and occa
sionally a sigh checks the melody of
the
<»ng.
Not for nil do the enticing shop win
dows hopefully offer their suggestions
fnr the ever perplexing question, “What
■hall I send them for Christmas?” Some
there are who find out the beginnings
envy, regret and bitter longings that
bring their overwhelming weight of
sorrow, as the skillful window-dresser’s
display of Christmas suggestions com
mands their attention for a moment In
passing. It is not given to all men to
be readily contented with the things
which they may believe themselves to
be able to possess, and there is said to
be no sorrow* keener than that of being
unablo to bestow at Christmas time
the token of affection of the grade and
fineness demanded by society and the
recipient’s beneficence of the preceding
year.
And so, even at Christmas time, it
appears that joy is not unmlxed with
sorrow and anticipation is not unac
quainted with disappointment.
Living literature holds no story more
•ubffme or thrilling than the one to
which we trace the origin of the beau
tiful custom which ever, at this season
of the year, fills streets and homes wit:i
the buyerH and the makers of gifts.
Nestling quietly among her protect
ing hills lay the little town of “The
House of Bread.” all unconscious that
she was soon to become the birthplace
of a King. In a rude cattle shed, where
Nhelter had been sought, because the
pilgrim crowded village afforded no
better public entertainment for late ar
riving guests, the world’s first Christ
mas Eve, found an humble artisan of
a neighboring province with his wife
upon whom God was about to bestow
His dearest boon of motherhood. Then,
the faint appealing cry of one newly
ushered into the world, “and suddenly
there was with the angels a multitude
of the Heavenly Host, praising God
and saying, 'Glory to God In the high
est, and on earth peace, good will to
ward men.” Then came the shepherds
to behold and to rejoice, and from the
East the wise men, who knelt before
the tiny form of the long-expected one
in genuine adoration, and presented
to the wondering and uncomprehend
ing mother tokens of their love and ap
preciation. And now, whenever the
circling year brings to us again the
celebration of this high day, that part
of the world which rejoices in the
dominion and Influence of this lowly
born King, following the example of the
wise men of old, brings Its offerings of
love to those whom It may conceive the
King has appointed to receive them.
May this truly beautiful custom
know no ebb tide in our hearts. May
each recurrence of the season find us
more ready to convey to those with
horn we make here our pilgrimage
REV. E. D. ELLENWOOD.
some evidence of our affection.
But what if it should chance that in
the giving and the receiving of gifts
the King, whose birthday thus we cele
brate, should be forgotten? What If we
should. In our hurry and In our mad
ness, attempt to keep Christmas with
out Christ? What If It should come
about that because w*e are so far aw a)
from the manger where knelt the ador
ing Mag! the coming of Christmas finds
us only unhappy and discontented bet
cause the affectlonato promptings of
our hearts, or, It may be, the Inex
orable demands of custom may not be
met and satisfied within the meager
limits of our purso?
No child of God’s love and fatherhood
Is so poor but that he may, if he will,
bring to the feet of the Infant Messiah
the world's best and most needed
Christmas gift. And, marvel of mar
vels, he shall find that only by the
bestowal of this gift, freely and un
reservedly, may he retain It for him
self. And so also shall he find that In
this he becomes most like unto Him
In whose love and In whose memory
the world keeps Christmas day.
Whoever has lovingly und without
regret given this gift to the world may
walk with head erect and with untrou
bled brow, though the shop window
may plead while the purse warns.
What did He bring to the world, this
King whose birth you would celebrate
by giving to your loved ones rare and
costly gifts; was It gold or Jewels, or
lands or houses, or armies or navies,
or mines or factories? No. Love, hope,
happiness, courage, honor, truth; in His
life He bore them to us, and with the
free gift of His life He desired thut
they should become ours.
The world needs n? more, gold. It
has enough now to breed 'sufficient
envy and lust to bo the Joy of a legion
of devils.
The world needs no more Jewels. It
has more than plenty now to blind, by
their glare and sparkle, the eyes of
many a pilgrim on his way to God.
The world needs no more of power
and pomp and glory. It has enough
now* to dwarf men with pride and slay
them by passionate excesses.
But, O, how much the world does
need the lives of men and women
who have wholly given themselves to
God through the leadership of Christ!
How sorely the world docs stand in
need of a little more of love, of sym
pathy, of genuine kindness, of tho
smiles that have no cruelty, of hope
and courage, of fAlth unmixed with su
perstition, of honor which knows no
purchase price, of truth whose worth Is
measured by neither love nor fear, how'
very much the W'orld does need all of
these!
And these priceless gltta you may
offer to the world, if you will, my
friend, even though the hurrying
throngs in their mad rush to buy the
belated Christmas present may hustle
you rudely out of the w*ay and look
with scorn upon your frayed and un- '
seasonable garments as a thing out of
harmony with the spirit of Christmas
cheer and Christmas opulence;
But. first of all, you must make room
in your heart *for Him for whom there
was no room even In tbe cheap llttlo
inn in Bethlehem. And, cradling there
the new-born Messiah, your spiritual
ears shall be quickened until they shall
hear, as did the wondering shepherd a
of old, that glorious song of “Peace
on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.”
God grant that we shall not forget
Christ In the keeping of Christmas!
’0, little town of Bethlehem, how still
we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark street shlneth the
everlasting light;
Tbe hopes and fears of all the years are
met In thee tonight.”
IMItMHIHIMIIIMMMMHMHMHIMMMHMIHHI
imiMIIMMMI
“LAW” AND “OUR CIVILIZATION"
By REV. JOHN E. WHITE,
PASTOR SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH
"In those day. there was no king In
Israel; every man did that which was
rlrlit In his own eyes."—Judges xxl:25.
This is the last sentence of the Book
"I Judges. Jt Is tho epitaph of a
ruined civilisation. Like an accusing
»lgn-board It stands here at the end
ot tllP record, pointing back over the
hundred years gf Israel’s history,
"Mill dates from the deliverance from
Ksjht down to the time of the monar-
rhy. und explaining the failure of free
Institutions among the Jews.
"In those days there was no King In
hrapl; every man did that which was
r| sht in his own eyes."
.Vow. what would you expect, know-
,ns what you know of human nnture
'""I affairs, what would you expect to
happv-,1 in a regime like that? Well,
"hat did happen?
that happened which alwaya has
“Opened where the moral authority of
' '» disputed, where Individual nc-
, ' n It put before civil action, and
Jr'* h'I'ate Judgment and personal
.'"t are Intluentinlly defiant of the
" lln l’act. Anarchy happened:
,,, n t° n went ddwn. The national
, disrupted and the situation became
,? chaotic that the people preferred
' “ ’* r °ng rule of a king to the perils
», ''"illusions of a lawless state.
.TY" 1,1 hut one thing worse than an
.monarchy and that Is a re-
"Ithout the reign of law. The
S?. * of ,h l« remarkable declension
of turbulence and riot,
•isl. astounding when we con
fer the divinely favored elrcum-
under which tho people of
rh . '‘" re living. Here are some
22**™ that read like a romance of
rivt"?'' T he marauders roamed and
ftt w ™. The tribe of Dan was
th. . more *han a gang of cutthroats;
,of Belial accomplished das-
tll work of lust and murder, and In
, h " irlbe of Benjamin rose up In
T ■ ■' resentment to take vengeance,
r, , '"'“'ettit of blood was furiously
tho,. • . uml1 more than a hundred
people were slaughtered; the
3180 bad their turn at
and slew forty-two thousand
, at the ford of Jordan be
st, . »>•» could not say, “Shibboleth"
fe. 'f lisping. It Is In the Bible, but
Hunt Ra place In a righteous,
•ik., 1 judgment Is along side of all
r such atrociUei of mankind. It
wag a fearful time. How hod the best
people In the world rapidly sunk. This
sentence stands here to tell of It nnd
explain It: "Every man did that which
was right In Ills own eyes."
THs Pries of Civilisation.
The Book of Judges Is a book for
statesmen nnd patriots. As a history it
t* tho chronicle of probably the first
attempt of republicanism In the world;
as a social science document It la the
oldest, ’ns also one of many Impressive
Illustrations of the universal principle
that civilisation Is not a matter of
flat or favor. There Is a law by which
a people can secure civilisation, but
there Is no royal road. The Jewish
civilisation as It stood after the pas
sage of fhe Jordan Inffo the Promised
Land was equipped marvelously with
the accessories and the forms of en
lightened society. It had the promise
and the experience of providential
sanction nnd assistance. Its laws were
a code so perfect and yet so elemental
ly practical that to this day the con
stitutions of states reflect them almost
without amendment. Ood nominated
them to a proud distinction and elected
them to a high destiny.
Where did this favored people fall
and why did they fall? They failed
because they missed that Inexorable
principle of which I have spoken, that
the price of civilisation Is eternal vig
ilance and an eternal obedlrtiee to those
laws under which they held their guar
antee of progress. It Is probable also
that they relied overmuch on the con
fidence that what providence had be
queathed providence would preserve.
That Is a great mistake. It is a mis
take that pride and self-flattery is al
ways liable to make. It is a mistake
that was made once here in the South,
and, I fear, may be made again. This
nation in 1865 in an enthusiasm of phil
anthropy made that mistake for four
million negroes In the South. The peo
ple of the North forgot and the negroes
themselves could not know it, that civ
ilization cannot be given away suc
cessfully. Napoleon Bonaparte used to
take his crown—the some crown he
had placed on his own head at Notre
Dame In 1804—and place it gleefully
on the brow of his little son; but, alas!
the child could not bear It* weight.
Had the child lived he could never have
supported Napoleon's glory. In the
city of Boston I sought and found the
famous Emancipation statue of Abra
ham Lincoln. The great president
stands benignly above the crouching
figure of the slave from whose limbs
he has Just broken the shackles. The
right hand is extended over the slave’s
head. It was the artist’s idea to repre
sent by that gesture of benediction the
nation's good-will toward the freed -
men. But when I saw the statue the
artist's conception was destroyed. Home
one had placed a crown of flowers in
the extended hand and the president
appeared in the act of conferring much
more than freedom upon the slave-
even a crown. Now, the mistake of
that, which was nartlally Incorporated
into the national constitution with re
spect to privilege of full citizenship,
was very great. It was great not be
cause it offended the prejudices of the
South, but because it contradicted a
universal law of civilization and at
tempted by largess and flat that which
in the very constitution of things la an
impossibility. The nation made a law
in defiance of a greater law. It pre-.
Burned to confer as a gift that which
Is to be held only by Inward fitness.
The negro has not retained what the
nation gave him. It was Inevitable
that he would not.
Let us keep the principle clear. Civ
ilization has Us roots in law. The
Jews lost their civilization by disre
gard of law'. The negroes in this
later republic have lost their crown
of privilege which was also a gift.
What, then, I desire to say is that the
white people of the South may profit
by these examples.
No mistake so terrible could be, made
by us than to place the reliance of our
civilization on the fact that we are a
favored people, a distinguished race.
De-civilization can go on under white
skins, and will go on under white skins
as surely as anywhere else. The law
of civilization In no respecter of skins.
There are times for the harmless In
dulgence of racial poetry and senti
ment, but it is a time Just now when
we ought to get / down to the prose and
sense of things. We expend too much
of our energies In the asseveration
that ‘‘This is a white man’s country.”
Suppose we try a while regarding that
as fact so well fixed as not to need
protesting. It may be true and some
day not mean much. Russia Is a white
man’s country. The question that
needs to get to the front here Is "What
kind of a white man's country Is this
going to be?" To pray and labor that
it may be a country of justice-loving,
law-abiding and superior-minded and
fine-hearted civilisation—a civilization
wrought out and guaranteed not in the
REV. J. E. WHITE.
color of our skins, but In the quality
of our citizenship, is the task of those
w*ho shall promote white supremacy in
this country along really unchallenge
able lines. This question of dignified
government and the support of the laws
is probably at this time the place for
us all to take hold and help. For
civllsatlon and the reign of law are al
most Interchangeable terms.
Polics Power.
The moral quality ot a people la In
variably read In their institutions of
Justice. Law, then. Is related to civili
sation In this wise. Where tbe police
power Is greatly respected two things
are true: a virile civic virtue exists to
comnund and support the law and in
turn the orderly and efficient processes
of the law promote and protect the in
crease of civic virtue. In a true sense,
the polceman on the corner is a mirror
ot civilization. His efficiency reflects
the force of the public sentiment be
hind him. The ability of officers of tho
law to command respect is not mainly
according to the terms of their certifi
cate of commission, nor according to
theJr personal and individual compe
tency, but according to the amount of
its own moral public force the rommu.
nlty is able to invest them with.
The first night I spent in London I
blundered against the Inw of England
and fell Into the grip of u policeman.
He led me out of the parliament court
yard, where, with American boldness, I
was rushing right along to go Into the
house of commons by the private en
trance of the member*. I had no busi
ness there. But he proved to be a good
fellow and told me many things, espe
cially about the police, I commented
on the^fact that the policemen were so
many of them men of small stature.
“Why,” I said, “over in our country
we get the biggest nnd fattest men we
can find for policemen.”
"It don’t make any difference here, 1
he said, "about that. A little man Is a*
good as a big ‘un’ if he has a ’ead. If
you put a blue coat on *lm and e
visor cap, ’e’d have England behind ’lm,
and England’s big enough.”
I found that out by keeping my eyes
open. I saw this man the very next
day—and he was neither big, tall nor
fat, but he had on the right coat and
cap. I saw him standing in the middle
of a tumult 6t traffic In the Btrand,
standing like a statue without blink or
glance, a kind of automaton standing
straight und still. I saw him lift his
left hand without a word or a step
and the horses of a nobleman’s carriage
fell back on their haunches and a tide
,of traffic ten ml!** long stood stock
still for a little girl to get across to
the pavement. He dropped his hand
and the traffic of omnibuses and car
riages leaped forward like a hound
released from a master’s leash. In a
moment he held up hi* other hand, the
line of moving vehicles on that side
halted instantly and not a wheel moved
till the hand went down. Yes, the big
gest thing I saw* In Europe wus the
London policeman. You say, “He must
be a very remarkable character; tell us
about him.” No, not at all. He is a
very ordinary man, at least he looked
so. Let me tell you what to say. Say,
“A wonderful people, a remarkable civ
ilization.” It has taken England cen
turies to achieve the power to Invest a
policeman with the dignity and honor
of the state.
Now, look at the antithesis. Don’t be
offended and don’t laugh.
We have policemen In Atlanta—many
of them I know to be fine men. But
at the comer of Alabama and White
hall you can see It every day. Our po
liceman has to shout and rush and
frown und threaten to stop the bicycle
of a messenger bpy while the boy goes
on laughing In his face. You say,
"What a 1 sorry policeman!" You are
wrong. The fault Is not his. It Is the
fault of our people—the failure of our
civilization. We haven't attained to
the ability of investing the police with
more dignity and authority because
tbe general average of reverence for
law is not raised higher. We cannot
give more than we have. But we can
get more, thank God.
The Present Outlook.
Now, the best thing and the only
healthy thing for a people situated as
we are In this section, Is to get busy
with ourselves and shun no candor
that bears on the mastery of our con
ditions. If the roots of lawlessness
run down Into our home life, Into our
school rooms, into our literature and
Into our street talk and public senti
ment, we are wise if we realize it. For
instance, if having done the Imme
diate thing of fixing the blame for the
terrible outbreak of riot nnd murder In
Atlanta on the police department, the
city administration, the county govern
ment and the Incendiary newspapers,
we are conscious that back of all that
there was a state of mind that sup-
ported the courage and prompted the
boldness of the lawless elements, we
ought to take that fa;t into prime con
sideration. Every source of Inspira
tion to anarchism must be uncovered,
confessed, condemned and Its shameful
Influence placarded, no matter If we all
come under Its Indictment. Let us be
ashamed of ourselves If we ought la
very truth to be. No man can success
fully Indict a whole people, but a people
can shoulder their sorrows in sorrow
nnd confess their sin In repentance.
There ought to be a common sharing of
confession if there has been a common
shame for which our common mood
and temper is responsible In the slight
est, for public opinion being the main
stay of our society must be with re-
sptcr to law and order like Caesar’s
wife—above suspicion. Lawlessness is
no sectional issue, to be bandied boot
and forth In self-excusing recrimina
tion. It Is a disease In the West, In
the East, in the North and in tho
South. To war against it the best
powers of the whole republic must bo
Invoked. Watch the Ilne-up. On one
side or the other sharply citizens In
every community', certainly that Is trim
here in the South, will take a stand.
Every time a citizen speaks out fear
lessly, earnestly, on the side of law,
whatever the circumstances, he speak*
up for civilization. Every time pnu
speaks indifferently or meanly concern
ing the law, no matter what the cir
cumstances, he speaks against civili
zation and the welfare of the whole
people, and though he may not see it,
he is doing an unpatriotic thing; he t <
wasting the heritage of his chlidre l
und mine along with his.
In Ellen Glasgow’s book of Virginia
political romance, “The Voice of tho
People,” the grand note is struck at
the last. Nicholas Burr, the people's
iffitn. the people’s governor, with the
prize of the senatorshlp In hfit grasp,
quits the lobbies where his political
fate is hanging, and goes to a neigh
boring county seat alone, and against j
the urging of his friends, to prevent •
the lynching of a negro. With the love
of the law and the honor of his ra*e
and of his state burning In his heart,
he stands between' the mob and the
wretched negro and dies. "My God,”
some one cried, “it is Nick Burr and
he died for a nigger.” No, he didn't.
He died for what George Washington
fought, for what Patrick Henry spok»,
for what Monroe, Madison and Jeffer
son prayed—he died for his country*.
There may be the noblest blood alon*
the way to it, but I expect to live to
see the time here in the Houth when
our civilization will triumph over law
lessness as a popular force so com
pletely that there will be but one su
preme impatience, but one supreme
intolerance, and that will bo for tho
man who aspires to power and position
at the expense of the public morals,
by covert or open encouragement to
lawlessness, prejudice and passion.
The movement toward It has begun;
It ha* headway; It will go on; It will
conquer. God speed Itl It calls you
every one to the noblest partisanship
and it is right.
“Yea. with one voice O, world
thou deniest.
Stand thou on that side, for
am L”
