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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”