Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 21, 1911

A Sign of the Times

An exchange gives a vivid description of a scene, enacted in India, of the burning alive of a child widow. It raises the question: “Is there anything similar to this in terribleness to be found in this country?” It would seem from the events of the last few months that we do not have to go outside of the United States to find this Indian scene duplicated, and that, too, with a spirit of malignity compared to which the Indian burning becomes almost a virtue. We refer to the burning alive of a Negro at Coatesville, Pa., August 13. How terrible the power of evil that could so fill the minds of the entire community as to lead them to rise up as one man and inflict upon a human being, even though he was guilty of the crime charged, such terrible sufferings, thrusting him back again and again into the burning fire as he tried to escape from his pain and anguish.

This scene in Pennsylvania was duplicated a few days later at Purcell, Okla., where it was said “three thousand men, women, and children stood by, shouting their approval” of those engaged in burning alive a Negro fastened to a tree.

Says the New York Weekly Witness: “One can easily imagine the fiends in hell shouting themselves hoarse over such a spectacle as this.” But when we contrast this spirit with the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus, and many of these men and women engaged in these two affairs were professed followers of the Lord, what a striking contrast indeed is shown! When such revolting ordeals can be enacted in a civilized community, it surely shows that we have fallen upon evil times, and that the spirit of evil is fast possessing the hearts of men.