The Fearful Effects of Mob Law.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. It is the doing of wrong that injures the character. Enemies may beat us helpless, but we are not injured if we come forth with no malignity, no feeling of revenge to mar, to disfigure, to paralyze, the soul. Dr. A. M. Williams, of Savannah, Ga., in a recent sermon shows how this evil principle works in mobs to the fearful hurt of those who yield to it. In referring to the lynching of some colored men, he says:— All the arguments against lynching are illustrated in this affair. The fair name of the section and state is stained. The confidence in the efficiency in government is shocked. Faith in the good judgment and self-control of the common people is weakened. The effect on the participants is lamentable. The mean victims suffered less than these men will. A few moments and their fearful agony is over, but a person can not take part in a lawless, an inhuman, an atrocious tragedy, even as an eye witness, without leaving an eternal scar on the soul. These horrible details will be woven into the very retina of the eye, reverberated perpetually in the ear, fastened in memory, painted on the imagination, burned into the conscience, for the remainder of their natural lives. One account notes the presence of boys in knee pants. What a fearful education! The hellish effects will tell on their characters in ways past discovery. Its immediate effects also show the wickedness of mob law. Two guiltless negroes already slain while others have been beaten. When lawlessness reigns, the innocent suffer as well as the guilty. Then add the demoralization of business and you recognize how prompt the evils of the lynch rule follow on its adoption. It is a strange thing that Christians can not see this, nay, more, that they do not know this. It is strange that they can not leave results with Him who has said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” rather than to turn their own souls into a hell hatred and violence. It is strange that they can not see the education they are giving their children—the coming generation. We need not to ask, “What shall the harvest be?” It is self-evident.