Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/276

 the head of the coffin. "My friends," he said. "This is a very sad task. Sadder than most of us realize. To be taken off in the prime of life before completing the things we have set out to do, is unfortunate. Far more unfortunate, however, is it to be sent to an untimely death as this man has been sent.

"His was a noble heart.—A heart well placed—a Godly heart. I had the opportunity of knowing him a few short weeks ago under circumstances that stamped him as one of God's few in these days of moral cowards. Had he lived he would have been a power for good. Perhaps, however, his death may serve the end for which God intended his life. This death and that of two other beings killed by mob fury ought to serve to point the way toward which we are fast heading unless we call a halt. Anarchy and ruin are just over the fence.

"I warn you, one and all. Let this death be a lesson to you. You have long been playing with a torch and it is a wonder that you have not set the entire country on fire from it. Once started there is no telling where it will end. Think, friends, members of this parish as well as members of the whole South. I wish my voice could carry into every hamlet in this wide land. The Ku Klux is raging and lawlessness reigns rampant. This is the most lawless country in the world with more than eight thousand homicides in every year, recorded. God knows how many are unrecorded.

"Think, men and women. Think. Thought is law and law is thought in control. When we think we cease to be