CHAPTER XI 



THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 



In one of George W. Cable's stories of old 

 Creole days in New Orleans occurs the descrip- 

 tion of a sermon, from which I make the following 

 extract: "My friends," he said, — this was near 

 the beginning, — "the angry words of God's Book 

 are very merciful — they are meant to drive us 

 home ; but the tender words, my friends, they are 

 sometimes terrible ! Notice these, the tender- 

 est words of the tenderest prayer that ever came 

 from the lips of a blessed martyr — the dying 

 words of the holy St. Stephen : * Lord, lay not 

 this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dread- 

 ful in that ? Read it thus : ' Lord, lay not this 

 sin to their charge.' Not to the charge of those 

 who stoned them } To whose charge then .-* Go 

 ask the holy St. Paul. Three years afterward, 

 praying in the temple at Jerusalem, he answered 

 that question : ' I stood by and consented.' He 

 answered for himself only ; but the day must 

 come when all that wicked council that sent St. 

 Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of 



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