human
Men of Kentucky, I am ashamed of your actions this day. What you purpose doing is a stain upon our State. It is a crime the memory of which, if committed, you will not be able to hide from your minds till life's last hour. Do you not know that two sins can never make an act right? How do you dare to hurry this man into the presence of his Maker unprepared? How can you meet such a sin at the judgment day? There are the courts. Let Sam Wiles be tried in them. You are well aware that our laws are very severe against horse-stealing, and when brought to the bar of justice the prisoner will suffer the full penalty of his deeds. But there is a higher law than those in our criminal courts. It is God's law, given to the children of men amid the thunders of Mount Sinai when the whole mountain was black with a thick cloud of smoke, which rolled away as from a great furnace into the sky. God descended in fire upon the mount. Thunders roared, lightnings flashed, and the peaks trembled to their foundations. The trumpets sounded louder and louder and the awful voice of almighty God 'shook the earth.' What were the commandments there given? One of them was: 'Thou shalt not kill.' Do not think that lynch law is not murder. It is murder of a very deplorable kind; for the perpetrators of the deed are not one but many, so that many are guilty of shedding their brother's blood. In the name of Him whose I am and whom I serve as a humble ambassador, I call upon you to desist from this proposed crime, conceived in passion and carried forward under great excitement. Listen to the voice of reason, and your consciences will approve your course.