H. Shelton Smith - "Moral Crisis in a Troubled South" (April 29, 1956)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music playing) | 0:11 | |
(choir singing hymn) | 0:21 | |
Priest | Let us offer unto God | 2:37 |
our unison prayer of confession. | 2:39 | |
Let us pray. | 2:42 | |
Almighty God, our heavenly father, who of thy great mercy | 2:44 | |
has promised forgiveness of sins | 2:49 | |
to all them that with hearty repentance | 2:52 | |
and true faith turn unto thee, have mercy upon us. | 2:54 | |
Pardon and deliver us from all our sins. | 3:00 | |
Confirm and strengthen us in all goodness, | 3:03 | |
and bring us to everlasting life. | 3:07 | |
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 3:10 | |
And now, as our savior Christ hath taught us, | 3:14 | |
we pray together, saying: | 3:17 | |
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. | 3:20 | |
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, | 3:25 | |
on earth as it is in heaven. | 3:29 | |
Give us this day, our daily bread, | 3:32 | |
and forgive us our trespasses, | 3:35 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 3:37 | |
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, | 3:41 | |
for thine is the kingdom, | 3:46 | |
and the power, and the glory, forever. | 3:48 | |
Amen. | 3:52 | |
(church organ playing) | 3:56 | |
(congregation singing hymn) | 4:20 | |
Choir | Amen! | 6:57 |
Priest | "But Saul, still breathing threats and murder | 7:25 |
against the disciples of the Lord, | 7:29 | |
went to the high priest and asked him | 7:32 | |
for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, | 7:36 | |
so that if he found any belonging to the Way, | 7:41 | |
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. | 7:46 | |
Now, as he journeyed, he approached Damascus, | 7:51 | |
and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him, | 7:56 | |
and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: | 8:02 | |
"Saul, Saul. | 8:08 | |
Why do you persecute me?" | 8:13 | |
And he said, "who are you, Lord?" | 8:18 | |
And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, | 8:23 | |
but rise and enter the city, and you will be told | 8:31 | |
what you are to do." | 8:37 | |
Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, | 8:40 | |
he could see nothing. | 8:46 | |
So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. | 8:49 | |
Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. | 8:57 | |
The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias," | 9:03 | |
and he said "here I am, Lord." | 9:08 | |
And the lord said to him, "rise, | 9:12 | |
and go to the street called Straight, | 9:16 | |
and inquire into the house of Judas, | 9:20 | |
for a man of Tarsus named Saul." | 9:24 | |
But Ananias answered "Lord, | 9:29 | |
I have heard from many about this man. | 9:32 | |
How much evil he has done to thy saints at Jerusalem." | 9:36 | |
But the Lord said to him, | 9:42 | |
"Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, | 9:45 | |
to carry my name before the Gentiles, | 9:50 | |
and kings, and the sons of Israel, | 9:53 | |
for I will show him how much he must suffer | 9:58 | |
for the sake of my name." | 10:01 | |
So Ananias departed, and entered the house, | 10:04 | |
and laying his hands on him he said, | 10:09 | |
"Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you | 10:13 | |
on the road by which you came, | 10:18 | |
has sent me that you may regain your sight, | 10:21 | |
and be filled with the Holy Spirit." | 10:26 | |
And immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, | 10:30 | |
and he regained his sight. | 10:35 | |
Then he rose, and was baptized, | 10:39 | |
and in the synagogue, immediately he proclaimed Jesus, | 10:43 | |
saying "He is the son of God." " | 10:48 | |
Here endeth the lesson. | 10:54 | |
(audio cutting) | 10:58 | |
The Lord be with you. | 10:59 | |
Congregation | And also with you. | 11:01 |
Priest | Let us pray. | 11:03 |
Oh God of peace, who through thy son, Jesus Christ, | 11:12 | |
did send forth one faith for the salvation of mankind, | 11:16 | |
from the confused voices of our daily life, | 11:23 | |
help us now to draw nearer to thee, | 11:27 | |
that with mind and heart we may worship thee. | 11:30 | |
We bring to thee the thirst we cannot quench | 11:35 | |
at any earthly spring, | 11:37 | |
and the hunger which is only satisfied | 11:41 | |
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. | 11:43 | |
Lift us out of our shadows, into thy light, | 11:48 | |
out of our perplexities into thy clear truth, | 11:53 | |
out of our burdens, into thy strength. | 11:58 | |
Out of our troubles, into thy peace. | 12:01 | |
Out of our foolish and disappointed purposes, | 12:05 | |
into thy holy and blessed will. | 12:10 | |
Take from us the tediousness, | 12:14 | |
the anxiety and fear of selfish minds, | 12:17 | |
the unfruitfulness of cold and narrow affections, | 12:21 | |
and the weakness of an inconstant will. | 12:26 | |
Send thy grace and heavenly blessing | 12:31 | |
upon all Christian people | 12:33 | |
who are striving to draw nearer to thee, | 12:36 | |
and to each other, in the unity of the spirit, | 12:38 | |
and in the bond of peace. | 12:43 | |
Give us penitence for our divisions, | 12:46 | |
wisdom to know thy truth, courage to do thy will, | 12:49 | |
love that shall break down the barriers | 12:54 | |
of pride and prejudice, | 12:57 | |
and unswerving loyalty to thy holy name. | 13:00 | |
Suffer us not to shrink from any endeavor | 13:05 | |
which is in accordance with thy will, | 13:08 | |
for the peace and unity of thy church. | 13:11 | |
Give us boldness to seek only thy glory, | 13:15 | |
and the advancement of thy kingdom, | 13:19 | |
and do thou grant that we may be so molded | 13:22 | |
by the spirit of thy son, that we may not be conformed | 13:25 | |
to the pattern of this world, | 13:30 | |
but may be transformed by the renewal of our minds, | 13:33 | |
that we may know and practice what is the will of God, | 13:37 | |
what is good, and acceptable, and perfect. | 13:42 | |
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 13:46 | |
(organ plays) | 13:53 | |
(soloist singing hymn) | 15:27 | |
(congregation singing hymn) | 16:06 | |
(soloist singing hymn) | 16:44 | |
(congregation singing hymn) | 17:10 | |
(soloist singing hymn) | 17:19 | |
(congregation singing hymn) | 17:40 | |
(soloist and congregation singing hymn alternately) | 18:14 | |
- | [Soloist and Congregation] Amen, | 19:10 |
amen. | 19:19 | |
(organ playing) | 19:29 | |
(congregation singing hymn) | 20:05 | |
Amen. | 20:37 | |
Priest | Oh Lord, our God, thou king of all the earth, | 20:45 |
accept of thine infinite goodness | 20:50 | |
the offerings of thy people, which, | 20:52 | |
in obedience to thy commandment, | 20:56 | |
and in honor of thy holy name, | 20:58 | |
we now dedicate to thy service | 21:01 | |
in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 21:03 | |
Amen. | 21:07 | |
(footsteps) | 21:12 | |
At no time in the present century | 21:44 | |
has the South been so deeply troubled in soul | 21:48 | |
as it is today. | 21:54 | |
This anxiety is of course partly the result | 21:58 | |
of pressures arising out of a far-reaching decision | 22:03 | |
of the Supreme Court. | 22:08 | |
But its root goes deeper. | 22:12 | |
Unless I am seriously mistaken, | 22:18 | |
it stems from a growing conviction | 22:22 | |
that our legally-imposed color bar | 22:26 | |
is in basic conflict with both the democratic ethic | 22:30 | |
and the Christian faith. | 22:38 | |
This conflict is involving us of the South | 22:44 | |
in a deepening moral crisis, | 22:49 | |
which I feel constrained | 22:54 | |
to lay before you today. | 22:58 | |
In meditating upon our present crisis, | 23:03 | |
my thought has turned often to that dramatic story, | 23:08 | |
which was read to you this morning. | 23:12 | |
In passionate loyalty to his ancestral tradition, | 23:16 | |
Saul of Tarsus | 23:24 | |
earnestly tried to wipe out the early Christians. | 23:28 | |
Where persuasion would not work, | 23:35 | |
he did not hesitate to persecute, | 23:39 | |
to imprison, even to murder. | 23:44 | |
Yet at the very height of his frenzied zeal, | 23:51 | |
while hurrying to Damascus, | 23:56 | |
a light from heaven brighter than the sun | 23:59 | |
flashed through his conscience, | 24:03 | |
and he heard a voice saying "Saul, Saul, | 24:06 | |
why do you persecute me?" | 24:14 | |
"Who are you?" stammered Saul. | 24:18 | |
"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," | 24:24 | |
replied the heavenly visitor. | 24:28 | |
It hurts you to kick against the goals. | 24:31 | |
Note one thing: | 24:37 | |
the more fiercely Saul persecuted the early Christians, | 24:40 | |
the more brightly the moral flame | 24:46 | |
burned within his conscience, | 24:49 | |
until at last the scales fell from his blinded eyes, | 24:53 | |
and he was transformed into an advocate | 25:00 | |
of that which had formerly opposed. | 25:04 | |
Are not we of the South experiencing an inner moral struggle | 25:10 | |
which broadly parallels that of Saul of Tarsus? | 25:17 | |
Is not the light from above | 25:24 | |
disturbing our conscience in depth? | 25:27 | |
Will the heavenly flame eventually burn through | 25:33 | |
our clouded vision, and transform our racial perspectives? | 25:37 | |
My considered answer, | 25:46 | |
based finally upon faith in Almighty God, | 25:48 | |
is a strong "yes." | 25:53 | |
Our moral road to Damascus may be long and tortuous, | 25:59 | |
but we are on our way. | 26:07 | |
When I say we are on our way, | 26:11 | |
I mean simply that thousands of White Southerners | 26:15 | |
including, especially youth, | 26:22 | |
no longer find it morally possible | 26:26 | |
to justify the principle of racial segregation | 26:30 | |
in any area of life, | 26:35 | |
least of all in the church of Jesus Christ. | 26:38 | |
To be sure, they are still a minority group, | 26:45 | |
yet their numbers are steadily increasing. | 26:49 | |
They do not, like some noisy demagogues, | 26:53 | |
shout their views from the housetops, | 26:57 | |
but their convictions lie deep nevertheless. | 27:01 | |
One fact is worth emphasizing at the outset: | 27:07 | |
This new spiritual outlook did not start on May 17, 1954, | 27:11 | |
when the Supreme Court first ruled | 27:21 | |
against the Plessy Doctrine of "separate but equal". | 27:24 | |
In fact, ever since the first World War, | 27:30 | |
the South has been the scene of the prophetic labors | 27:35 | |
of such men as the late Will Alexander, | 27:39 | |
and Howard Odum, men to whom the color bar was anathema. | 27:44 | |
Through the actions of interracial councils and commissions, | 27:52 | |
through researches and publications, | 27:58 | |
they sowed the seeds of a nobler South, | 28:02 | |
while they labored patiently within a bi-racial framework, | 28:07 | |
they foresaw the day when it would be abandoned. | 28:13 | |
Four years before the Supreme Court | 28:21 | |
handed down its historic decision, | 28:23 | |
the Presbyterian Synod of Alabama declared, | 28:27 | |
"segregation is living on borrowed time." | 28:33 | |
"Both the federal constitution | 28:41 | |
and the Christian conscience," the Synod added, | 28:43 | |
"have written doom upon the brow of legalized segregation." | 28:47 | |
Southern groups in all the other major denominations | 28:55 | |
were expressing similar convictions. | 28:58 | |
Meanwhile, church-related colleges, | 29:02 | |
graduate and professional schools of state universities, | 29:06 | |
and theological seminaries were opening their doors | 29:11 | |
to all qualified students. | 29:16 | |
Hence, when the Supreme Court finally struck down | 29:20 | |
the Plessy Doctrine, | 29:24 | |
the leaders of most of the religious bodies in the South | 29:26 | |
were already prepared to sanction its ruling. | 29:30 | |
Episcopalians in the Southeastern Provincial Conference | 29:36 | |
declared that decision just and right. | 29:42 | |
A Texas Methodist conference declared it to be | 29:49 | |
but the legal expression | 29:54 | |
of the position of the Christian church. | 29:58 | |
The General Assembly of Southern Presbyterians | 30:04 | |
not only commended the decision | 30:07 | |
but called upon all the members of the churches | 30:09 | |
to support it wholeheartedly. | 30:12 | |
The Southern Baptist Convention declared, | 30:15 | |
"The decision is in harmony | 30:20 | |
with the constitutional guarantee | 30:22 | |
of equal freedom and justice, | 30:25 | |
and with the Christian principle of justice | 30:30 | |
and love to all men. | 30:35 | |
Catholic and Jewish agencies in the South | 30:39 | |
were equally affirmative in their actions. | 30:44 | |
These church groups, be it noted, | 30:49 | |
were not outside meddlers, | 30:55 | |
but native-born Southerners. | 30:59 | |
For a brief interval after the Supreme Court | 31:06 | |
rendered its verdict, | 31:09 | |
it looked as though a good many citizens in the South | 31:11 | |
would take immediate steps to keep faith with the Court. | 31:17 | |
Indeed, local school boards | 31:22 | |
in some of the more progressive cities | 31:25 | |
began taking actions toward compliance. | 31:27 | |
But alas, alas, | 31:32 | |
this affirmative spirit soon encountered | 31:37 | |
another kind of spirit. | 31:41 | |
Tough-willed resistance movements began emerging. | 31:45 | |
Springing up first of all in the lower South, | 31:50 | |
led by ardent segregationists whose extremer members | 31:54 | |
openly defied the court. | 31:59 | |
They insisted on the freedom of their respective states | 32:04 | |
to do as they pleased, but yet, | 32:08 | |
they did not tolerate that same freedom | 32:13 | |
within their own borders. | 32:16 | |
High, rigid conformity was demanded, | 32:19 | |
even at the price of coercion, if necessary. | 32:23 | |
Now this spirit of resistance | 32:30 | |
later spread to the upper South as well. | 32:32 | |
Although revealing itself in sweeter words, | 32:37 | |
its overall effect was the same. | 32:42 | |
Almost everywhere, the prevailing mood has been | 32:46 | |
to prevent any local community from cracking | 32:52 | |
the wall of segregation. | 32:55 | |
This holds true not only for public schools, | 32:59 | |
but largely also for many other public facilities, | 33:04 | |
such as city halls, county courthouses, | 33:09 | |
and recreational centers. | 33:15 | |
Even where the color bar has been outlawed, | 33:19 | |
as in public education, | 33:23 | |
the negro is exhorted to volunteer to remain segregated. | 33:26 | |
This frozen temper says "don't give an inch, | 33:36 | |
or you will have to give a mile." | 33:43 | |
Great dangers, my brethren, lie ahead of the South | 33:49 | |
in this inflexible mood. | 33:53 | |
First of all, we are in danger of jeopardizing | 33:57 | |
our one best hope: our public schools. | 34:02 | |
The movement to assign to local communities | 34:09 | |
the final decision on questions of vital school policy, | 34:11 | |
hitherto reserved to state boards of education, | 34:18 | |
can easily scuttle the hard-won standards | 34:23 | |
which have been a half-century in building. | 34:28 | |
This backward trend, | 34:34 | |
devised as a stratagem against the Court, | 34:37 | |
threatens the South with all the evils | 34:41 | |
of the old district school system. | 34:45 | |
The outcome could be not a statewide system, | 34:50 | |
but a patchwork of uneven policies, standards and programs. | 34:56 | |
Add to this the legal option of any local community | 35:05 | |
to abolish its public schools altogether, | 35:11 | |
and the prospect becomes alarming. | 35:17 | |
Some may call this power to close a local school | 35:23 | |
a "safety bell", but it seems far more like a time bomb. | 35:30 | |
If we in the South ever become so unbalanced | 35:40 | |
as to wipe our public schools, | 35:45 | |
we will surely sentence our children | 35:49 | |
to the tyranny of ignorance and poverty. | 35:53 | |
A second danger is, | 36:00 | |
that the South will cut itself off | 36:02 | |
from the main currents of the nation, | 36:05 | |
just when it is rising. | 36:09 | |
Industrial, political, cultural. | 36:13 | |
Our twentieth century could be secession, | 36:20 | |
not from the formal union as in 1860, | 36:25 | |
but secession from the growing stream | 36:31 | |
of democratic civilization. | 36:38 | |
It is as true of a region as it is of an individual, | 36:42 | |
that if it tries to live unto itself, | 36:49 | |
it will shrivel up and die of stagnation. | 36:53 | |
This decaying process would be hastened | 37:00 | |
by the migration of our abler youth | 37:04 | |
to freer sections of the nation, | 37:07 | |
as in the wake of the Civil War. | 37:10 | |
Meanwhile the present flow into our region | 37:14 | |
of industrialists, scientists, skilled technicians | 37:18 | |
and vocational specialists would slow down to a trickle. | 37:24 | |
This two-way loss of creative leadership | 37:32 | |
would leave the South, leave to the South, | 37:39 | |
the inevitable ravages of political demagogues, | 37:44 | |
cultural drones, and moral bigots. | 37:50 | |
Yet another danger is, | 37:58 | |
that we will so bungle our interracial relations | 38:03 | |
in this critical moment, | 38:08 | |
as to cripple America's moral leadership | 38:10 | |
in the larger world community. | 38:14 | |
Remember: two out of every three people in the world | 38:18 | |
are colored, and our behavior is an open book to them. | 38:25 | |
The shameful, loosest spectacle, | 38:32 | |
and the barbaric, inutile murder were unfolded daily | 38:36 | |
to the Chinese, the Africans, the Indonesians, | 38:42 | |
and other colored peoples who are coming to power | 38:49 | |
in the greatest revolution in modern history. | 38:53 | |
They measure our morality, and our good will, | 38:58 | |
not by our words, but by our deeds. | 39:02 | |
When the voice of America proclaims to them | 39:08 | |
the virtues of our Declaration of Independence | 39:12 | |
and our Bill of Rights, they read our professed ideals | 39:14 | |
through the lenses of our daily actions. | 39:20 | |
When the Supreme Court first ruled | 39:26 | |
against segregated schools, public schools, | 39:28 | |
totalitarian governments interpreted it as a fraud, | 39:33 | |
pawned upon the world. | 39:39 | |
And they predicted that in any case, | 39:42 | |
the South would not abide by it. | 39:47 | |
Shall we in the South fulfill their cynical prophecies? | 39:54 | |
If we do, my brethren, we will give aid and comfort | 40:01 | |
to the mortal enemies of democracy throughout the world. | 40:08 | |
But that which should give us the deepest concern of all | 40:16 | |
is the tragic fact that we dare to risk all these dangers | 40:20 | |
because of a fundamentally anti-Christian assumption | 40:28 | |
about a group of our fellow men. | 40:34 | |
After taking a wide-ranging poll of Southern sentiment, | 40:39 | |
Howard Odum declared that the heart of our credo | 40:44 | |
could be summed up in these words: | 40:49 | |
"The negro is a negro, and nothing more." | 40:53 | |
In other words, the negro is humanly inferior | 41:03 | |
to the white man. | 41:09 | |
In the final analysis, our dual-racial structure | 41:13 | |
here in the South rests upon that belief. | 41:17 | |
Let us then face squarely our Southern credo, | 41:24 | |
in the light of the revelation which came to Saul | 41:29 | |
as he paced the Damascus road. | 41:33 | |
Without question, he did more | 41:37 | |
than any other follower of Jesus | 41:39 | |
to emancipate the early church from the bonds of Judaism, | 41:42 | |
and transform it into a fellowship of all races and peoples. | 41:47 | |
For this very reason, his fellow Jews sought to destroy him. | 41:53 | |
Nevertheless, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. | 42:02 | |
When Peter later wavered in his supra-racial views, | 42:08 | |
Paul boldly rebuked him to his face. | 42:12 | |
"Is God the God of the Jews only?" | 42:16 | |
Paul asked the Christians at Rome. | 42:20 | |
"Is he not the God of Gentiles also?" | 42:23 | |
"Yes," he said, "of Gentiles also | 42:27 | |
because since God is one," | 42:32 | |
note well those decisive words. | 42:36 | |
"Since God is one." | 42:39 | |
Paul here laid the very cornerstone of Christian community. | 42:45 | |
It is faith, not race, which determines the range | 42:51 | |
of our Christian fellowship. | 42:57 | |
Where there is true faith in one God, there is no color bar. | 43:00 | |
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, | 43:05 | |
for you all are one in Christ Jesus," said Paul. | 43:11 | |
Is it not clear then, why we White church men of the South | 43:19 | |
are conscience-stricken? | 43:25 | |
We do not presume to be better than our worthy forefathers, | 43:30 | |
yet we do believe, as apparently they did not, | 43:35 | |
that a racially segregated church is a tragic denial | 43:40 | |
of that community which is inherent | 43:45 | |
in one Lord, one faith, one baptism. | 43:49 | |
Since God is one, we are members one of another, | 43:57 | |
equally subject to God's judgment and mercy. | 44:02 | |
Equally accountable to him, equally valuable in his sight. | 44:07 | |
Hence, to discriminate against | 44:16 | |
a single one of his children on the ground of race | 44:19 | |
is to impugn the moral character of almighty God. | 44:25 | |
Human equality is not the gift of man. | 44:33 | |
It is the gift of God. | 44:39 | |
Therefore human equality | 44:43 | |
is an unalienable spiritual attribute | 44:45 | |
of every child of God. | 44:49 | |
When we consider the Supreme Court's decision | 44:53 | |
from this Christian perspective, | 44:56 | |
we are bound to admit that it is morally just and right. | 45:00 | |
If therefore this ruling is being bitterly assailed | 45:08 | |
in the South at this hour, it is due in no small measure | 45:12 | |
to the moral infirmity of our Christianity. | 45:19 | |
Many of the most rabid enemies of the Court's ruling | 45:25 | |
are members of our Protestant churches. | 45:30 | |
Let us ministers in particular take this fact | 45:34 | |
seriously to heart. | 45:37 | |
Pondering our faith, and our stewardship, | 45:39 | |
have we been fully surrendered to the will of God? | 45:44 | |
It is hard to believe. | 45:48 | |
It is hard to believe | 45:52 | |
that so many laid pillars in our churches | 45:55 | |
would now be party to an un-Christian movement | 45:59 | |
to obstruct the course of elemental human justice. | 46:03 | |
How long, how long will be our road to Damascus? | 46:11 | |
It will be as long as we persist | 46:21 | |
in our un-Christian belief that our colored brother | 46:24 | |
is only a negro, and nothing more. | 46:30 | |
A fundamental change of heart may require | 46:35 | |
a very long journey, a journey of trial and tribulation | 46:39 | |
over a torturous road, nevertheless | 46:44 | |
nevertheless, since the moral flame from heaven | 46:50 | |
is already penetrating our consciences, | 46:56 | |
the eternal light will eventually burn away the scales | 47:01 | |
which obscure a larger vision of the kingdom of God. | 47:05 | |
Symbolic of that new day is a generally unknown act | 47:12 | |
which was performed by the South's greatest Civil War hero. | 47:18 | |
Within a year after the Confederates surrendered | 47:26 | |
the Appomattox, an unwanted negro | 47:30 | |
entered one of Richmond's most fashionable churches | 47:35 | |
while holy communion was being served, | 47:39 | |
made his way down the aisle, | 47:43 | |
and knelt at the communion altar. | 47:46 | |
The congregation sat aghast, and emotions quickened. | 47:52 | |
Sensing the situation, | 48:00 | |
a great layman arose in his pew, | 48:05 | |
stepped forward to the altar, | 48:09 | |
and knelt beside his colored brother. | 48:13 | |
Captured by his spirit, the congregation followed | 48:18 | |
his magnanimous example. | 48:23 | |
That layman was Robert E. Lee. | 48:27 | |
On that Sunday morning, | 48:36 | |
he won the greatest battle of his career. | 48:39 | |
For greater is he that mastereth his spirit | 48:44 | |
than he that taketh a city. | 48:50 | |
By the grace of God, Robert E. Lee | 48:56 | |
lighted the spiritual torch which will never go out | 49:00 | |
until we of the South, Black and White, | 49:06 | |
are transformed into a fellowship as broad and as enduring | 49:12 | |
as the love of Christ. | 49:20 | |
Let us pray. | 49:24 | |
Eternal God who hast created of one blood | 49:32 | |
the whole family of Earth, | 49:35 | |
and hast made us members of thy kingdom | 49:38 | |
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 49:43 | |
save us, we beseech thee, from racial malice, | 49:46 | |
and from all other sins which separate us from thee | 49:53 | |
and from our fellow men. | 49:58 | |
Now unto him, who is able to keep you from falling, | 50:01 | |
and to present you without blemish | 50:06 | |
before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, | 50:08 | |
to the only God, our savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 50:12 | |
be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, | 50:18 | |
today and forever. | 50:24 | |
(organ playing) | 50:28 | |
Choir | (singing) Amen, amen, amen, amen, | 50:32 |
amen, amen, amen. | 50:52 |