can hide his light under a bushel; can keep quiet when they are
assailed. He must, he will raise hand and voice in their defense. Moses
refused to dwell in the king's palace while his people suffered about
him. No! he went forth, and in his zeal smote an uncircumcised Egyptian
oppressor to death and fled into a strange land and there fitted himself
for their deliverer. Rev. Hiland Silkirk counted his friends among some
leading ministers and laymen of the opposite race. But Rev. Silkirk was
true to his own, and when the time came to test that devotion, he
arrayed himself with his own people and endangered his own life. When,
in the early part of August, 1898, the fight between the editor of the
Record and the editor of the Messenger waxed hot over the inflammatory
letters on the race question from the pen of Mrs. Fells, of Georgia,
which had its final result in the destruction of the Record's property
and the banishment of its editor, Rev. Silkirk did not hesitate to join
in the controversy. This caused many of his white friends to cool
towards him, and it placed his name upon the list of dangerous(?)
Negroes to be killed or banished. After the general raid which
terrorized and put the city in a state of panic on the 10th of November,
the mobs divided into squads, and, as deputy sheriffs, begun to arrest
and drive from the city the objects of their spleen. The duly elected
Mayor and other officials having been deposed, bandits were put in their
places. A portion of the mob which destroyed the Record building on the
morning of the 10th, started northward toward Walnut street, on which
the hated Negro minister resided. But among the white ministers in
Wilmington there was one at least who would not allow his prejudice to
impair his devotion to a worthy friend. He, aware of the plot to murder
the black divine, set out on that morning to warn him of his danger. The
Rev. Silkirk, aroused and alarmed by the noise of guns coming from every
direction in the city, had just mounted his bicycle and started in the
direction of Dry Pond. As he turned into Seventh street he saw, more
than two blocks away, another bicyclist breathlessly pedaling toward
him. "Why, Dr. Sawyer, I was just starting to your house!" said the
colored man, as the white one rode up and dismounted. "And I was just
coming to your house to inform you that a ride in my direction is
dangerous! Return! There is no time to be lost. Get into the woods! They
are on the w