The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-05-04
Euthansia.

what pretty tniDg man lS Nueh Nv
goes on the strength of his private ludg-
ment and leaves off the trammelss of au-
thority. So accoutered, so stripped, there IS
no autiquated, absurdity that he is not read.g
to take up with; no moral extravaganza that
he is not prepared to adopt.
The latest, though not the last, of those
vagaries into which Protestant ism, or the
going about in the garment of private
judgment; and the discarding of Catholc
vestments, i. G., tho authority of the Church
-has fallen-is Enttanasia /; aud in due
course of time we may expect to hear or
EnthdAdsidSm "a another of the scots or
which tho Protestant world ia made up.
But here our readers may perhaps feel IN
clined to ask, "What is Enthdnasia? what
the peculiar tenets of the Enthandsldh
sect3"
The distinguishing doctrine of this new
sect-which to speak correctly is but re-
vivfication of old Paganism-is the right,
and indeed under certain circumstances, the
duty of Suicidc-or as it is euphoniouslsy
termed in Japan, I" Happy Despatch" 1t
advocates are logical, and their logic is un-
answera BILE except upon Catholic premi-.
ses for reason, natural reason, which IT
we reject the authority of the Catholic
Church, is our sole rule of action, never has
succeeded in convincing men that they had
not the right to put an end to their exls-
tence, when that existence had become
burdenstAne to them. With the best men
of pre-Christian times, suicide was held
not only to be right, but under many
circumstances a duty, failure III the per
Torrance of which was accepted as the
sign of craven and sordid spirit Any
cause, the toedium ritoe or what the French
call ennui, was held to be good and fii-
cient canse why man shonid seek re-
lease in the poisoned cup, or in STAB
from the poignard of his freedman. Any
one who has read his Tacitus, or made
himself acquainted with the social history
of the first century of our era, will easily
recall to mind hundreds of instances illus
trative of the esteem in which amongst
the heather, the doctrine of EuthdndSia
was held.
Euthanasia, or the sublime moral duty
of suicide, which she Church had discount
enanced and which had fallen into great
disesteem during the Ages of Faith, was,
as we all know revived in great force in
France towards the end of the last centu-
ry; for then for a short time the formal
principle of Professionalism, that is to say,
the right of private judgment 40 against
the Church in the moral and religious or
der, was 10 tie ascendaat--Io- he Killed
by the hands Of the public executioner, or
to kill oneself, seemed, for a time to be the
destined lot of all men. There was per-
feet rage for suicide, under the wild excite
ment of the day, death of Cato, not that
of Christ or of the martyr was proposed as
the EXAMPLE to be followed and if ut the
last supper D: the Girondins at the Con-
ciergerie, Vergniaud throws away bis
poison, it is because he fuds that there is
enough only for himself and none to spare
for his friends.
Like causes produce like results. In
England the Christian religion under the
blighting influence of protesting principle,
has lost its hold of the educated classes of
Protestarts, and exercises but feeble intlu-
ence over the vulgar. AS men recede from
the Church they approximate to Paganism
and justin proportion as they discard the
old Catholic morality, do they take up
with the morality of heathendoE. So it is
that without much surprise we see the
heather doctrine as to the right and duty
of suicide, advocated in some of the peri
odicals of the day, aud extolled as under
certain circumstances, almost a virtue. The
"dread of something after death;'' of judg
ment and of hell has passed away, and
with it the sole reason why men should
their fardels bear, groaning and sweating
under weary life.
Nor is it merely the dread of those
dreams that the sleep Of death may bring
with it after we have shuttled off this NOR
tai coil, that the progress of the Protesting
principles, has abolished it has destroyed
hope, and robbed the sufferer on earth of
the only support he had in his trials. If
the promises of Christianity be, as are its
threats, but vain words, why should men
continue to suffer. If Professionalism be
true, MONK Being is better than Beiug-and
the question over which Hamlet vexed his
brain is solved at last, and in favor of the
new doctrine of Euthanasia.-l[on
True Witness.
Putting hoop on the family four Iar-