The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-10-18

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No one doubted the piety of William
Cowper. the author Of those three great
hymns, ''Oh, for a closer walk with
God" ..Wha& various hindrances we
meet" s'There is fountain filed with
blood;" William Cowper, who shares
with Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley the
chief honors of Christian hymnology. In
hypochondria he resolved to take his
own life, and rode to the river Thames,
but found man seated on some goods at
the very point from which he expected
to spring, and rode back to his home,
and that night threw himself upon his
own knife, but the blade broke; and
then he hanged himself to the ceiling,
but the rope parted. No wonder that
when God mercifully delivered him from
that awful dementia he sat down and
wrote that other hymn just as memora-
BILE:
God moves In mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps In the sea.
And rides upon the storm
Blind unbelief Is sure to ere
And scan bis work tn vainS
God is his oAp Interpreter,
And he will make It plain.
While we make this mercHnl and
righteous allowance in regard to those
who were plunged into mental incoher-
ence, declare that that man who In the
use Of his reason, by his own act, snaps
the bond between his body and his soul
goes straight into perdition. Shall !
prove It'll Revelation xxi, 8: "Murderers
shall have their part In the lake which
Revelation xxi, 10. "Without are
dogs, and sorcerers, and whore
mongers, and murderers. You do not
believe the New TESTAMENT Then, per-
haps you believe the Ten Commandments:
'Thou shalt not KILL" Do you say all
these passages refer to the taking of the
life of others2 Then ask you if you
are not as responsible for your own life
as for the life of others? God gave you
a special trust in your life. He made
you the custodian of your life as he made
you the custodian of no other life. He
gave you as weapons with which to de-
fend it two arms to strike back assail-
ants, two eyes to watch for invasion and
natural love of life which ought ever
to be on the alert. Assassination of
others is mild crime compared with
the assassination of yourself, because In
the latter case it is treachery to an es-
pecial trust, it is the surrender of cas-
tie you were especially appointed to keep,
it is treason to a natural law and it is
treason to God added to ordinary murder.
To show how God in the Bible looked
upon this crime, l point you to the
rogues picture gallery in some parts OF
the Bible, the pictures of the people who
| have committed this unnatural crime.
! Here is the headless trunk of Saul on the
walls of Bathshan. Here is the man
who chased little David-ten feet in
stature chasing four. Here is the mar
who consulted a clairvoyant, Witch ol
Ender. Here is a man who, whipped III
battle, instead of surrendering his SWORD
with dignity, as many man has done
asks his servant to slay him; anG
when the servant declines, then the gian
plants the hilt Of the sword in the earth
the sharp point sticking upward, and h.
throws his body on it and expires, the
coward, the suicide. Here is Ahithophel
the Machiavelli Of olden times, betrayine
his best friend David in order that ht
may become prime minister Of Absalom
and joining that fellow in his attempt Al
| parricide. Not getting what he wanted
by change of politics, he takes shor
cut out of disgraced life into the sui
cide's eternity. There he is, the migrate
Here is Abimelech, practically sui
eide. He is with an army, bombardins
tower, when woman in the towel
takes grindstone from its place ant
drops it upon his head, and with wha
life he has left in his cracked skull Ii,
commands his armor bearer: '.Drav
thy sword and slay me, lest men say (;
woman slew me-" There is his pos
mortem photograph in the book of Sam
uel But the hero of this group is Juda
Tscariot. DIR. Donne says he was ;
martyr, and we have in our day
apologists for him, And what won
der, in this day when we hav,
book revealing Aaron Burr as patterl
of virtue, and in this day when we un
cover q statue to George Sand as tn
benefactress of literature, and in this da,
when there are betrayals of Christ on tn
part of some of his pretended apostles
betrayal SO black it makes the infamy o
Judas Iscariot white! Yet this man b.
his own hand hung up for the execratiol
of all the ages, Judas Iscariot.
All the good men and women of tn
Bible left to Gcd the decision of thei
earthly terminus, and they could hav
said with Job, who had right to com
NIT suicide If any man ever had-wha
with his destroyed property, and his bod
all .aflame with insufferable carbuncles
and everything gone from his home cy
cept the chief curse of it, pestiferou
wife, and four garrulous people peltin
him with comfortless talk while he sit
on heap of ashes scratching his scab
with O piece of broken pottery, yet cry
ing out in triumph: ''All the days of M
. appointed time will wait till my chang
come"
Notwithstanding the Bible is agains
this evil, and the aversion which
creates by the loathsome and ghastl
spectacle of those who have hurled then
selves out of life, and notwithstandin
/ Christianity is against it, and the argu
ments and the useful lives and the illu.
trious deaths of its disciples, it is fac
, alarmingly patent that suicide is on til
increase.
What is the callse2 I charge upon il
, fidelity and agrosticism this whole thing
If there be no hereafter, or if that here
, after be blissful without reference to ho'
+ we live and how we die, why not NOV
back the folding doors between this worl
and the neSt2 And when our existenc
/ here becomea troublesome, why not pa:
, right over into Elysium? Put this dow
, among your mcst solemn reflections
: | and consider it after you go to you
r homes: there has never been a cas-
, of suicide where the operator was NJ
| either demented, and therefore irr
, sponsible, or an infidel. challenge a
|, the ages, and challenge the whole un
verse. There never has been case {
; self destruction while in full appreciate
. of his Immortality, and Of the fact tn;
= that Immortality would be glorious {
Z wretched according as he accepted Jesl
. Christ or rejected him.