The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-10-26
SUICIDE DENOUNCED.
DR.. Talmage Speaks in Strong
Terms Against Self Murder.
Infidelity Declared Largely Responsible
for the Evil-Insanity the Only Other
Plausible Ground-Trust I'm the
Lord to the End.

himself, supposing that the prisoners had
fed. But Paul cried with loud voice,
saying DO thy self no HARM" The SER
mon was as follows:
Here is a would-be suicide arrested in
his deadly attempt. He was a sheriff and
according to the Roman law a bailif him.
self must suffer the punishment due an
escaped prisoner; and if the prisoner
breaking Jail was sentenced to be endun-
geoned for three or four years then the
sheriff must be endungeoned for three or
four years; and il the prisoner breaking
Jail was to have suffered capital punish
ment then the sheriff must suffer capital
punishment. The sheriff had received es-
pecial charge to keep a sharp look out for
Paul and Silas. The Government had not
had confidence in bolts and bars to keep
safe these two clergymen, about whom
there seemed to be something strange
and supernatural. Sure enough by
miraculous power they are free, and
the sheriff, waking out of sound
sleep and supposing these ministers
had run away, and knowing that they
were to die for preaching Christ, and re-
alizing that he must therefore die rather
than go under the executioner's axe on the
morrow and suffer public disgrace, resolves
to precipitate his own decease. But
before the sharp, keen. glittering dagger
of the sheriff could strike his heart one of
the unloosened prisoners arrests the blade
by the command, DO myself no harm"
In olden time, and when Christianity
had not interfered with it, suicide was con-
sidered honorable and sign of courage.
Demosthenes poisoned himself when told
that Alexander's ambassador had de-
manded his surrender of the Athenian or
ators. Socrates killed himself rather than
surrender TO Philip of Macedon. Cato
rather than submit to Julius Cesar, took
his own life, and after three times his
wounds had been dressed tore them open
and persisted. Mithridates killed him.
self rather than submit to Pompey, the
conqueror. Hannibal destroyed his life
by poison from his ring, considering life
unbearable. Lycurgus suicide. Brutus
a suicide. After the disaster at Moscow
Napoleon always carried with him n
preparation of opium, and one night his
servant heard the ex-Emperor arise, put
some thing in glass and drink it, and soon
after the groans aroused all the attend
ants, and it was only through utmost med
ical skill he was resuscitated from the
stupor OF the opiate.
Times have changed, and yet the Ameri-
can conscience needs to be ton ed up on the
subject of suicide. Have you seen paper
in the last month that did not announce
the Passage out of life by ones own
hehest! Defaulters, alarmed at the idea
of exposure, quit life precipitately. Men
losing large fortunes go ont of the world
because they can not endure earthly eI-
istence. frustrated affection, domestic
infelicity, dyspeptic impatience, anger,
remorse, envy, jealousy, restitution. mis-
anthropy are considered sufficient causes
Cor aosconding from this life by Paris
green. by laudanum, by belladonna, by
Othello's dagger, by halter, by leap from
the abutment of bridge. by firearms.
More cases of felo de sc in the last two
years than any two years of the worlds
existence, and more in the last month than
any twelve months. The evil is more and
more spreading.
A pulpit not long ago expressed some
doubt as to whether there was really any
thing wrong about quitting this life when
it became disagreeable, and there are
found in respectable circles people apollo
getic for the crime which Paul in the text
arrested. l shall show you before / get
through that suicide is the worst of all
crimes and l shall lift a warning unmistak-
able. But in the early part of this sermon
i wish to admit that some Of the best
Christians that have ever lived have COM
mitted self-des.ruction, but always in
dementia and not responsible. have no
more doubt about their eternal felicity
than ] have of the Christian who dies in
his bed in the delirium of typhoid fever.
While the shock of the catastrophe is very
great, l charge all those who have had
Christian friends under cerebral alteration
step off the boundaries of this life to have
no doubt about their happiness. The dear
Lori took them right out of their dazed
and frenZied state into perfect safety.
How Christ feels toward the insane you
may know from the kind way He treated
the demoniac of Gadara and the child
lunatic and the potency with which he
hushed tenpestS either of sea or of brain.
Scotland, the land prolific of intellectual
giants, had none grander than Hugh Mil
Ter. Great for science and great for God.
He came of the best Highland blood and
was descendant of Donald Roy, man
eminent for piety and the rare gift of Sec
end sight. His attachments, climbing up
as he did from the quarry and the wall of
the stone mason, drew forth the aston
ished admiration of Buckland and Murch-
ison, the scientists, and Dr.. Chalmers, the
theologian, and held universities SPELL
bound while he told them the story Of
what he had seen of God in the old red
sandstone.
That man did more than any being that
ever lived 10 show that the God of the
hills is the God of the Bible, and he struck
his tuning fork on the rocks of Cromarty
until he brought geology and theology ac-
cordant in divine worship. His two books,
entitled Footprints of the Creator" and
1.-The Testimony of the Rocks" pro-
claimed the bans of an everlasting mar
riage between genuine science and revela-
ton. On this latter book he toiled day
and night through love of nature and love
of God until he could not sleep, and his
brain gave way and he was found dead
with a revolver by his side, the cruel in
strument having had two bullets-one for
him and the other for the gunsmith who at
the coroner's inquest was examining it
and fell dead. Have you any doubt of the
beatification of Hugh Miller, after his hot
brain had ceased throbbing that winter
night in his study at Portobello: Among
the mightiest OF earth, among the might
lest of Heaven.
No one doubted the piety of William
Cowper, the author of those three great
hymns, 80, for Closer Walk With God"
"What Various Hindrances We Meet"
'There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood"
William Cowper, who shares with Isaac |
Watts and Charles Wesley the chief hon.
ors OF Christian hymnology. In hypo- |
chrondria he resolved to take his own life |
and rode to the river Thames, but found a |
man seated on some goods at the very |
point flom 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 deliy- |