The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-10-26


Revelations xxi. g: "Murderers shall
have their part in the lake which burneth
with fire and brimstone." Revelations
xxi. Is: "Without are dogs and sorcer-
ers, and whoremongers and murderers."
You do not believe the New Testament
Then perhaps you believe the Ten Com
maudments: "Thou shalt not kill" Do
you say all these passages refer to the
taking of the life of others? Then I 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 assailants,
two eyes to watch for invasion and a nat
ural love of life which ought ever to be on
the alert. Assassination Of others is q
mild crime compared with the assassina-
ton of yourself, because in the latter case
it is treachery to an especial trust; it is
the surrender Of a castle you were espe-
cially 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 point you to the rogue's
picture gallery in some parts Of the Bible,
the pictures of the people who have COM
mitted 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 of stature chasing
four. Here is the man who consulted a
clairvoyant, Witch of Endor. Here is the
man who, whipped in battle, instead of
surrendering his sword with dignity, as
many a man has done, asks his servant to
slay him; and when the servant declines,
then the giant plants the hilt of the sword in
the earth. the sharp point sticking upward,
and he throws his body OH it and expires,
the coward, the suicide. Here is Ahitho-
phel, the Machiavelli of olden times, be-
traying his best friend, David, in order
that he may become prime minister of
Absalom and joining that fellow in his at
tempt at parricide. Not getting what. he
wanted by changes of politics. he takes a
short cut out of a disgraced life into the
suicides eternity. There he is, the in
CRATE! Here is Abimelech, practically a
suicide. He is with an army, bombarding
a tower, when a woman in the tower
takes q grindstone from its place and
drops it upon his head, and with what life
be has left in his cracked skull he
commands his armor bearer: "Draw thy
sword and STAY me. lest men say a woman
slew me-" There is his post norton pho
tograph in the book of Samuel. But the
hero of this group is Judas Iscariot. DIR.
Dome says he was a martyr, and we have
in our day apologists for him. And what
wonder, in this day when we have a book
revealing Aaron Burr as a pattern Of vir-
tue, and in this day when we uncover a
statue of George Sand as the benefactress
of literature, and in this day when there
are betrayals of Christ on the part Of some
of His pretended apostles-a betrayal so
black it makes the infamy of Judas Is
CARROT white! Yet this man by his own
hand hung up for the execration of all the
ages, Judas Iscariot.
All the good men and women of the
Bible left to God the decision of their
earthly terminus, and they could have
said with job. who had right to commit
suicide if any man ever had-what with
his destroyed property, and his body all
afiame with insufferaDle carbuncles, and
every thing gone from his home except the
chief curse of it, pestiferous wife, and
four garrulous people pelting him with
comfortless talk while he sits on heap of
ashes scratching his scabs with a piece of
broken pottery, yet crying out in triumph:
'Ali the days of my appointed time will 1
wait till my change come"
Notwithstanding the Bible is against
this evil, and the aversion which it creates
by the loathsome and CHASTITY spectacle Of
those who have hurled themselves out of
life, and notwithstanding Christianity is
against it and the arguments and the
af,,l H. -
its disciples. it is a fact alarmingly patent
that suicide is on the increase.
What is the cause: l charge upon inf
deity and agnosticism this whole thing.
If there be no hereafter. or if that here
after be blissful without reference to how
we live and how we die, why not move
back the folding doors between this world
and the next. And when our existence
here becomes troublesome why not pass
right over into Elysium! Put this down
among your most solemn reflections and
consider it after you go to your homes.
There has never been a case of suicide
where the operator was not either dement,
ed, and therefore irresponsible, or an inf
del. challenge all the ages and chal-
lenge the whole universe. There never
has been a case of self destruction while
in full appreciation of his immortality and
and of the fact that that immortality
would be glorious or wretched according
as he accepted Jesus Christ or rejected
Him.
You say it is business trouble. or you
say it is electrical currents, or it i, this, or
it is that, or it is the other thing. Why
not 60 clear back. my friend, and acknowl-
edge that in every case it is the abdication
Of reason or the teaching of infidelity
which practically says: IF yol don't like
this life get out of it and you will land
either in humiliation, where there are no
notes to pay, no prosecutions 20 suffer. no
govt to torment, or you will land where
there will be every thing glorious and
nothing to pay for it," Infidelity ALWAYS
has been apologize for self-immolation.
After Tom Paine's '.Age Of Reason" was
published and widely read there was a
marked increase of self-slaughtsr.
A man in London heard Mr.. Owen de-
liver his infidel lecture on socialism, and
went home, sat down, and wrote these
words: "Jesus Christ is one Of the weakest
characters in history, and the Bible is the
greatest possible deception, " and then shot
himself. David Hume wrote these words:
ut would be no crime for me to divert the
Nile or the Danube from its natural bed.
Where, then, can be the crime in my d.
verting few drops of blood from their or
binary channel:" And having written
the essay he loaned it to a friend, the
friend read it, wrote a letter of thanks
and admiration. and shot himself. APP
pendix to the same book, Rousseau,
VoltaTe, Gibbon, Montaigne, under
certain circumstances, We're apologize
for self-immolation. Infidelity puts
up no bar to peoples rushing out from
this world into the next. They teach us it
does not make any difference how you live
here or go out of this world, you will land
either in al oblivious nowhere or a glori-
nj inG tl,a