The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-11-15

ed himself to the ceiling, but the rope
parted. No wonder that when God merci-
fully delivered him from that awful de-
mentia he sat down and wrote that other
hymn just as memorable:
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 err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter.
And He will make it plain.
While we make this merciful and
righteous allowance in regard to those
who we're plunged into mental incoher-
ence, declare that that man who in the
use of his reason, by his own act, snaps
the bonds between his body and his soul,
goes straight into perdition. Shall I
prove it? Revelation xxi, s: Murder
ers shall have their part.in the lake which
burneth with fire and birthstone.
Revelation xii, 15: "Without are dogs.
and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and
murderers." You do not believe the New
Testament? Then, perhaps, you believe
the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt
not kill"
Do you say all these passages refer to
the taking of the life of others? Then
ask you If you are not as responsible for
your own life as for the life Of others?
God gave you special trust in your life.
He made you the custodian Of your life,
and He made you the custodian of no
other life. He gave as weapons with
which to defend it two arms to strike
back assailants, two eyes to watch for in
vasion, and natural love of life which
ought ever to be on the alert. Assassina-
ton Of others is mild crime compared
with the assassination of yourself, be-
cause in the latter case it is treachery to
an especial trust; 1t is the surrender of
castle you were especially appointed to
keep; it is treason to 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 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 Bathshau. Here is the man who
chased little David-ten feet in stature
chasing four. Here is the man who con
suited clairvnyant, Witch of Endor.
Here is man who, whipped in battle, in
stead of surrenderjng his sword with dig
nifty, as many man has done, asks his
servant to Stay him; and, when the serv-
ant declines, then the giant plants the
hllt OF the sword in the earth, the sharp
point sticking upward, and he throws his
body on it and expires-the coward, the
suicidei Here is Ahithopel, the Machia-
Of 01I l. :
friend, David, in order that he may be-
come Prime Minister of Absalom, and
joining that fellow in his attempt at par
ricide. Not getting what he wanted by
change of politics, he takes a short cut
out of a disgraced life into the suicides
eternity. There he is, the migrated
Here is Abimelech, practically sui
eide. He is with an army bombarding q
tower, when woman in the tower takes a
grindstone from its place and drops it
upon his head, and with what life he has
left in his cracked skull he commands his
armor- bearer: Draw thy sword and slay
me, lest men say a woman slew me-"
There is his post-mortem photograph in
the book of Samuel. But the hero of this
group is Judas Iscariot. DIR. Dome says
he was martyr, and we have in our deys
apologists for him. And what wonder in
this day when we have book revealing
Aaron Burr as a pattern of virtue, and in
this day when we uncover a statue to
George Sand as the benefactress of liter
AZURE, and in this day when there are be-
trayals of Christ on the part of some of
His pretended apostles betrayal so
black it makes the infamy of Judas Isca-
riot whitel Yet this man by his own hand
hung up for the execration of all the ages,
Judas Iscariot.
ALI 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 prosperity, and bis body all
aaame with insufferable carbuncles, and
every thing gone from his home except
the chief curse of tia pestiferous wife,
and four garrulous people pelting him
with comfortless talk while he sits on
heap of ashes scratching his scabs with
piece of broken pottery, yet crying out
in triumph: "All the days of my APP
pointed time will wait till my change
comes.n
Notwithstanding the Bible is against
this evil, and the aversion which it
creates by the loathsome and CHASTITY
spectacle of those who have hurled them.
selves out Of life, and notwithstanding
Christianity is against it. and the argu-
ments and the useful lives and the il
lustrious deaths of the disciples, it is a
fact alarrningIy patent that suicide is on
the increase.
What Is the cause? I charge upon inf
deity and agnosticism this whole thing.
1t 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 ex
istence here becomes troublesome, why
not pass right over into Elysium? Put
this down among your most solemn re-
Elections. and consider 1t after You go to
your homes: there has never been o case
OF suicide where the operator was not
either demented, and therefore irrespon
sible, or an infdel. challenge all the
ages, and | challenge the whole universe.
There never has been case of self de-
struction while in full appreciation of
his Immortality and of the fact that inn
mortality would be glorious or wretehed
according as he accepted Jesus Christ or
rejected HIM.