The Wahpeton times., 1888-10-25
J |! /! L !

III Ss5 sss
eslf.Destifi Sstioa ~ q t lsss Iorst
Crises But Suicides II Craxy,
= Hay Get to Heaven.
BRooKLYx, N. r., Oct. 14.-At the Taber.
nacls this morning, the Rev. T. Dewitt Toll
mage, D. D., took for his text Acts III. 25
~ 2s:
eHa drew out his sword, and would have
killed himself, supposing that the prisoners
Eh&d been Aed. But Paul cried with q loud
voice, saying, DO thyself no harm.'"
The sermon was as follows:
Here 10 would-be suicide arrested in his
deadly attempt. he was sheriff, and &C.
sording to the Roman law, balitf himself
must suffer the punishment due an escaped
prisoner; and If the prisoner breaking jail
was sentenced to be eadungeoned for
three or four years; and il the pris-
onsr breaking Jail was tS have suf.
lsred capital punishment, then the sheriff
must suffer capital punishment. The sheriff
had received especial charge to keep a sharp
lookout for Paul and silas. The government
bad not had confidence in bolts and bars to
keep safe these two clergyman, about whom
thorc seemed to be something strange and
supernatural.
Sure enough by miraculous power, they
are free, and the sheriff, waking out of o
sound sleep, and supposing these ministers
have run away, and knowing that they were
. to die for preaching Christ, and realizing
that he must therefore die, rather than 70
under the heexccutioner's az on the morrow and
suffer public disgrace, resolves to precipitate
bis own decease. But before the sharp, keen,
glittsring dagger of the sheriff could strike
bis heart, one of the unloosened prisoners ar
rests the blade by the command: "Do thy.
tAaelf no harm.
In olden time, and where Christianity had
not interfered with it, suicide was considered
honorable and q sign of courage Demos.
themes poisoned himself when told that Alex.
hnder's ambassador had demanded the sur
render Of the Athenian orators. Isocrates
killed himself rather than surrender to Philip
Of Macetlon. Cato, rather than submit to
Juhus Cesar, took his own life, and after
three times his wounds had been dressed tore
them open and perished. Mithridates killed
himself rather than submit to Pompey. the
eonqueror. Hannibal destroyed his life by
poison from his ring, considering life unbear-
able. Lycurgus suicide. Brutus suicide.
After the disaster at Moscow, Napoleon
always carried with him preparation of
opium, and one night his servant heard the
Emperor arise, put something in glass and
drink it, and soon after the groans aroused
oil the attendants, and it was only through
utmost medical skill he was resuscitated from
the stupor of the opiate.
Times have changed, and yet the American
conscience needs to be toned up on the sub
Eect OF suicide. Have you seen a paper in the
last month that did not announce the pas.
rage out Of life by ones own behest? De-
taulters, alarmed at the idea of exposure.
quit life precipitately. Men losing large for.
tunes go out of the world because they can
not endure earthly existence Frustrated
Affection, domestic infelicity, dyspeptic i'm
patience. anger, remorse, envy, jealousy,
11esututlon, mlsanthropy are considered snf-
aclent causes for absconding this life by paris
green, by laudnum, by belladonna, by Othel-
los dagger, by halter, by leap from the abut-
ment OF O bridge, by firearms More cases of
telo de Sc in the last two years than any
two years of the worlds existence, and more
u the last month than in any IL months.
The evil is more and more spreading.
doubt as to whether there was really any.
thing wrong about quitting this life when it
= became disagrecable, and there are found in
respectable circles people apologetic for the
crime which Paul in the text arrested. 1
shall show you before l get through that
suicide is the worst of oil crimes, and shall
lift warning unmistakable. But in the
Early part of this sermon | wish to admit
that some of the best Christians that have
ever lived have committed selfdestruction,
but alwaysin dementia, and not responsible.
have no more doubt about their eternal
felicity than have of the Christian who
dies 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 of
the boundaries of this life. to have no doubt
about their happiness. The dear Lord 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 tempests either of sea OF
brain.
Scotland, the land prolific of intellectual
giants, had none grander than Hugh Miller.
Great for science and great for God. He
came of the best Highland blood, and was a
defendant of. Donald Roy, man eminent
for piety and the rare gift of second sight.
His attainments, climbing up as he did from
the quarry and the wall of the stone mason,
drew forth the astonished admiration oi
Buckland and Murchison. the scientists,
and DR.. Chalmers, the theologian, and held
universities spellbound while he told them
the story of what he had seen of God in the
old red sandstone.
That man did more than any other being
that ever lived to show that the God OF tha
hills is the God of the Bible, and he struck his
tuning fork on the rocks of Cromarty until
he brought geology and theology accor1ant
In divine worship. His two books, entitled