The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-08-17


fidelity always has been apologetic for
self-immolation. After Tom Paine's
Age of Reason" was published and
widely read there was a marked in.
crease of self-slaughter.
A man in London heard Mr.. Owen
deliver his infidel lecture on socialism,
and went home and sat down and
wrote these words: Jesus Christ is
one of the weakest characters in his
tory, and the Bible is the greatest pos
sible deception" and then shot him
self. David Hume wrote these words:
1T 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 diverting a few drops of blood
from their ordinary channel?" And
having written the essay, he loaned it
to friend; the friend read it, wrote
letter of thanks and admiration, and
then shot himself. Appendix to the
same book
Rousseau. Voltaire, Gibbon, Mon
taigne. under certain circumstances,
were apologize for self-immolation.
Infidelity puts up no bar to peoples
rushing out from this world into the
mex. They teach US it does not make
any difference how You live here or go
out of this world. you will land either
in an oblivious nowhere or a glorious
somewhere. And infidelity holds the
upper end of the rope for the suicide,
and aims the pistol with which a man
blows his brains out, and mixes the
strychIline for the last swallow.
l have sometimes heard it discussed
whether the great dramatist was a
Christian or not. do not know, but 1
know that he considered appreciation
of a future existence the mightiest
hindrance to self-destruction:
For who would bear the whips and scorns Of
The oppressors wrong, the proud mans con-
tumely.
The pangs Of despis'd love. the laws delay,
The insolence OF office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With bare botkin. Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life.
But that the dread Of something after death
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns-puzzles the will.
Would God that the coroners would
be brave in rendering the right verdict,
and when in the case of Irresponsible
ity they say: while this man was de-
mented he took his life" in the other
case say: Having read infidel books
and attended infidel lectures, which OBJ
liberated from this mans mind all APP
probation of anything like future retri-
button, he committed felf-slaughterr'
All! Infidelity, stand up and take thy
sentence! In the presence of God and
angels and men, stand up, thou mon
ster, thy lips blasted with blasphemy,
thy cheek SCARED with lust, thy breath
foul with the corruption of the ages!
Stand up, Satyr, filthy goat, buzzard
of the nations, leper of the centuries!
Stand up, thou monster Infdelityl
Part man, part panther, part reptile,
part dragon, stand up and take thy
sentence! Thy hands red with the
blood in which thou hast washed, thy
feet crimson with the human gore
through which thou hast waded, stand
up and take thy sentence! Down with
thee to the pit and sup on the sobs and
groans of families thou hast blasted,
and roll on the bed OF knives which
thou hast sharpened for others, and let
thy music be the everlasting miserere
of those whom thou has damned, / !
brand the forehead of Infidelity with
all the crimes of self-immolation for
the last century on the part of those |
who had their reason.
My friends, if ever your life through !
its abrasions and it's molestations |
should seem to be unbearable, and You |
are tempted to quit it by your own be-
hest, do not consider yourselves as
worse than others. Christ himself was |
to cast Himself from the roof |
Of the temple; but as He resisted, so re-
sist We. Christ came to medicine all |
Dur wounds. In your trouble 1 pre-
scribe life instead of death.
Why was it that at midnight, Just at
midnight, the destroying angel struck
the blow that set the Israelites free
from bondage? The 430 years were up
1T 12 o'clock that night. The 43O were
not up at IL, and at 1 o'clock would
nave been tardy and too late. The 43O
years were up at IL o'clock, and the
destroying angel struck the blow that
Israel was free. And God knows just
he hour when it is time to lead you
Up from earthly bondage. BY His grace
make not the worst of things, but the
best of them.
And remember that this brief life of
ours is surrounded by a rim. very
hin but very important rim, and close
n, fD fhof rim, &c nfa
,ou had better keep out of it until God
Freaks that rim and separates this from
hat. To get rid of the SORROWS of
,arth, do not rush into greater sorrows.
70 get rid of swarm of summer in
ects, leap. not into jungle of Bengal
igers.
There is a sorrowless world, and it is
% radiant that the monday sun is only +.
he lowest doorstep and the aurora ,
hat lights up our northern heavens,
astronomers as to what it !
an be, is the waving of the banners ,
# the procession come to take the con- !
uerors home from church militant to
hurch triumphant, and you and {
ave ten thousand reasons for =,
wanting to go there, but we will !:
ever get there by self-immola- I
ion or impeniteney. All our sins ,
lain by the Christ who came to do ,
hat thing, we want to go in at just the :
ime divinely arranged, and from =,
ouch divinely spread, and then the /
lang of the sepulch-al gates behind us :
5ill be overpowered by the clang of 4
he opening of the solid pearl before =
s. o God, whatever others may i,
hoose, give me Christians life, 4
hristian's death, Z Christians burial, a