The Bossier banner., 1894-09-27
81.

standing Christianity Is against it. and
the arguments and the useful lives
and the illustrious deaths of its dis
| ciples, it is a fact alarmingly patent
that suicide is on the increase. What
is the eause2 I charge upon infidelity
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 ex-
istence here becomes troublesome, why
not pass right over into Elysium9 Put
this down among your most solemn re-
fiections, sand consider it after you go
to your homes: there has never been a
case of suicide where the operator was
not either demented, and therefore ir-
responsible, or an infidel. l challenge
all the ages, and challenge the whole
universe. There never has been case
of self-destruction while in full appre-
citation of his Immortality 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
is this, or it is that, or it is the other
thug. Why not go clear back, my
friend, and acknowledge that in every
case it is the abdication of reason OF
the teaching of infidelity which prac
tically says: ''If you don't like this
life, get out of it, and you will land
either in annihilation, where there are
no notes to pay, no prosecutions to
suffer, no gout to torment, or you will
land where there will be everything
glorious and nothing to pay for it. In
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
delivered his infdel lecture on social
ism, 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:
sit would be no crime for me to divert
the Nile or the Danube f1ons its
natural bed. Where, then, can be the
crime in my diverting 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 admira
ton, and then shot himself. Appendix
| to the same book.
Rousseau, Voltaire, Gibbon, Mon
taigne, under certain circumstances,
where arologetic for self -immolation.
Infdelity 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 an oblivious nowhere or a glorious
, the upper end of the rope for
the suicide, and aims the pistol
with which man blows his brains
out, and mixes the strychnine for the
last swallow If infdelity could carry
the day and persuade the majority of
people that it does not make any differ
ence how you 60 out of the world you
will land safely, the rivers would be SO
full of corpses the ferryboats would be
impeded in their progress, and the
: crack of suicides pistol would be no
more alarming than the rumble of a
street car.
All! Infidelity, stand up and take thy
sentences! 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 Infdelity!
Part man, part panther, part reptile,
9 part dragon, stand up and take
!. thy sentence! Thy hands red
with the blood in which thou
9 hast washed thy feet crimson
with the human gore through which
thou hast waded, stand up and take
thy sentenee! 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 mast
!. lsharpened for others, and let thy music
: be the everlasting miserere of those
whom thou hast damned! I brand the
: forehead of Infdelity with all the
: crimes of self-immolation for the last
! century on the part of those who had
their reason.
a There is a sorrowless world, and it is
q so radiant that the monday sun is only
q the lowest doorstep, and the aurora
= that light up our northern heavens
+ confounding astronomers as to what il
. can be, is the waving of the
J banners of the procession come tC
4 take the conquerors home from church
% militant to church triumphant; you ant
have ten thousand reasons for want
e ring to go there, but we will get there
ir either by self-immolation or impeni
-e tency. All our sins slain by the Chris
j. who came to do that thing, we wan
It to go in at just the time Divine
is ly arranged, and from coucl
r. divinely spread, and then the clang o
is the sepulchral gates behind us will b
a overpowered by the elang of the open
is ing of the solid pearl before us.
IS God, whatever others may choose, Civ