Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-08-17

!
walk with God, " What various him
ORANGES we meet" There is n foun-
tain filed with blood" William
Cowper, who shares with Isaac Watts
and Charles Wesley the chief honors
of Christian hymnology. In hypochon-
dria he resolved to take his own life
and rode to the river Thames, but
found man seated on some goods
at the very point from which he eX-
pected to spring and rode back to his
home, and that night threw himself
upon his own knife but the blade
broke, and then lie hanged himself to
the ceiling but the rope parted. No
wonder that when God mercifully de-
livered him from that awful dement tia
he sat down and wrote that other
hymn just as memorable:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his fCotstep 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 were plunged into mental inco-
herence, declare that the man who
in the use of his reason, by his own
act, snaps the bond between his body
and his soul, goes staight into per-
dition. Shall prove it? Revelation
2l: viii: "Murderers shall have their
l 4 IL. 4. I'll. a.
fire and birthstone. Revelation %:
XIV: 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 l 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 defend it two arms, to
strike back assailants, two eyes to
watch for invasion. ana natural love
] OF life w.nch ought ever to be on the
alert. Assassination Of others is a
mild crime compared with the aseassi-
nation of yourself, because in the lat
ter case it is treachery to an especial
trust, it is the surrender of a castle
you were especially appointed to keep,
it is treason to a natural law and it is
treason TO God added to ordinary
murder
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 notwith-
standing Christianity is against it,
and the arguments and the useful
lives and the illustrious deaths of its
disciples it is a fact alarmingly patent
that suicide is on the increase.
What is the cause? l charge upon
infidelitv and agnosticism this whole
thing. If there be no here after, or il
that hereafter be blissful with
out reference to how we live
and how we die, why not move
back the folding doors between thi:
world and the next? And when oui
existence here becomes roublesome
why not pass right over into Ely stun,
Put this down among yo"r mos
solemn reflections and consider il
after you go to your homes; there ha,
never been a case of suicide where tn,
operator was not either demented anC
therefore irresponsible, or an infidel
| challenge all the ages and chal
lenge the whole universe. Their,
never has been case of self-destruc
ton while in full appreciation of hi
Immortality and of the fact that tina
Immortality would be glorious o
wretched according as he accepted
: Jesus Christ or rejected him.
You say it is business trou bic, o
you say it is electrical currents, or i
is this, or IL is that, or it is the othe
thing. Why not go clear back, m,
friend, and acknowledge that in ever,
case it is the abdication of reason o
the teaching of infdelity which prac
tically says, IF you don't like thi
life, get out of it, and you will Ian,
either in humiliation, where Their
are no notes to pay, no persecution!
to suffer, no govt TO torment, or yo
will land where there will be every
thing glorious and nothing to pay 70
it," Infidelity always has been apoIo
getic for self-immolation. After Ton
Paine's Age of reason" was pull
lished and widely read there was
l marked increase of self slaughter
I Would God that the coroners woul
= be brave in rendering the right vel
: dict, and when in the case of irr,
I sPonsibility they Say while tn
man was demented he took his life,
1 in the other case say, Having rea
' infdel books and attended infidt
{ lectures, which obliterated from tn
: mans mind all appreciation of any
f, thing like future retribution, he con
e mitted self-slaughter!"
4 All! Infidelity, stand up and TAX
. thy sentenced In the presence OF Go
z and angels and men, stand up, tho
i monster, thy lip blasted With bla
, phemy, thy cheek Scared with lus