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

CHTiSJldH nymnOlOgy. III nypOcHOu
dria he resolved to take his own life
and rode to the river Thames, but
found man seated on some goods al
the very point from which he expected
to spring, and rode back to his home
and that night threw himself upon hi:
own knife, but the blade broke, anC
then he hanged himself to the ceiling
but the rope parted. No wonder that
when God mercifully delivered him
from that awful dementia he sat down
and wrote that other hymn just a:
memorable:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform:
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
| And rides upon the storm.
| Blind unbelef 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 straight into perdition.
Shall | prove it? Revelation xxi g.
'Murderers shall have their part in the
lake which burneth with fire and brim-
stone" Revelation xii. Is: without
| are dogs and sorcerers, and whore
mongers, 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 response
BILE for your own life as for the life of
others? God gave you special trust
in you life. He made you the custodian
of your life as he made you the custo-
dian 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, and a ma
| tural love of life which ought ever to
be on the alert. Assassination of
Others is mild crime compared with
the assassination of yourself, because
in the latter 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.
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
Ga,,1 tho lie IF Tlnthchon
is the man who chased little David-lO
feet in stature chasing 4. Here is the
man who consulted a clairvoyant,
Witch of Endor. Here is a man who,
whipped in battle. instead of surren-
dering his sword with dignity, as many
man has done. asks his servant to
slay him, and when the servant de-
clines, then the giant plants the hilt of
the sword in the earth, the sharp point
sticking upward, and he throws his
body on it and expires. the coward, the
suicide! Here is Ahithophel, the
Machiavelli of olden times, betraying
his best friend David in order that he
may become prime minister to Absa-
lom. and joining that fellow in his at
tempt at parricide. Not getting what
he wanted by change of politics, he
takes n short cut out of disgraced
life into suicides eternity. There he
is, the migrate.
Here is Abimelech, practically
suicide. He is with an army bonn
harding a tower, when a woman in the
tower takes a grindstone from its
place and drops it upon his head, and
with what life he has left in a cracked
skull he commands his armor-bearer:
DRAW thy sword and slay me, lest
men say a woman slew me-" There is
his post norton photograph in the
group is Judas Iscariot. DIR. Donne
says he was a martyr, and we have in
our day apolOgists for him. And what
wonder, in this day when we have
book revealing Aaron Burr as pattern
of virtue. and in this day when we I'M
cover a statue to George Sand as the
benefactress to literature, and in this
day when there are betrayals of Christ
on the part of some of his pretended
apostles-a betrayal so black it makes
the infamy of Judas Iscariot white.
Yet this man by his OWE hand hung up
for the execration of all The ages, Judas
Iscariot.
All 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 a right to COM
NIT suicide if any man ever had-what
with his destroyed property, and his
body all ah2me with insufferable car
buncles, and everything gone from his
home except the chief curse of it, a |
pestiferous wife and four garrulous
people pelting him with comfortless |
talk while he sits on heap of ashes |
his scabs with piece of |
broken pottery, yet crying out in tri- |
umph: ''All the days of my appointed |
time will l wait till my change come"
Notwithstanding the Bible is against |
this evil, and the aversion which it
creates by the loathsome and CHASTITY |
spectacle of those who have buried |
themselves out of life, and notwith-
Christianity is against it. and |
the arguments and the useful lives and |
the illustrious deaths of its disciples, it
IS fact alarmingly patent that suicide
IS on the increase. What is the cause? |
charge upon infidelity and agnostic-
sm this whole thing. If there be no
hereafter, or if that hereafter
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
Dur existence here becomes trouble
some, why not pass right over into
Elysium? Put this down among your
most solemn reflections, and consider
L after unt. 90 To ,-onr homes. there |