St. Paul daily globe., 1894-02-04

all faith IN any good but earthly good.
and in any help or hope but that of
mere mortalS. This fact touches The
great underlying cause of modern sui
cide-the advance of lax or skeptical
religious views. These have weakened
every single deterring force For the
atheistlcal spirit is disintegrating on
every side; it is never satisfied; it de-
tects evil everywhere; it withholds love
and faith from everything it's shallow
perceptions cannot understand. 1t
breeds social anarchy and personal sui
eide wherever it prevails.
The man who can trust his Makers and
who loves his wife ana children,is is never
driven by misery to self-destruction.
Trouble only brings forth In him the
pre-eminent. passive virtues of Chris
tianity-faitb, hope and docility to a
higher will. No despicabe devil wbis-
pers in his ear the cowardly word sui
eide" or tells him it is better to sneak
into an unearned grave, than to hold
the post given him to hold "all the days
that are appointed, until the change
come"
But the suicide is an arrant coward
and a monster of selfishness. There
fore. the world has very little pity and q
great deal of contempt for him. How
can we respect people destitute OF faith
i'll God or man, without courage. with
out loyalty, without enthusiasm? For
by this crime, above all others, man
or woman formally renounces the pro-
lection Of GOD. They assert their life
to be mistake, and then they translate
the mistake into fatal reality, which,
from the very nature of the sin, leaves
them no room for repentance.
No doubt the sin of suicide has been
largely encouraged by the removal of
the old civil penalties against it; for the
measure of punishment now fitfully
meted out is in no shape a deterrent A
false sympathy is inclined to adjudge
all suicides at least temporarily insane.
and therefore not punishable. But it is
notorious that suicides are generally
sensible enough to estimate the conse-
quence of their act; not only to them
selves, but to their relatives; for they
usually leave such letters behind them
as they think will excite pity or ad-
miration. Therefore, if the old civil
laws remained in force, if suicides knew
that they would be adjudged felons.
buried without respect, their goods for
feited to the state, and their families
forced to link their memory with a sell
fish and irreparable wrong, many man
that wished to sneak away from his en-
barrassmeEt, his pain or his duty, would
not dare to do so. And as a matter of
QuIC lo I,o
would be good one; for it is the glory
OF any criminal law, that 1t should not
only punish crime but also prevent it.
Suicide, as general thing, wants law
and not medicine as remedy: but
above all it wants religious faith as
preventative. For nothing is more evil
den: from the daily details Of suicide
| than that the homicidal tendency could
| be restrained by stringent punishment:
| while the experience of centuries of alb
| solute religious faith proves that it
| could be prevented by an absolute reli-
ance Oh a Higher Power, that was able
and willing to help morlals in all times
OF their calamity, and In every hour of
need.
For suicides which are indisputablv
i the result of disease there oupht TO be
| sincere sympathy. Even when the dis
ease has been brought on by excess of
| care, or sorrow, or self-indulgence. we
must refrain from judgment; but these
cases are in the minority. The great
| number are remarkably self-conscious,
self-conceited. cowardly, vain and weak.
If the impulse vas indeed disease
beyond their mental control, all under
It would be led to similar DEATH the
symptoms of apopleXy are unchanging,
but death by suicide exhibits racial,
personal, and even sexual traits very
strongly. Female suicides rarely dis
figure themselves: and just as rarely
use cutting instruments. Emotional
races generally, when they choose &c
leave the world. evoke bit of romance
about their exit. Euglishmen go about
it i'll dogged, natter-of-fact way, as
IL they did it t0 please themselves
0o.i.e wrap their garments about them
and fall decently; others do not care
whether they fall decently or not. Blu
in AL cases not the result OF positive
disease, there is sufficient evidence o.
consideration about the act 10 indact
this conclusion that il might have bcel
prsTeEtsd ry religious faith, by sym