The morning news., 1894-08-13
TALMAGE ON SUICIDE.
The Text Of His Sermon Taken From
Acts XVI, 27-2S.

Straight Into Perdition-ItI Is Alarm
ingly on the Increase-To Get Rid of
Earth's Sorrows Do Not Rush Into a
Greater One.
Brooklyn, Aug. 12.-Rev. DR.. Talmage,
who is now abroad, has selected as the
subject for to-day's sermon through the
press, the word Suicide" the text being
Acts xvi, q, Is: He drew out his sword
and would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had been fed. But Paul
cried with loud voice, saying, Do thyself
no harm
Here is a wouId-be suicide arrested in
his deadly attempt. He was a sheriff,
and according TO the Roman law a bailiff
himself must suffer the punishment due
an escaped prisoner; and ii the prisoner
breaking jail was sentenced to be endun-
geoned for three or four years then the
sheriff must be endungeoned for three or
four years; and if the prisoner breaking
Jail was to have suffered capital punish
ment, then the sheriff must suffer capital
punishment.
The sheriff had received especial charge
to keep a sharp lookout for Paul and
Silas The government had not had con-
fidence in bolts and bars to keep safe
these two clergymen, about whom there
seemed to be something strange and su-
pernatural.
Sure enough, by miraculous power, they
are free, and the sheriff, waking out of
sound Sleep and supposing these minis
ters have run away, and knowing that
they were to die for preaching Christ,
and realizing that he must therefore die,
rather than 90 under the eXecutioner's AK
on the morrow and suffer public disgrace,
resolves to precipitate his own deCease. But
before the sharp, keen, glittering dagger
of the sheriff could strike his heart, one
of the unloosened prisoners arrests the
blade by the command, do thyself no
harm"
In olden time, and where Christianity
had not iuterfered with it, suicide was
considered honorable and a sign of
courage Demosthenes poisoned himself
when told that Alexander's ambassador
had demanded the surrender of the
Atheian orators. Isocrates killed him
self rather than surrender to Philip of
Macedon. Cato, rather than submit to
julius Caesar, took his own life, and after
three times his wounds had been dressed
tore them open and perished. Mithridates
killed himself rather than submit to
Pempey, the conquerer. Hannibal de-
stroyed his life by poison from his ring,
considering life unbeatable. Lycurgus
q suicide, Brutus suicide After the
disaster of Moscow, Napoleon always car
ried with him a preparation of opium
and one night his servant heard the ex-
emperor arise, put something in a glass
and drink it, aud soon after the groans
aroused ali the attendents, and it was
only through utmost medical skill he was
resuscitated from the stupor of the
opiate.
Times have changed, and yet the Amer
lean conscience needs to be toned up on
the subject of suicide Have you seen a
paper in the last month that did not an
nounce the passage out of life by ones
own behest} Defaulters, alarmed at the
idea of exposure, quit life precipitately
Men losing large fortunes go out of the
world because they cannot endure earthly
existence. Frustrated affection, domes-
tic infelicity, dyspeptic impatience, anger,
remorse, envy, jealousy, destitution, mis-
anthropy are considered sufficient causes
for absconding from this life by Paris
green, by laudanum, by belladonna by
Othello's dagger by halter, by leap from
the abutment of bridge, by firearms
More cases of ''felo de se'' in the last two
years of the worlds existence The evil
Is more and more spreading.
a pulpit not long ago expressed some
doubt as to whether there was really any
thing wrong about quitting this life when
it became disagreeable, and there are
found in respectable circles people apollo
getic for the crime which Paul in the
text arrested. l shall show you before l
get through that suicide is the worst of
all crimes, and l shall lift warning un-
mistakable But in the early part of
this sermon I wish TO admit that some of
the best Christians that have ever lived
have committed elf-destruction, but al
ways in dementia, and not responsible /
have no more doubt about their eternal
felicity than have Of the Christian who
dies in his bed in the delirium of typhoid
fever, While the shock of the catastro-
phe is very great, [ charge all those
who have had Christian friends
under cerebral alteration step
OF the boundaries of this life, to
have no doubt about their happiness.
The dear Lord took them right out Of
their dazed and frenzied state into per-
feet safety. How Christ feels toward
the insane you may know from the kind
way he treated the demoniac of Gadara
and the child lunatic, and the potency
with which he hushed the tempests either
of sea or brain.
Scotland, the land prolific of intellect
ual giants, had none grander than Hugh
Miller Great for science and great for
God. He came of the best Highland
b4OOh anu l0 W NdS d utSIG0udnL OF lO0dlO
Roy, man eminent for his piety and the
rare gift of second sight. His attain
ments, climbing up as he did from the
quarry and the wall of the stonemason,
drew forth the astonished admiration of
Buckland and Murchison, the scientists.
and DR.. Chalmers, the theologian, and
held universities spellbound while he
told them the story of what he had seen
Of God in the old red sandstone.
baf N a. ha, = a
ever lived to show that the God of the
hills is the God of the Bible, and he
struck his tuning-fork on the rocks OF
Cromarty until he brought geology and
theology accordant in divine Worship
His two books, entitled Footprints OF
the Creator and the Testimony of the
Rocks proclaimed the banns of an ever
lasting marriage between genuine science
and revelation. On this latter book he
toiled day and night through love of ma.
ture and love of God, until he could not
sleep, and his brain gave way and he was
found dead with a revolver by his side
the cruel instrument having had two bul
lets-one for him and the other for the
gunsmith who at the cOrouer's inquest
was examing it and fell dead. Have you
any doubt of the beatiication of Hugh
Miller, after his hot brain had ceased
throbbing that winter night in his studN
at Portobello2 Among the mightiest OF
earth, among the mightiesto of heaven.
No one ever doubted the piety of viii.
liam Cowper, the author of those three