St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-08-12

done, but we should think of what we
| have wanted to do. People do not hate
| the sick. Why should they despise the
mentally weak-the diseased in brain?
Our actions are the fruit, the result of
circumstances-of conditions-and we
| do as we must. This great truth should
NIL the heart with pity for the failures
OF our race.
Sometimes 1 have wondered that
Christians denounce the suicide; that
in old times they buried him where the
roads crossed and drove stake through
his body. They took his property from
! his children and gave it to the state.
Ii Christians would only think they
would see that orthodox religion rests
upon suicide that man was redeemed
by suicide. and that without suicide the
whole world would have been lost.
If Christ were God. then He had the
power to protect himself from the Jews
without hurting them. But instead of
using His power He lloWed them to
take His life.
If strong man should allow a few
little children to hack INN to death
with knives when he could easily have
brushed them aside, would we not say
that he committed suicide?
There is no escape. If Christ were,
in fact, God, and allowed the Jews to
kill Him. then He consented to His own
death-refused. though perfectly able,
to defend and protect Himself, and was
in fact suicide.
We cannot reform the world by law
or by superstition. AS long as there
shall be pain and failure, want and sor-
row, agony and crime, men and women
Will unite life's knot and seek the peace
of death.
To the hopelessly imprisoned-to the
dishonored and desplSed-to those who
hope-to the abandoned, the broken
hearted, to those who are only remnants
and fragments of men and women-how
consoling, how enchanting is the
thought of death
And even to the most fortunate death
at last is welcome deliverer. Death
Is as natura! and as merciful as life.
When we have journeYed long when
we are weary-wben we wish for the
twilight, for the dusk, for the cool kisses
of the night-when the senses are dull
-whep the pulse is faint and low
when the mlsts gather OH the mirror of
memory-when the past is almost for
gotten. the present hardly perceived
when the future has but empty hands
death Is as welcome as strain of music.
After, all. death Is not so terrible as
joyless life. Next to eternal happiness
is to sleep i'll the soft clasp of the cool
earth, disturbed by no dream, by no
thought, by no pain, by no fear, uucon-
scious OF all and forever.
The wonder is that so many live; that,
in spite of rags and want, in spite
of tenement and gutter, of filth
and pain, they limp and stagger and
crawl beneath their burdens to the
natural end. The wonder is that SO few
of the miserable are brave enough to
die-that so many are terrified by the
something after death"-by the spec
tiers and phantoms of superstition.
Most people are in love with life.
How they cling to it in the Arctic SHOWS
how they struggle in the waves aud
currents OF the sea-how they linger in
famine-how they fight disaster and de-
SPAR! On the crumbling edge of death
they keep the flag flying and 20 down
at last full of hope and courage.
But many have not such natures.
They cannot bear defeat. They are dis
heartened by disaster. They lie down
oh the field of conflict and give the
earth their blood.
They are our unfortunate brothers
and sisters. We should not curse or
blame-we should pity. On their pallid
faces our tears should fall.
One of the best men ever knew, with
an atfectionate wife, charming and
loving daughter, committed suicide. He
was man of generous impulses. His
heart was loving and tender. He was
Conscientious, and SO sensitive that he
blamed himself for having done what at
the time he thought wise aud best. He
was the Victim Of his virtues. Let US
be metcIful IN our judgments.
All that we can say is that the good
and bad, the loving and the malignant.
the CONSCIENTIOUS and the vicious, the
educated and the Ignorant, sctuated by
many motives, urged and pushed by