The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-08-24

own life, and rode to the River
I Thames, but found a man seated on
some goods at the very point from
which he expected to spring, and rode
back to his home, and that night
threw himself upon his own knife,
but the blade broke, and 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 as memoir
able:
God moves in q mysterious way
His wonders to performi
He plants his footsteps 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, bv his own act.
snaps the bond between his body and
his soul, goes straight into perdition.
Shall | prove it? Revelation xxi, 8:
'Murderers shall have their part I'm the
lake which burneth with fire and brim-
stone" Revelation xii, Is: with
out are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore
mongers, and murders" You do not
believe the New Testament? Then,
perhaps you believe the Ten Com
mandmentS. Thou shalt not kill. T"
Do you say all these passages refer to
the taking of the life of others? Then
ask you if you are not respon-
sible for Your own life as for
the life of others? God gave you
a specisl 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, and natural 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 trea-
son to natural law and il 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
Saul on the walls of Bathshan. Here
is the man who chased little David
ten feet in stature chasing four. Here
Is the man who consulted a clairvoyant,
witch of Endor. Here is a man who,
whipped in battle, instead of surrender
ing his sword with dignity, as many
man has done, asks his servant to slay
him; and when the servant declines,
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 of Absa-
lom. and joining that fellow in his at
tempt at parricade. Not getting what
he wanted by change of politics, he
takes a short cut out of a disgraced
life into suicides eternity. There he
is, the migrate.
Here is Abimelech, practically sui
eide. He is with an army, bombarding
a tower, when woman in the tower
takes grindstone from it's place and
drops it upon his head, and with what
life he has left in cracked skull he
commands his armor-bearer: Draw
thy sword and slay me, lest men say
a woman slew me-" There is his post
mortem photograph in the Book of
Samuel. But the hero of this group
is Judas Iscariot. DR.. 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 a pattern of virtue, and in this day
when we uncover statue to George
Sand as the benefactress of literature,
and in this day when there are betray-
ais of Christ on the part of some of
His apostles-a betrayal so black it
makes the infamy of Judas Iscariot
white! Yet this man by his own hand
hung up for the execration of all 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 right to com
nit suicide if any man ever had-what
with his destroyed property, and his
body all afiame 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 a heap of ashes
scratching his scabs with piece of
broken pottery, yet crying out in tri-
umph: "All the days of my appoir ted
time will 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-
standing Christianity is against it, and
the arguments and the useful lives
and the illustrious deaths of its dis
ciples, it is a fact alarmingly patent
that suicide is on the increase. What
is the cause? I charge upon infdelity
and agnosticism this whole thing. If
there be no hereafter, or if that here
after 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 our ex-
istence here becomes trou blesome, why
not pass right over into Elysium? Put
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