Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-08-24
1. d RESULT OF wEAK'NEss.s,,
Xoss of Faith and Endurance Are Afaicting
 Civilization with self-SIaughter.


 xoss of Faith and Endurance Are AfiIcting
 Civilization with Self-Slaughter.
 In our opinion the rapid increase of suicide must be due not merely to the dwindling religious faith of the day, but to that horror of trouble and grief which indicates a dwindling pow8r of endurance and an almost extinct sense of hope. No doubt this dwinRing power of endurance, this extingulsh- ing of hope, undermines also the sources of faith. Faith without hope is hardly possible. and fortitude with out hope is still less conceivable We have but little doubt that there are a much larger number of persons who are born into the world without any elasticity of nerve nowadays than there were in less exciting times.
 In spite of the great extension of the average age of life. there is falling of. we believe, in that eager wish for experience, that instinct for living, even under heavy load of difficulties, which there used to be in the old times before all the exhausting interests of the present day. Where children in the old days ran away from unhappy homes, they often commit suicide now Bereavement, instead of being regard ed as a new burden to be borne, and to be borne patiently, however overpow- ering it may seem, is regarded as calamity to be evaded, and to be eyaded even at the voluntary sacrifice of great deal of real happiness.
 Where the eagerness for new expert ence. for new gain. used to predom- mate greatly over any dread of new pain, new less-the imagination of modern man and woman is far more influenced than it was by fear and far less influenced by hope And no doubt the great apparent loss of religious faith is partly due to this attentuaion of the general buoyaney of the whole nature. It seems strange that a greater tenacity of the vital powers should be observed side by side with diminished tenacity of the vital impulses. Perhaps, how ever, the causes which tend to make life safer than it was also tend to make it less eager, less sangnine, less elastic than it was. Where rashness used to kill men caution now preserves men; but then the very spring which made them rash also made them reluctant to give up the struggle, which they now resign almost as if they only wanted an excuse for resigning it. Fortitude, in which we are becoming so deficient, is promoted not only by high principles, but also by high elasticity of nature. Under the martyrdoms of old times modern men would not only shrink but collapse long before our ancestors would have collapsed under them The oYersensitiveness of modern feeling is partly at least due to want of stamina or deficiency in vital resources, as well as to finer powers of diserimina tion. While we are strengthened for the work of threading all kinds of social labyrinths we lose that healthy power of holding our tongues and confronting natural griefs in grim silence. which the savage or half savage so often and so aband- antly display. It seems as though inn patience of the great elementary griefs and pains which are the common lot of all had grown upon Us along with that ingenuity in devising remedies for smaller evils which civilization have brought us Indeed. we believe that our greatly multiplied powers of evad- ing small annoyances has seriously re- duced our patience and fortitude in confronting greater evils Since science became religion we have lost that re- ligious disposition to bear humbly what God iuficts, which used to belong to us and still belongs to so many mn civilized races. We do not bow before the blast but are irritated at our own kelplessness, and all the more that science has taught us to help ourselves in so many other directions. Indeed. we are often more disposed to give up the struggle altogether than to accept in meekness misfortunes which we can not either alleviate or cura Suicide is result of weakness, and we believe that this weakness is greatly due to the habit which has gained upon us of resenting our own inability to cure every evil when we have got aceus- toned to cure so much. Spectator.