The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-08-15

God" what various hindrances we
meet, "'"There is fountain filed with
blood" William Cowper, who shares
with Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley
the chief honors of Christian hymnol-
ogy. In hypochondria he resolved to
take his own life, and rode to the river
Thames, but found 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 him
self to the ceiling, but the rope parted
No wonder that when God mercifulfy,
delivered him from that awful dementia
he sat down and wrote that other hymn
just as memorable:
God moves in mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
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, by his own act,
snaps the bond between his body and
his soul, gees straight into perdition.
Shall prove it? Revelation xxi, 8:
"Murderers shall have their part in the
lake which burneth with fire and brim-
stone" Revelation xii, Is: without
our dogs, and sorcerers, and whore
mongers and murderers." You do not
believe the New Testament? Then,
perhaps, you believe the Ten Command
ments: Thou shalt not kill" d. you
say all these passages refer to the TAX
ing of the life of others? Then ask
you if you are not as responsible for
your own life as for the life of others?.
God gave you special 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 weap-
ons with which to defend 1t 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 a
mild crime compared with the assas-
sination of yourself, because in the
latter case it is treachery to an especial
trust, it is the surrender of castle you
were especially appointed to keep, it
is treason to natural law, and 1t is
treason to God added to ordinary muir
der.
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 clairvoyant,
Witch of Endor. Here is man who,
whipped in battle, instead of surrender
ing his sword with dignity, as many q
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 Absalom,
and joining that fellow in his attempt
at parricide. Not getting what he
wanted by change of politics, he takes
a short cut out of disgraced life into
the 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 its 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
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 apol-
ogists for him. And what wonder, in
this day when we have book revealing
Aaron Burr as pattern of virtue, and
in this day when we uncover statue
to oGeorge Sand as the benefactress of lit
erature, and in this day when there are
betrayals of Christ on the part of some
of His pretended apostles-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 the 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 aflame with insufferable car
ouncles, and everything gone from his
home except the chief curse of it, pes
tiferous wife and four garrulous people
pelting him with comfortless talk while
he sits on heap of ashes scratching his
scabs with piece of broken pottery,
yet crying out in triumph 'All the
days of my appointed time will wait
till my change comes"
Notwithstanding the Bible is against
this evil, and the aversion which it
creates by the loathsome and CHASTITY
spectacle Of those who have hurled
themselves out of life, and notwith-
standing Christianity is against it, and