The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-04
THE DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT.

and elevation. p. f. Lyons, observer.
THE DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT.
Without recourse to statistics, the in
crease in the number of suicides is too
patent not to engage the attention of
the average observer. Let any com
munity run over its mortality records
for the past few years, and the roster
of those who have gone out voluntarily
into the great unknown is appalling.
Something Of this, of course, is due to
the conditions of the times. Periods of
great commercial depression and dis
tress bring with them harvest Of sui
cides. Men pressed to an extremity
take refuge in that last retreat whittier
neither debt nor disgrace can follow.
Fighting year af.er year almost
against hope, forced to the wall,
brought face to face with acknowledge
ment of failure that carries more than
the bitterness of death, logged some
times by the menace Of deeds done in
desperation that must come at last 10
that is too heavy for them. Yet, when
the present is contrasted with eras Of
likeness in the past, this element Of
the unusual is eliminated; and it then
appears plainly that suicide is regard
ed with less of aversion and horror, is
becoming more and more the uncon-
scious door of egress from the unyield-
ing fate that claims the foolish and
the unfortunate. The present generation
has come to look upon it more light
ly, and almost one might think that
self-destruction has been accepted by
large portion of mankind as that final
court of bankruptcy through which,
when mind and body and resources
fail, the hopeless debtor to life and
the world admits that he must pass,
in the blind chance of an unknown
restoration or the pitiful acquiescence
in an eternal oblivion from care
In this, as in so many things, the
history of our times will write itself as
that or an age Of transition. Every
where, in law, in legislation, IN conduct.
in morals, i'll all the fixed relations of
men to one another and to the world
In which they are set to work out
their task under the compulsion of
mysterious forces, we may see the
marks of passage from the rejected sys-
tenn of the old to the as yet uncompre-
hended universe of the new. At least
since the conquest of the world by the
doctrines of Christianity, the restraints
upon those suicidally inclined have
been mostly of the religious order.
With vivid picture of the hereafter
before them, and the suicide classed I'M
compromisingly with those condemned
to an eternity of conscious suffering,
the deterrent force was adequate to
match the impulses of despair. The
Almighty had fixed His canon 'gajnst
self-slaughter." 70 those for whom the
next world OF rewards and punish
ments was a vivid reality, and even to
those with whom it was a fearsome
possibility, the great conclusion of the
average mind and conscience was sum-
med up by the everything poet in the
thought that it were "better to bear
the ills we have than fly to others
that We know not off, But gradually
that restraint has been losing it's hold.
Though there is more Christianity in
conduct than there ever was, there is
less acceptance of dogma. Most of all
has suffered the common acceptance of
the old theories of the future
state. OF all who believe. rs
well as those who disbelieve. in the
churches outline of the universe. com
literal existence of a future state of
physical torment. For all these. one
penalty of suicide is lifted They dread
less than present ignominy or the daily
grind Of hopeless and unrewarded toll
the step that will send them. tbav
know not which to think, either before
q judge whom they conceive as merci
full or else to the enfolding embrace Of
an eternal and dreamless sleep. Not
without consequences can the restraint
Of centuries be lifted. And the world
sees, in the increase of suicide. the
H.
ing between the evening of moral Or
der based on rewards and punish
lnents and the bright dawn OF one al
ready breaking III which the upbuild-
ing OF the individual character is to be
the supreme test.
We are to hear more of this. and Tho
moral instructors and guides of men
must raise 1t to a higher dignity in
their religions before we regain the
wholesome horror with which self-de-
struction is to be regarded A new dig
nifty must come to invest the spiritual
life; and here science as we'll as re-
ligion already begins to point the way.
into the neglected field of psychical re-
searc!, the scientific instinct is a. las.
beginning to make it's way The unfit
cation of laws AMI forces H. the ma
teriaI World is already In sight Since
the establishment Of the law of con-
servatien of energy, the hsst great