Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-07-11
DOTHYSELF No HARM
DIR. TkLMAGE TERMS SUICIDE THE
WORST OF ALL CRIMES

rows.
copyright, 1ssS, by american Press Asso-
WASHINGTON, July 10--This sermon
of DR. Talmage which we send cut to-
day seems startlingly appropriate to
this theme when so many are leaving
this life by their own hand, an evil
about which all reasonable people are
agreed; text, Acts xvi, 29, t'Do myself
no harm. -
Here is a would be suicide arrested
in his deadly attempt He was q sheriff,
and, according to the Roman law, a
bailiff himself must suffer the punish
ment due an escaped prisoner, and if
the prisoner breaking Jail was sentenced
to be endungeoned for three or four
wears then the sheriff must be endun-
geoned for three or four years, and if
the prisoner breaking Jail was to have
suffered capital punishment then the
sheriff must suffer capital punishment.
The sheriff had received especial charge
to keep q sharp lookout for Paul and
Silas. The government had not much
confidence in bolts and bars to keep safe
these two clergynen, about whom there
seemed to te something strange and SUI
pernatural. Sure enough, by miraculous
power they are free, and the sheriff,
waking out Of q sound sleep and sup
posing these ministers have run away
and knowing that they were to die for
preaching Christ and realizing that he
must therefore die, rather than go un-
der the eXecutiOner'S ak on the morrow
and suffer public disgrace resolves to
precipitate his own decease. But before
the sharp, keen, glittering dagger of
the sheriff could strike his heart one of
the unloosened prisoners arrests the
blade by the command, ''Do thyself no
HARM
In olden times and where Christianity
had not interfered with it suicide was
considered honorable and sign of cour-
age. Demosthenes poisoned himself
when told that AleXander's ambassador
had demanded the surrender of the
AtheniaE orators Isocrates killed him
self rather than surrender to Philip of
Macedon. Cato, rather than submit to
Julius Caesar, took his own life, and
three times after his wounds had been
dressed tore them open and persisted
Mithridates killed himself rather than
submit to Pompey, the conqueror. Han
nibal destroyed his life by poison from
his ring, considering life unbearable
LycurgUs, 4 suicide, Brutus suicide.
After the disaster of Moscow Napoleon
always carried with him q preparation
of poison, and one night his servant
heard the ex-enperOr arise, put some
thing in q glass and drink it, and soon
after the grOans aroused all the attend
ants, and it was only through utmost
medical skill that he was resuscitated.
Times have changed and yet the Amer
lean conscience needs to be toned up on
the subject Of suicide. Have you seen a
paper in the last month that did not an
nouI,ce the passage out Of life by ones
own behest? Defauiters, alarmed at the
idea of exposure, quit life precipitately.
Men losing large fortunes go out of the
world because they cannot endure earth
ly existence. Frustrated affection, do
mestic infelicity, dyspeptic Impotence, !
anger, relnorse, envy, jealousy, dCstitu-
ton, misanthropy, are considered suffi-
Gent causes for Ascending from this
life by paris green, by laudanum, by
belladonna, by Othello's dagger, by
halter, by leap from the abutment of
bridge, by firearms. More cases of felo
de Sc in the last two years than any two
years of the worlds existence and more
IN the last month than in any 10
months. The evil is more and more
spreading.
Worst of All Crimes.
a pulpit not long ago expressed some
doubt as to whether there was really
anything wrong about quitting this life
when it became disagreeable, and there
for7-,6 in, rs, IL
apologize for the crime which Paul in
She text arrested. I shall show you be-
fore get through that suicide is the
worst Of all crimes, and shall lift q
warming un1histakable. But in the early
part Of this sermon l wish to admit that
some of the best Christians that have
ever lived have committed self destruc-
ton, but always in dementia and not
responsible. l have no more doubt about
their eternal felicity than l have Of the
Christian who dies in his bed in the de-
1irium of typhoid fever. While the
shock Of the catastrophe is very great, l
charge all those who have had Christian
friends under cerebral alteration step
off the boundaries of this life to have
no doubt about their happiness. The
dear Lord took them right out Of their
dazed and frenZled state into perfect
safety. How Christ feels toward the in
sane you may know from the way he
treated the demoniac of Gadara and the
child lunatic and the potency with
which he hushed tempests either of sea
or brain.
Scotland, the land prolific of intel
lectual giants, had none grander than
Hugh Miller, great for science and
great for God. He was an elder in st.
Johns Presbyterian church. He came