Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-07-11

alarmlngly patent that suicide is on the
increase. What is the cause? / charge
upon infdelity and agnosticism this
whole thing. Ii there be no hereafter
or if that hereafter 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 existence here becomes
troublesome why not pass right over
into elysium? Put this down among
your most solemn reflections. There has
lever been a case Of suicide where the
operator was not either demented and
therefore irresponsible or an infdel
challenge all the ages and I challenge
the universe. There never has been d
case of self destruction while in full ap-
probation of his Immortality and of the
fact that that Immortality would be
glorious or wretched according as he ac-
cepted Jesus Christ or rejected him.
Insanity and Infidelity.
You say it is business trouble or
you say it is electrical currents or it is
this or it is that Or it is the other
thing. Why not go clear back, my
friend, and acknowledge that in every
case it is the abdication of reason or the
teaching of infidelity which practically
says, eff you don't like this life, get
out of it, and you will land either in
humiliation, where there are no notes
to pay, no prosecutions to suffer, no
govt to torment, Or you will land where
there will be everything glorious and
nothing to pay for it Infidelity has
always been apologize for self immola-
ton. After Tom Paine's cage of Rea-
SON. was published and widely read
there was D marked increase of self
slaughter.
A man in London heard Mr.. Owen
deliver his infidel lecture on socialism
and went home, sat down and wrote
these words, "Jesus Christ is one Of the
weakest characters in history, and the
Bible is the greatest possible deception, -
and then shot himself. David Hume
wrote these words: sit would be no
crime for ne to divert the Nile or the
Danube FROM it's natural bed. Where,
then, can be the crime in my diverting
few drops of blood from their ordi-
nary channel?" And having written the
essay he loaned it to a friend; the friend
read it, wrote a letter of thanks and ad-
miration and shot himself. Appendix
to the same book.
Rousseau, Voltaire, Gibbon, Mon
taigne were apologize for self immola-
ton. Infidelity puts up no bar to people
rushing out from this world into the
next. They teach US it does not make
any difference how you live here Or go
out of this world; you will land either
in an oblivious nowhere or a glorious
somewhere. And infdelity holds the
upper end of the rope for the suicide
and aims the pistol with which a man
blows his brains out and mixes the
strychnine for the last swallow. If in
fidelity could carry the day and per-
suade the majority Of people in this
country that it does not make any diff
ference how you go out of this world
you will land safely, the Potomac
would be so full of corpses the boats
would be impeded in their progress, and
the crack of the suicides pistol would
be no more alarming than the rumble
of a street car.
I have sometimes heard it discussed
whether the great dramatist was q
Christian or not. He was Christian.
In his last will and testament he COM
mends his soul to God through the sac
rifice of Jesus Christ. I know that he
considered appreciation of future ex-
istence the mightiest hindrance to self
destruction:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of
time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud mans con
tumely,
The pangs of despised love, the laws delay,
The insolence of Office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes
When he himself might his QuietuS make
With bare bOdkinf Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under weary life
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns-puzzles the will?
Would God that the coroners would
be brave in rendering the right verdict,
and, when in a case Of responsibility
they say, while this man was de-
mented he took his life, > in the other
case say, ''Having read infdel books
and attended infidel lectures, which OBJ
from this man S mind all APP
probation Of future retribution,- he COM
mitted self slaughter.
Get In Good Company.
Have nothing to do with an infidelity
so cruel, SO debasing. Come out of that
bad company into the company Of those
who believe the Bible. Benjamin Frank
lin wrote, "Of this Jesus of Nazareth I
have to say that the system of morals
he left and the religion he has given Us
are the best things the world has ever
seen or is likely to see" Patrick Henry,
the electric champion of liberty, says,
1.-THE book worth all other books put TO-
gether is the Bible" Benjamin Rush,
the leading Psychologist and anatomist
of his day, the great medical scientist
what did he say? "The only true and
perfect religion is Christianity Isaac
Newton. the leading philosopher of his