The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1898-07-29
he sat down and wrote that other hymn
lust as memorable.

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just as memorable:
Zoe W in q 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 WI interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
While we make this merciful and
righteous allowance in regard to those
who We're plunged into mental inco-
herence, I declare that the man who, in
the use of his reason, by his own act,
snaps the bond between his
body and his soul, goes straight
into perdition. Shall I prove it
have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brim-
stone. Revelations xii, 15-''Without
are dogs and sorcerers and
whoremongers and murderers." You
do not believe the new tesla
ment? Then, perhaps, you be-
shalt not kill" Do you say that all
these passages refer to the taking of
the life Of others?
To show how God in the bible looked
upon this crime. I point you to the
rogues' picture gallery in some parts
of the bible. the pictures Of the people
J. 4ldtc COlIlI1llIIeu lnlS unNaIural
crime. Here is the headless trunk of
Saul on h walls of Bathshan. Here
is h man who chased little David
Is the man who consulted a .%,lairvoy-
ant, Witch of Endor. Here is q man
who, whipped in battle, instead of sur
rendering his sword with dignity, as
many a man has done, asks his servant
clined, then the giant plants the hilt
of his sword in the earth, the sharp
point sticking upward, and he throws
his body on it and expires-the coward,
the suicide! Here is Ahitophel, the
Machiaelli Of olden times, betraying
his best friend, David, in order that he
may become prime minister Of Absa-
tempt at parricide. Not getting what
he wanted by change Of politics, he
takes a short cut out of a disgraceful
life into the suicides eternity. Their
he is, the migrate!
Here is Abimelech, practically a sui
eide. He is with an army. %bombarding
a tower, when a woman in the tower
takes a grindstone from its place and
drops it upon his head, and with what
life he has left in his cracked skull he
commands his armor bearer: Draw
thy sword and STAY me, lest men say a
woman slew me-" There is his post
mortem photograph in the Book OF
Samuel.
But the hero of this group is Judas Is
CARROT. DR.. Dome says he was a mar.
tyr, and we have in our day apo1ogists
for him. And what wonder, in this day
when we have a book revealing Aaron
Burr as a pattern of virtue, and this
day, when we uncover a statue of
George Sand as the b~enefactress of lit
e%rature, n in this day, when there
are betrayals of Christ on the part of
some Of his pretended apostles-a be-
trayal so black it makes the infamy
Of Judas Iscariot white! Yet this man
by his own hand hung up for the exc
Grafton Of all 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
right to commit suicide if
any man ever had. what with
his destroyed property and his body all
afame with insufferable carbuncles and
everything gone from his home except
the chief curse Of it, a pestiferous wife
and o garrulous people pelting him
with comfortless talk while he sits on
a heap of ashes scratching his scabs
with a piece of broken pottery, yet cry
ing out in triumph: "All the days of
my appointed time will I wait till my
change comes"
You ia it is a business trouble or you
49, ~ - SA~SSA S"1 VI / 10 lllS
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: "If
you don't like this life get out Of it,and
you will land either in annihiliation,
where there are no notes to pay, no
prosecutions to suffer, no govt to tor
ment, or o will land where there will
be everything glorious and nothing to
pay for it, Inf1delity has always been
apologetic for self-immolation. After
Tom Paine's "Age Of Reason" was pub
lished and widely read there was a
marked increase of self-slaughter.
A man in London heard Mr.. Owen
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 decep-
tion,' and then shot himself. David
Hume wrote these words: 1T would
be no crime for me to divert the Nile
or the Danube from it's natural bed
Where, then, can be the crime in my d.
verting a few drops of blood from their
ordinary channel?" And having writ
ten the essay he loaned it to a friend,
the friend read it. wrote a letter of
thanks and admiration, and shot him
self. Appendix to the same book.
Rosseau, voltaire, Gibbon, Montague,
were apologize for self-immolation. In
fidelity puts up no bar to people rush.
ing out from this world into the next.
They each us it does not make any diff
ference how you live here or 90 out Of
this world; o will land either in an
oblivious nowhere or a glorious some
where. And indidelity holds the upper
end Of the rope for the suicide, n aims
the pistol with which a man blows his
brains out, and mixes the strychnine
Gov <ha 1oof cuyo11nuy TT inf6o1itv nnl116