The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-08-06

with God, What Various Hindrances
We Meet" There Is a Fountain Filled
with Bloold"-William Cowper. who
shares with Isaac Watts and Charles
Wesley the chief honors of Christian
hymnology. In hypochondria he re-
solved to take his own life and rode to
the River Thames, but found a
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 himself to the ceiling, but
the rope broke. No wonder that when
God mercifully delivered him from
that awful dementia he sat down and
wrote that other hymn just as memoir
able;
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, l declare that the man who,
in the use of his reason, by his own
act, snaps the string between his body
and his soul, goes straight into per-
dition. Shall prove it? Revelations
xxi. 8: "Murderers shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with
fire and birthstone" Revelations xii,
Is: without are dogs and sorcerers
and whoremongers and murderers.
You do not believe the New Testament?
Then, perhaps, you believe the ten
commandments: Thou shalt not kill. :"
Do you say that all these passages
refer to the taking of the life of
others? Then l ask you if you are
not as responsible for your own life as
for the life of others? God gave you
special trust in life, and made you the
custodian of your life, and He made
you the custodian of no other life. He
gave you as weapons with which to de-
fend it two arms to strike back assail-
ants, two eyes to watch for invasion and
natural love of life which ought ever
to be on the alert. Assassination of
others is mild crime compared with
the assassination of yourself, because
in the latter case it is treachery to an
especial trust; it is the surrender of a
castle you were especially appointed to
keep; it is treason to natural law, and
it is treason to God added to ordinary
murder.
To show how God in the Bible looked
upon this crime, | point you to the
rogues's 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 a
clairvoyant, Witch of Endor. Here
is man who, whipped in bat
tie, instead of surrendering his
sword with dignity, as many man has
done, asks his servant to Stay him, and
when that servant declined, then the
giant plants the hilt of his sword in
the earth, the sharp point sticking up
ward, and he throws his body on it and
expires-the coward, the suicide! Here
is Abitophel, 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 short cut out of q
dlsgraceful life into the suicides etern
ity. There heis, the migrated
Here is Abimelech, practically sui.
eide. He is with an amy, bombardine
takes grindstone from it's place ant
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 q
woman slew me-" There is his posi-
mortem photograph in the book of Sam
uel
But the hero of this group is Juda.
Iscariot. DIR. Dome says he was q
martyr, and we have in our day apollo
gist for him. And what wonder, il
this day when we have book reveal
ing Aaron Burr as pattern of virtue
and this day when we uncover statu,
of George Sand as the benefactress o
literature, and in this day when Their,
are betrayals of Christ on the part o
some of His pretended apostles-a be
trayal so black it makes the infamy o
Judas Iscariot white! Yet this man b,
his own hand hung up for the execra
ton of all ages, Judas Iscariot.
All the good men and women of tn
. Bible left to God the decision of thei
earthly terminus, and they could hav
, said with Job, who had right to con-
NIT suicide if any man ever had, wha
! with his destroyed property and hi
, body all aliame with insufferable cal
buncles and everything gone from hi
home except the chief curse of it,
pestiferous wife and four garrulou
{ people pelting him with comfortles
talk while he sits on heap of ashe
scratching his scabs with a piece c
, broken pottery, yet crying out in tr
| umph: "All the days of my appointe
time will wait till my change comes.
: Notwithstanding the Bible is agains
, this evil, and the aversion which
. creates by the loathsome and ghastl
5 spectacle of those who have hurle
, themselves out of life, and notwitf
: standing Christianity is against it an
Tho monuments apI fha ,,aaful livaS m