The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-07-13
THE SUICIDE.
, he Who Takes His Own Life Com
mits the Greatest Crime.
Rev. DIR. Talmage says tho American Con.
science Needs TOning Up Infldelity
Has Done More to Foster Sui
eide Than Anything Else.

Aue 1OllOWlnB sermon seems parJlc- |
ularly appropriate at this time when
90 many are leaving the world by
means of their own hand. The text !
chosen by the popular Washington
divine is Acts 16: 80: "Do thyself no
harm"
Here is would-be suicide arrested |
IN his deadly attempt. He was sher-
III, and, according to the Roman law
bailiff himself must suffer the pun
ishment due an escaped prisoner; and
If the prisoner breaking Jail was SEN
fenced to be endungeoned for three
or four years, then the sheriff must be
endungeoned 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 sharp look
out for Paul and Silas. The govern
ment had not much confidence in
bolts and bars to keep safe these two
clergymen, about whom there seemed
to be something strange and super
natural. Sure enough, by miraculous
power, they are free, and the sheriff,
waking out of 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 NOR
row and suffer, resolved 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 Christian
ity had not interfered with it, suicide
was considered honorable and sign
of courage. Demosthenes poisoned
himself when told that Alexander's
ambassador had demanded the sur
render of the Athenian orators. Iso-
crates killed himself rather than sur
render 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 perished. NTH
ridates killed himself rather than sub
NIT to Pompey, the conquerer. Han
nibal destroyed his life by poison from
his ring, considering life unbearable.
Lycurgus suicide, Brutus a suicide.
After the disaster of Moscow, Napo-
leon always carried with him a prep
aration of poison, and one night his
servant heard the ex-emperor arise,
put something in glass and drink
1t, and soon after the groans aroused
all the attendants, and it was only
through the utmost medical skill that
he was resuscitated. Times have
changed, and yet the American con-
science needs to be toned up on the
subject of suicide. Have you seen a
paper in the last month that did not
announce the passage out of life by
ones own behest? Defaulters, alarmed
at the idea of exposure, quit life pre-
cipitately. Men losing large fortunes
go out of the world because they cam
not endure earthly existence. Frus-
trated affection, domestic infelicitv.
dyspeptic impatience, anger, remorse,
envy, Jealousy, destitution, misan-
thropy, are considered sufficient
causes for absconding from this life
by paris green, by laudanum, by bella
donna, 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
twelve months. The evil is more and
more spreading.
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 are found in respectable cir
cies people apologetic for the crime
which Paul in the text arrested. |
shall show you before I get through
that suicide is the worst of all CRIMES.
and L shall lift warning unmistak-
able. But in the early part of this
sermon ! wish to admit that some of
the best Christians that have ever lived
have committed self-destruction. but
always in dementia, and not RESPONSE
BILE. l have no more doubt about their
eternal felicity than I have of the
Christian who dies in his bed in the
delirium of typhoid fever. While the
shock OF the catastrophe is very great,
j charge all those who have had Chris
tian friends under cerebral alteration
step off the boundaries of this life, to
have no doubt about their happiness.
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
of the best Highland blood, and was a
descendant of Donald Roy, a man en-
inent for piety and the rare gift of
frrI,t okk 30.
ing up as he did from the quarry and
the wall of the stonemason, drew forth
the astonished admiration of Buck
land and Murchison, the scientists, and
DR.. Chalmers, the theologian, and held
universities spell-bound while he told
them the story of what he had seen of
God in the old red sandstone. That
man did more than any other being
that ever lived to show that the God
of the hills is the God of the Bible, and
he struck his tuning-fork on the rocks
of Cromarty until he brought geology
and theology accordant in divine wor-
ship. His two books, entitled Foot
prints of the Creator" and "The Tes-
timony of the Rocks" proclaimed the
banns of an everlasting marriage be-
tween genuine science and revelation.
On this latter book he toiled day and
night, through love of nature and love
Of God, until he could not sleep, and
his brain gave way, and he was found
dead with revolver by mis- side, the
cruel instrument having had two bull
lets-one for him and the other for
the gunsmith, who at the coroner's
inquest was examining it and fell
dead, Have you any doubt of the