The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-07-15

birthstone" Revelations, 22:l5: with
out are dogs and sorcerers and who're
monvers and murderers." You do not
believe the New Testament? Then,
perhaps. you believe the Ten Com
mandments: Thou shalt not kill"
Do you say that all these passages re-
fer to the taking of the life of others?
Then l ask you If you are not as re-
sponsible for your own life as for the
life Of others2 God gave you a special
trust in life, and made you the Gus.
todian of your life, and he made you
the custodian of no other life. He
gave you as weapons with which to
defend it two arms to strike back as
sailants, two eyes to watch for inva-
sion and natural love of life which
ought ever to be on the alert Assas-
sination of others is a mild crime com
pared with the assassination of your
self, because in the latter case it is
treachery to an especial trust; 1t is the
surrender of a castle you were especial
ly 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, l point you to the
rogues' picture gallery in some parts
of the Bible, the pictures of the peo-
Pile who have committed unnatural
crime. Here is the headless trunk of
Saul on the walls of Bathshan. Here
is man who chased little David-ten
feet in stature chasing four Here is
the man who consulted a clairvoyant,
Witch of Endor. Here is a man who,
whipped in battle, instead OF surren-
dering his sword with dignity, as
many a man has done, asks his servant
to slay him, and when that servant
declined, then the giant plants the
hilt of his sword in the earth, the
sharp point sticking upward, and he
throws his body on IL and expires-the
coward, the suicidel Here is Ahito-
phel, the Machiavelli of olden times,
betraying his best friend, David, in or
der that he may become prime minis
ter of Absalom, and joining that fell
low in his attempted parricide. Not
getting what he wanted by change of
politics, he takes short cut out of a
disgraceful life into the suicides eter-
nifty. There he is the migrate!
But the hero of this group is Judas
! Iscariot. DIR. Dome says he was a
martyr, and we have in our day apol-
! ogists for him. And what wonder, in
this day when we have n book reveal
| ing Aaron Burr as a pattern of virtue,
and this day when we uncover statue
of George Sand as the benefactress of
literature, and 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 God the decision of their
earthly terminus, and they could have
said with job, who had right to com.
NIT suicide If any man ever had, what
with his destroyed property and his
body all aflame with insufferable car.
buncles and everything gone from his
home except the chief curse of it, a
pestiferous wife and four garrulous
people pelting him with comfortless
talk while he sits on heap of ashes
scratching his scabs with a piece Of
broken pottery, yet crying out in
triumph: "All the days of my APP
pointed time will wait till my change
comes"
Notwithstanding the Bible is against
this evil, and the aversion which il
il creates by the loathsome and CHASTITY
spectacle of those who have hurled
themselves out of life, and notwith
standing Christianity is against II
and the arguments and the usefu
lives and the illustrious deaths of it,
disciples, it is a fact alarmingly paten'
that suicide is on the increase. VIVA
is the cause? ! charge upon infidelitS
and agnosticism this whole thing. l.
there be no hereafter, or If that here
after be blissful without reference u
how we live and how we die, why no
, move back the folding doors between
this world and the next? And wheI
! our existence here becomes trouble
, some why not pass right over int,
Elysium? Put this down among you
most solemn reflections. There ha
never bee a case of suicide where tn,
operator was not either demented
and therefore irresponsible, or al
, infdel. ! challenge all the ages and
challege the universe. There neve
/ has been a case of self-destructiol
= while in full appreciation of his i'm
r mortality and of the fact that that i'm
, mortality would be glorious o
, wretched according as he accepte,
= Jesus Christ or rejected him.
, You say it is business trouble o
you say IL is electrical current or it /
! this or il is that or it is the othe
D thing. Why not go clear back, m
. friend, and acknowledge that in ever
( case it is the abdication of reaso
D or the teaching of infidelity, whic
= practically says: "If you don't lils
! this life get out of it, and you vii
1 land either in humiliation, wher
e there are no notes to pay, no pei
> secutions to suffer, no govt to torment
or you will land where there will b
: everything glorious and nothing t
e pay for it." Infidelity has Away
( been apologize for self-immolatior
S After Tom Paine's Age of Reason