Owingsville outlook. [volume] (Owingsville, Ky.) 1879-192?, 1898-07-14
SELF MURDER A CRIME.
Rev. Or Talmage Tells of Many Cases
Of Sclf-DestructiOn.
They Arose From IA disbelief In a Future
World with the spread OF the G"s-
pei of Christ the sin - Conn
mcnsurably Diminishing.

xvL. IS: do thvsclf no harm"
llcrc Is would he suicide arrested
| in his deadly attempt. lie was Shcr-
| iff, and, according to the Roman law.
n bailiff himself must suffer the pun
ishmcnt due an escaped prisoner; and
if the prisoner breaking Jail was SEN
fenced To bc cndungconed for three or
| four years. then the sheriff must be
cndungcoucd for three or four years,
and ii the prisoner breaking Jail was
to have suffered capital punishment,
| then the sheriff must suffer cap
| ital punishment The sheriff had
received especial charge To keep
a sharp lookout for Paul and Silas
| The government had not much conf.
dence in bolts and bars to keep safe
these two clergymen, about whom
there seemed To b. something strange
| and supernatural. Sure enough, by
miraculous power, they are free, and
the sheriff. waking out of sound
sleep, and surprising thcsr ministers
have run away, and knowing that they
were to die for pr aching Christ, and
realizing that he must therefore die,
| rather than go under the cNccutioncr's
aN on the morrow and suffer pulic dis.
grace, resolves to precipitate his own
| dccease. But before the sharp, keen,
| Elittcring dagger of the sheriff could
strike his heart one of the loosened
prisoners arrests tn. blade by the
command. do thyscli no harm"
In oldcn times, and where Christian
tity--fsr-t t4rt intcrfered with it. suicide
| was considered honorable and a sign
of courage. Demosthcncs poisoned
himself when told that Alexandcr's
ambassador had demanded the sur.
render of the Athenian orators. Iso-
crates killed himself rather than sur.
render to Philip of Maccdou. Cato,
rather than submit to Julius Caesar.
took his own life, and three times
after his wounds had been dressed
tore them open and persisted. Mithri-
dates killed himself rather than sub.
init to Pompey, the conqueror. Han
nibal destroyed his life by poison
from his ring, considering life I'M bear
able. Lycurgus, suicide, Brutus a sui
| eide. After the disaster of Moscow
| Napoleon always carried with him a
preparation of poison, and one night
his servant heard the ex-cmperor arise,
put something in a glass and drink il,
and soon after the groans aroused all
| the attendants, and it was only through
utmost medical skill that he was re-
suscitated. Times have changed, and
yet the American conscience needs to
be toned up on the subject of suicide.
Have You seen paper in the last
month that did not announce the pas
sac> out of life by ones own
behest? Defaulters, alarmed at the
idea of exposure, quit life pre-
cipitately Men losing large for
tunes go out of the world because
they can not endure earthly existence.
Frustrated affections, domestic info
licity, dyspeptic Impotence, anger, re-
morse, envy, jealousy, restitution,
misanthropy, 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 a 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 IL
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 quit
ting this life when it became dis
agreeable, and there are found in re-
| spectacle circles people apologetic
for the crime which Paul ir-thc text
arrested. l shall show you before
get through that suicide is the worst
of all crimes, and l shall lift a warn
ing unmistakable. But in the early
part of this sermon l wish to
admit that some of the best
Christians that have ever lived
have committed self-destruction, but
always i'll dementia, and not respon-
| sible. l have no more doubt about
their eternal felicity than l have of
the Christian who dies in his bed in
the delirium of typhoid fever. While
the shock of the catastrophe is very
great, l charge all those who have had
Christian friends under cerebral aber-
ration step off the boundaries of this
life to have no doubt about their hap
piness. The dear Lord took them
right out of their dazed and frenzied
state into perfect safety. How Christ
feels toward the insane you may
know from the way he treated the de-
moniac of Gadara and the child luna
tic, and the potency with which he
hushed tempest either of sea or brain.
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. lie came
of the best Highland blood and was a
| descendant of Donald Roy, a man emil
nent for piety and the rare gift,of Sec
ond sight. His attainments. climbing
up as he did from the quarry and the
wall of the stonemason, drew forth the
astonished admiration of auckland and
Murchison, the scientists, and DIR.
Chalmers, the theologian, and held uni
versities spellbound 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 1.-The
Testimony of the Rocks" pro-
claimed the banns of an everlast-
ing marriage between 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 a re-
volver by his side, the cruel instru-
ment having had two bullets-one for
him and the other for the gunsmith,
who at the coroner's inquest was ex-
aiming it and fell dead. Have you
any doubt of the Qualification of Hugh
Miller after his hot brain had ceased
throbbing that winter night in his
study at Portobello? Among the
mightiest of earth, among the might
lest of Heaven.
No one ever doubted the piety of
William Cowper, the author of those
three great hymns, 20, For n Closer
Walk With Goi," What Various
| HindranceS We Meet ..Thera is n