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


REV. TALMAGE. Jail was to have suf-
fered capital punishment, then the
sheriff must suffer capital punishment
The sheriff had received special charge
to keep a sharp lookout for Paul and
Silas. The government had not much
confidence in bolts and bars to keep
safe these two clergymen, about
whom there seemed to be something
strange and supernatural. Sure
enough, by miraculous power, they
are free, and the sheriff, waking out
of sound sleep, and supposing these
ministers have run away, and know
ing that they were to die for preach
ing Christ, and realizing that he must
therefore die. rather than go under
the executioner's AK on the morrow
and suffer public disgrace, resolves to
precipitate his own decease. But be-
fore the sharp, keen, glittering dag
ger of the sheriff could strike his
heart, one of the unloosened prisoners
arrests the blade by the command,
do myself no harm"
In olden times, and where Chris
tianity had not interfered wit il, sui
eide was considered honorable and a
sign of courage. Demosthenes poi
soned himself when told that AleXan-
der's ambassador had demanded the
surrender of the Athenian orators.
Isocrates killed himself rather than
surrender to Philip of Macedon. Cato,
rather than submit to Julius Cesar,
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 unbearable.
Lycurgus a suicide, Brutus a suicide.
After the disaster of Moscow Napoleon
always carried with him a preparation
of poison, and one night his servant
heard the ex-emperor arise, and put
something in a glass and drink it. and
soon after the groans aroused all the
attendants, and il 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 a paper in the last mon tn
that did not announce the passage out
of life by ones own behestp Default.
ers, alarmed at the idea of exposure.
quit life precipitately. Men losing
large fortunes go out of the world be
cause they cannot endure earthly ex
istence. Frustrated affection, domes
tic infelicity, dyspeptic impotence
anger, remorse, envy, Jealousy, destitu
ton, misanthropy, are considered suf
ficient causes for absconding from thi.
life by paris green, by laudanum, by
belladona, by Othello's dagger by
halter, by leap from the abutment of 1
bridge, by firearms. More cases O.
felo de Sc in the last two
years than any two years of tn,
worlds existence, and more in the las
month than in any ~ months. Th,
evil is more and more spreading.
shall show you before | get through
that suicide is the worst of all crimes
ard shall lift a warning unmistaka
BILE. But in the early part of this ser
mon ! wish TO admit that some of tn,
best Christians that have ever LIVED
have committed self destruction, bu
always in dementia, and not response
BILE. have no more doubt about thei
eternal felicity than | have of tn
Christian who dies in his bed in tn,
delirium of typhoid fever. While tn
shock of the catastrophe is very great
charge all those who have had Chris
tian friends under cerebral alteration
step off the boundaries of this life, l
have no doubt about their happiness
I - oh =,
their dazed and frenzied state int
perfect safety. How Christ feels to
wards the insane you may know from
the way He treated the demoniac @
Gadara and the child lunatic, and tn
potency with which He hushed TEN
pests either of sea or brain.
No one doubted the piety of Wi
liam Cowper, the author of those tire
great hymns, "Oh. for Closer Wal
with God, What Various Hindrance
We Meet" There Is a Fountai
Filled with Blood"-William Cowpei
who shares with Isaac Watts an
Charles Wesley the chief honors c
Christian hymnology. In hypochoI
dria he resolved TO take his own lii
and rode TO the River Thames. bu
found a man seated on some goods &
the very point from which he eXpecte
TO spring, and rode back to his hom,
and that night threw himself upon hi
own knife, but the blade broke; an
then he hanged himself TO the ceiling
but the rope broke. No wonder th5
when God mercifuliy delivered hi
from that awful demeutia he sat dow
and wrote that other hymn just 1
memorable;
God moves in n mysterious way,
HIS won lers TO perform;
Re llau . his footsteps in the sea,
Aud n es upon the storm
| drc,nt' tuat the man who, in I'll
use oi MS reason, by his own &C