Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1898-08-11

case it Is treachery to an especial trust; 1,
} is the surrender OF q castle you were es
pecially appointed to keep; 1t is treason 9
a natural law, and it is treason to God add
ed to ordinary murder.
To show how God Of the Bible looked
upon this crime, point you to the rogues
picture gallery in some parts of the Bible
the pictures OF the people who have com.
headless trunk OF Saul on the walls of Bath.
shan. Here Is the man who chased little
David-ten feet In stature chasing four
Here Is the man who consulted clairvoy-
ant, Witch Of Endor. Here is a man who,
whipped In battle, instead of surrendering
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 1t and expires-the cow
ard, the suicide! Here is Ahitophel, the
Machiavelli of olden times, betraying his
best friend, David, in order that he may be-
come prime minister of Absalom, and join
ing that fellow In his attempt at parricide.
Not getting what he wanted by. change OF
politics. he takes short cut out OF dis
graceful life into the suicides eternity.
There he is, the migrate!
Here Is Abimelech, practically suicide.
He is with an army, bombarding tower,
| when woman in the tower takes grind
stone from its place and 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 slay me,
lest men say woman slew me-" There is
his post-mortem photograph in the Book Of
Samuel.
But the hero of this group is Judas
Iscariot. DR.. Dome says he was q mar
tyr, and we have in our day apologists for
him. And what wonder, in this day when
| we have book revealing Aaron Burr as q
pattern OF virtue, and in this day when we
| ek,t 80
| benefactress of literature, and in this day
when there dre betrayals Of Christ on the
part of some of His pretended apostles-a
betrayal so black it makes the infamy of
Judas Iscariot white! Yet this man by his
hand hung up for the e4ecration OF all
| ages, Judas Iscariot
| All the good men and women of the Bib BILE
left to God the decision of the earthly
| terminus, and they could have said with
Job, who had right to commit suicide If
any man ever had, what with his destroyed
property ana his body all afiame with in
| sufferable carbuncles, and everything gone
from his home except the chief curse of it.
pestiferous wife and four garrulous peo-
| pie pelting him with comlortless talk while
he sits on heap of ashes scratching his
scabs with q piece of broken pottery, yet
crying out in triumph: "All the days of my
| appointed time will wait till my change
comes"
| Notwithstanding the Bible is against this
evil, and the aversion which it creates by
the loathsome and CHASTITY spectacle of
those who have hurled themselves out of
| life, and Notwithstanding Christianity Is
against it and the arguments and the use
| full lives and the illustrious deaths of it's
disciples, it Is fact alarmingly patent
that suicide is on the increase. What is
the cause? l charge upon infidelity and
| agnosticism this whole thing. If there be
no hereafter, or IL that hereafter be bliss
without reference
| how we die, why not move back the fold
| ing doors between this world and the
| next? And when our existence here be-
comes troublesome why not pass right
over into Eiysium9 Put this down among
your most solemn reflections. There has
never been u case of suicide where the
| operator was not either demented. and
| therefore irresponsible, or an inf1del. I
challenge all the ages and I challenge the
| universe. There never has been
case Of self-destruction while in full
appreciation of his Immortality and OF the
fact that that immortality would be glori
GUS or wretched according as he accepted
Jesus Christ or rejected Him.
You say 1t is business trouble, or you
say 1t Is electrical currents, or 1t is this, or
| 1t Is that, or 1t is the other thing. Why not
| 20 clear back, my friend, and acknowledge
| that in every case it is the abdication of
| reason or the teaching of infdelity, which
practically says: "If you don't like this
life get out OF it, and you will land either
in annihilation, where there are no notes
to pay. no prosecutions to suffer, no gout
to torment, or you will land where there
will be everything glorious and nothing to
| pay for it, Infidelity has always been
| apologetic for rself-immolation. After Tom
Paine's Age of Reason" was published
and widely read there was O marked in
crease of self-slaughter.
A man in London heard Mr.. Owen de-
| liver his infdel lecture on socialism, and
went home, sat down, and wrote these
words: "Jesus Christ is one of the weakest
characters in history, and the Bible is the
greatest possible deception" and then shot
! himself. David Hume wrote these words:
ut would be no crime for me to divert the
Nile or the Danube from its natural bed.
Where, then, can be the crime in my divert
ing few drops Of blood from their ordin-
| ary channel?" And having written the
essay he loaned it to friend, the friend
alton. and shot himself. Appendix to the
| same book.
Rousseau, Volt aire, Gibbon, Montaigne,
were apologetic for self-im olation. Inf
deity puts up no bar to people rushing out
from this world into the next. They teach
US 1t does not make any difference how you
live here or go out of this world; you will
land either in an oblivious nowhere or a
glorious somewhere. And infidelity holds
the upper end of the rope for the suicide,
and aims the pistol with which a man
blows his brains out, and mixes the strych-
nine for the last swallow. If infidelity
could carry the day and persuade the ma
jority Of people in this country that it does
not make any difference how you go out
Of this world you will land safely, the
Potomac would be so full of corpses the
boats would bs impeded in their progress,
and the crack OF the suicides pistol would
be no more alarming than the rumble of a
street car.
| I have sometimes heard 1t discussed
whether the great dramatist was Chris
tian or not. He was q Christian. In his
last will and testament he commends his
soul to God through the sacrifice of Jesus
| Christ.
Would God that the coroners would be
brave in rendering the right verdict, and
when In case Of irresponsibility they say
"While this man was demented he took his
life;" in the other case say: Having read
| infidel books and attended infidel lectures.
which obliterated from this mans mind ali
appreciation OF future retribution, he COM
mitted self-slaughter!''
Have nothing to do with an infidelity so
cruel. so debasinG Come ont of that had