Connecticut western news., 1898-07-14
DOTHYSELF NO HARM
OR. TAlMAGe TERMS SUICIDE THE
 WORST OF ALL CRIMES.

|
 Insanity and Infldelity Are the Causes of Self Destruction-To Get Rid of Earthly ! Sorrows Do Not Rush Into Greater sor- rows.
 ICopyright, 1898. by American Press Asso-
 ciation.l
 WASHINGTON, July l0.-Ttns sermon of Dr. Talmage which we send out.to' day seems startlingly appropriate to this theme when so many are leaving this life by their own hand, an evil about which all reasonable people are agreed; text, Acts xvi, 2S, 'Do myself no harm.' -.
 Here is would be suicide arrested in his deadly attempt. He was sheriff, and, according to the Roman law, a bailiff himself must suffer the punish. ment due an escaped prisoner and If the prisoner breaking jail was sentenced to be endungeoned for three or four years then the sheriff must be endun geoned for three or four years and if the prisoner breaking jail was to have
 
 sheriff must suffer capital punishment The sheriff had received especial charge to keep 8 sharp lookout for Paul and ISilas. 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 su pernatural. Sure enough, by miraculous power they are free, and the sheriff, waking ont of sound sleep and SUD- 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 qn- der the executioner's ax on the morrow and suffer public disgrace resolves to tprecipitate 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 myself no harm
 In olden times and where Christianity had not interfered with it suicide was considered honorable and sign of cour- age. Demosthenes poisoned himself when told that Alexander's ambassador had demanded the surrender of the .Athenian orators Isocrates killed him. self 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 perished. lMithridates killed himself rather than submit to Pompey, the conqueror. Han nibal destroyed his life by poison from his ring, considering life unbearable. Lycurgus, 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 exemperor arise, put some thing in a glass and drink it, and soon after the groans aroused all the attend ants, and it was only through utmost medical skill that he was resuscitated. Times have changed, and yet the Amer ican conscience needs to be toned up on the subject of suicide. Have you seen paper in the last month that did not an- nounce the passage out of life by one's own behest? Defaulters, alarmed at the idea of exposure, quit life precipitately. Men losing large fortunes go out of the world because they cannot endure earth fly existence. Frustrated affection, do- mestic infelicity, dyspeptic impatience, anger, remorse, envy, jealousy, destitu- tion, misanthropy, are considered suffi- cient causes for absconding from this life by paris green, by laudanum, by belladonna, 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 12 months. The evil is more and more spreading.
 Worst of All Crimes.
 A pulpit not long ago expressed some doubt Gs to whether there was really anything wrong about quitting this life when it became disagreeable, and there are found in respectable circles people apologetic for the crime which Paul in the text arrested. 1 shall show you be- fore get through that suicide is the worst of all crimes, and I shall lift warning unmistakable. But in the early part of this sermon wish to admit that some of the best Christians that have ever lived have committed self destruc- tion, but always in dementia and not responsible. have no more doubt about their eternal felicity than have of the Christian who dies in his bed in the de- lirium of typhoid fever. While the shock of the catastrophe is very great, ,1, o11 b0b bor ,ctio friends under cerebral alteration step of the boundaries of this life to have no doubt about their happiness. The dear Lord took them right out of their dazed and frenzied state into perfect safety. How Christ feels toward the in- sane you may know from the way he treated the d&moniac of Gadara and the child lunatic and the potency with which he hushed tempests 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 ill St. Johns Presbyterian church. He came of the best highland blood and was a descendant of Donald Roy, man emi- nent for piety and the rare gift of sec ond sight. His attachments, climbing up as he did from the quarry and the wall of the stonemason, drew forth the astonished admiration of Buckland and Murchison, the scientists and Dr. Chalmers, the theologian, and held uni versailles 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 Gro marty until he brought geology and theology accordant in divine worship. His two books entitled Footprints of the Creator" and "The Testimony of the Rocks, proclaimed the banns of an