The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-07-19

Chicago. July Fin view of the start
ling increase IN the crime of self destrue-
ton, as shown by the latest statistics,
the subject chosen by DR.. Talmage Tor
his discourse today is a most timely one.
His text is Job II. 9, Curse God and
die
Two nts-desperate. fierce, de-
finite, outrageous! The one urges the
broken-hearted father, the financial bank
rupt, the physically tormented man, to
grit his teeth and, with flashing eyes
and uplifted hand, hurl a futile maledic-
ton at the Almighty, to curse God with
an eternal blasphemy. What a shocking.
appalling suggestion Enough to make
all heaven stand aghast in horror and
render even the demon infested eaverns
of hopeless inferno silent with fear and
to turn the flushed cheeks ahame with
the fires of eternal woe white with ter
ror Curse God. Who could do that but
human being crazed and desperate and
reckless under intollerable anguish
The second Indictment puts in the hands
of the sufferer the suicides knife, the
hangman's moose or the vial labeled with
To how many in every age has that in
sidious temptation Gomez In the United
States alone more than $4,000 have yielded
to 1t during the past four years. In Chi
cago alone 1924 persons passed out OF
life by the suicides gate In three years
mine victims on a single Sabbath. In
two months of the present year seventy
five lives have ended in self immolation.
How long will the human race listen to
+IoA III urnfa
in death escape from his misery? That
tempters voice Is sounding louder and
louder every day. Shall the crime OF self
murder be allowed longer to spread the
pernicious doctrine that with one stroke
of the razor across the jugular vein or
with one plunge in front of a flying To-
connective or with one leap from high
building or lofty palisade the would be
suicide can find rest, eternal rest, God
given blssful oblivion for all who are
weary of life and peace for souls sick
of the results of SIM
The increasing suicidal epidemic of the
present generation should be halted in its
onward march of destruction. l lift my
voice today in warning against this evil.
1t can not be stayed by upbraiding
mangled corpse or by calling dead
man a coward. l would prayerfully and
earnestly try to indicaSe some OF the
causes Wnlcn produce II, lneHs IN BhdId-
ing you against the incipient evils, l
might perhaps by the grace of God keep
some from ever lettering and swaying
on the verge of the precipice or tumb-
ling into suicides grave. The gunpow-
der magazine can be exploded by
spark. We would deal this morning with
primal causes rather than with conhagra-
lions.
Atheism Responsible.
First. I charge atheism with the chief
responsibility for the crime Self muir
der is the hideous black visaged execu-
toner of the mereiless monster we call
atheism, agnosticism, infidellty It Is the
old slihny serpent coiled up under the
over shadowing branches of the gnarled
and worm eaten tree of unbelief, at the
foot of which sits the grinning, blear
eyed bag misery grooming a dirge for
lullaby. 1t Is the death rattle of a hui
man being whose parched lips have heen
set to the rim of the chalice filled with
the scorching, poisonous concoction of
baspherny and falsehood compounded by
Voltare, a Rousseau a Thomas Payne,
or a Robert G., Ingersoll 1t is the whet-
stone, wet with blood, upon which the
moral sensibilities can be blunted and at
the same time the suicides knife sharp
ened, for it teaches immortal man that
there is no hereafter and that he Is re-
sponsible for his lifes actions to no Di-
vine Maker and King.
No suicidal razor was ever honed upon
the leaves of the opened Bible. Though
the morning newspapers almost daily are
backened with the awful obituary trag-
edies of men and women who have DELHI
erately taken their lives by the bloody
hand of self murder, you can not find
among those who perished in the full
possession of reason, a single consecrat-
ed Christian church member. You can
not find one person among them all who
realized that he was a beloved child of
God and that he expected to go to meet
a loving Heavenly Father unless the per-
son killed himself during a fit of temper
airy insanity, as did Hugh Miller, the
great Scotch scientist, who blew out his
brains during mental arrangement, or
that eminent New York clergyman who,
in delirium. leaped from a window.
Why? The Bible distinctly and emphat-
iealy declares that no man has right
TO commit self murder. 1t warns men
that they must answer for this terrible
crime before the judgment seat of Christ,
and it holds out to them no hope of par
don during all eternity. Read the eighth
chapter of Revelation: And murderers
and whoremongers and idolaters and all
liars shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and birthstone.
which is the second DEATH" Read the
first epistle of John, third chapter and
fifteenth verse: mo murderer hath eter-
nal life abiding in him." In the sound
of such a divine warning, does any
Christian man, with his eyes wide open,
attempt to sound the open sesame" of
the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem
with the crack OF a suicidal pistol? Dare
any Christian by self-destructon, oblit-
crate that life which God alone can give
and which God alone has a right to take
away?
Put on the Gospel Armor.
The whole tendency Of the gospel of