Los Angeles herald., 1905-01-16
SAYS SUICIDE IS
DUE To ATHEISM
DR.. TALMAGE DEPL0RES EPl-
DEMIC OF SELF-KlLLlNG
Well Known Minister Discusses Nor
bid Tendency Of Present
Age and Offers
Remedy


ness, envy and covetousness and the
possession of q cowardly heart were
given by the Rev. DIR. Frank Dewitt
Talmage in q sermon last night as the
four great causes for the suicidal epi-
demic sweeping over the country.
The sermon "On the Crime of Self
Destruction" was given as one of the
series OF sermons, Twenty Ways for
Twenty Sins" and with atheism was
placed the responsibility for being the
cause of more suicides than any other
sin. DIR. Talmsge said in part:
"The increasing suicidal epidemic of
the present generation should be halt
ed in it's onward march Of destruction
/ lift my voice today in warning
against this evil. 1t cannot be stayed
by upbraiding a mangled corpse or by
calling the dead man coward. I
would prayerfully and earnestly try
to Indicate some of the causes which
produce it. Then in guarding you
against the incipient evils l might
perhaps by the grace of God keep
some from ever tottering and sway
ing on the verge of the precipice or
tumbling into suicides grave. The
gunpowder magazine can be exploded
by spark. We would deal this morn
ing with primal causes rather than
with resultant conflagrations.
First, L charge atheism with the
chief responsibility for the crime. Self
murder is the hideous, black visaged
executioner of the merciless monster
we call atheism, agnosticism, infidelity.
1t is the old Shiny serpent coiled up
under the overshadowing branches OF
the gnarled and worm-eaten tree Of
unbelief, at the foot Of which sits the
grnning, blear-eyed hag, misery,
grooming a dirge for lullaby. 1t is
the death rattle of a human being
whose parched lips have been set to
the rim of the chalice filled with the
scorching, poisonous concoction Of
blasphemy and falsehood, compounded
by a Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas
Paine or Robert G. Ingersoll. 1t is
the milestone, wet with human blood.
upon which the moral sensibilities can
be blunted and at the same time the
suicides knife sharpened, for it teaches
immortal man that there is no hereaf-
ter and that he is responsible for his
lifes actions to no divine maker and
king.
Never Honed on Bible
No suicidal razor was ever honed
upon the leaves of the opened Bible.
Though the morning newspapers al
most every day are backened with the
awful obituary tragedies of men and
women who have deliberately taken
their lives by the bloody hand of self
murder. you cannot find among those
who perished in the full possession of
reason a single consecrated Christian
church member. You cannot find one
person among them all who realized
that he was beloved child of God
and that he expected to go to meet
loving heavenly father. unless that
person killed himself during a fit of
temporary insanity, as did Hugh Miller,
the great Scotch scientist, who blew
out his brains during mental derange-
ment. or the eminent New York clergy
man, who in delirium leaped from a
window
THE whole tendency of the gospel
OF lesus Christ is opposed to this sui
cidal epidemic; the whole tendency of
unbelief is to promote and increase it.
TO the atheist life is a single span. one
abutment of --ich is the cradle and the
other the grave, at which he meets
humiliation. To such a man there is
no better principle Of life than to eat.
drink and be merry, for tomorrow he
dies. He would make life a comedy
FOR all and death a great finale.
The earnest Christian disciple saws
Life is not joke; death is not a
finale Life is an opportunity for do
\ Ing good and for struggling against
/ evil. Because the good as well as the
evil live on forever and ever we ought
to put ourselves in the hands of the
Almighty. who arranges our lot for us.
and say, as Job did, All the days of
my appointed time will wait till my
change Gomez
THE unbeliever in the gospel SAYS:
If there is hell it is to be found this
side and not the other side of the
grave. When things go wrong the hest
way to escape suffering is to snap the
silver cord of human life and silence
the beating heart The Christian dis
ciple says: 'Sanctifed troubles are a
spiritual means by the grace of God
for raising an immortal soul on and
up
False standards Of happiness can be
catalogued among the frequent, pro-
life causes of the suicidal sin. They
are the decoying mirages which tempt
the weary life's traveller to lose himself
In the midst of a Sahara of sand.
They are the deceitful stars. twinkling
their benedictions over altars of sill
yer and of gold and of fame. which
suddenly go out and leave the devotees
worshiping in total darkness. They are
the musical voices of the sirens sing
ing their sweetest songs when Turing