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])0 TII\YS 'I, N() II½AI1I tUc;D-.E T HE SUBJECT OF PREl. D., TALMAGE'S SERMON. l)clarvi That a ISant1 Man '1Whol Ta:4:es Ili (il I Life' it Trait or to G;xl Ihiidtillity a tal.e of ..lf 'lal'ghte(tr Enitcr Eter nity T hr)onghl G s' ( ot', nmand.4 -",.i ,'L ass-.. 10,.',' ' ," '".. nin v 1'P. --Tl'i: s.t' lrn t (of 1)I T lliiull, ' ' " lvl 1:, 0 1' S. lt ( tilt t,)(d ly wf'e' n r, m tii)ily lf thie ,li thi.' litf' hiu b og ti' cl t · litiil- tt air"ti h'atvte till- tii n u m gIx 'lnt miii t'';vli/.r'. ii ini tillt h tit.ht. th 'ir lo n ' hiiItIt , ,i ,%l i1 ibl ,Ill w'hich all r' :l bo n ii .t l , . ,, '< J. " :o r t', " a ; ,' r, ,t ll ; to ,\ l A c t s tl t'r t'e 1 i '. i dhlt '1 . e('il t ;r', tei d ill hi lt dly ,tuiti' tl'l. . }It , \ - a i hle rilf , Iaitnd, Snrg.l.l. uici d to thn, I thltiiai l;iw, a c i 1aiit. hi ýt Ittif tit:.it iut' ,r i htilt w e ';i('ilini(n. tit hatitiu l tiut otft'il il t itl i itid, , WlSn 'i ttir san ereti lt tit hri'tl lt'l oni a ign if 1 pisonuer reakLin ii jail hls s rntcnrtlc 4:d h "e enhli gend tii'o , , l" 'hr if t)i ' f tli.r Neari i Ih . a thts I thc'ri'ltt jiut 'iu t ld nllllieli ,lot r f t lill't s r frour yc ars, hil if he tr,ncr brnitkirng jail was ith hare .Jtt',,d (iuitlr punt lih ownlt thien theil' iciT tillt st sutT r i capl itall plnsi<htntl. . Thl' .hIiltl haid rhself'ivtd ieslciinl chae':i it kI' 't hfe r 1,i ] t tiu it. for Paul and ith1. Th lTneriltiOnt had noti nldl(h on iiigch'ee in ll antil lars to keep FaIII (I t le c, v e h r uyinen, Iilalult whom) there rote aitle llt softieth,,ing .t.in a land Fuperlnltaltrat ett1't, eno, lgh, ,c liirite'i lous power, ithy anr fIrctl, alnd the hro'inll, warkil Hudlt ofll attsend nlep and ttuppos oitnly, t lhrciihitc' htitniede, lkillt;i" ithlllt wag thesuet iite. ii 1r; have run achty and knlowifl thae lhey ' r, ', tol ditel for preach ing ('hri;st and r'alizinl thalst he must thert ri' di,. ti'iratl! cr thean g"i under tothe lxcutifnlione's own til'he, lit(rr an suffler public di.gr:ºac,' re"lui\. to 1r('veipitate bi Olint doitnSei. lIaut tihe sharp, tkeen l glittering dl tt"r of t h l' 'hI rigte fo((ulld oners aro the wo lad+ hey ththe command, "Duo thyself , str tl Irbi." Suiclllide ttiitAmong the Ancients. In olden tints andll where Cl'hristianity had nott iuterfrct d t lith it suicide was (ien sidered honorailth and it sign of couragi,. )enstlchetines , r)i.sned hnlsdglf fhein t)l( that Alexansl gsrti, li ibasaolmn,h demand ed l the sfrttren f til' Ant lnian ()rato rs. Isicrates killed himself rather than sur render to l ihilip of Macedolt. aeto, rather than submit t .rit ;y li ('taw'sr, took his own life, anti thiree' tines afttr his woulndas haid been dtrssd tor then opern apnd per Ished. Mlithridates killed himself rather thatn subit t to Pompey, the conqueror. Hannibal (de,(tro)yed his life by poison from his ring, congithri ncutnth lifu earal. Ly eiurgus a sutied , Brutus ati suiide. After the disaster of llosi'ow Napoleon alwaysoe i carried with hin it preparation of poison, and onei night his servant heard the ex emperor arise, put something in at glass and drink it, and soon afIter the groans aroused all the attendants, and it was only through utaist medical skill that ho was resuscitated. Timns have changed, and yet the Anmrican conscience needs to be toled up on the subjiect of suicide. Have you seen a paper in the last mionth that did nt annoncrlic the passago out of life by one's own behest? Defaulters, alarnd lit tihe idea of exposure, quint life precipitately. Men hlosing largeo fortunes go out of the wtorld becaucit they Icannot endure earthly existence. Frustrated af fection, domestic infcli(ity, dyspeptic in pationuo,,,anger, remorse, envy, jealousy, destitution, miisanthropy, are considehed sunflichnt causes for absconding from ihis life by lltris green, hy laudanum, by bel ladonli:i, by Othelo's dagger, by halter, by leap from the abutiiivnt of it bridge, hy frearmls. Mote cases of felo de se In the last two years than any two years of the world's existence. and moie in the last about their eternal felicity than I haveof( lIII ( llrilaian nu" otl'a 1(I 111S fl: Ill tnlo dtelirlun of tvpliphid fie',r. While lthe fhoek it the ant;td r',lihe i \v'ery gretat. I hAi'rg all those, whOI hai t had ()'hristia frienrds ul 'er ,C r ci' at a ortioll step oaf the i lllota iv', nof thi . life tIc hav) IIv I Sdoubt altut theilr hilpiness. The dear ]lrd took tiIhin r:ght tut iof their dazed Arnd frtnziied state intto perfet s.fety. Hlow ('hrhr feels tiowani'(t the insante you may kio,w fromi the \ay hu trcated the de- 1 Inonin' of tI aklara and the child lunatic, iand the 'itenry w-ih ih hileh h hushed tcimpi ts i eithlir of sea or lri',lin. Merciful Allowance. 'ct land, the Laind proli ief intellectual gi;ntts, haid ,II l' ilorl ' than Hugh Mil e,', great fr sritl t and great for God. l lie' \was :i ill St. ,lnohrln's Pres)yte l ott chin.rh io..'n, ,ft the Ibest highland t 1l*,di a:l \%- o, taIitrolonrt of DoI)nald t , a ,unn e.nti.rt it Ir pietyand the rare tift of e :c :.:;d i- s. is a tainn nts, t '!:! :"! i; (Il did fromil the quarry º' !h'i 'i t n!i It tit' t h IlIt i iasonii, (lrew *all :i t-nsnisletd adtliratiIn of Buck- t l:and i: a!l .!:rl"hi- Ii., the swientists, and I It. ('Il rI . t ,h th!i olglaan, and held ui>i ji i splltornd while hlie told them !hie ts;y what he lad seen of God in "Th. lie! i d Sand.tone." That man did iin-i I Oe:n nny ot her hoteing that ever lived it shntiw tIto tl.e (lid ,of the hills is the hId of the Bile,. a::d he struck histuning t fIrk on the rek ,f ('romarirty until he I tjbrotigit geology andl theology aceordantat in divine worhip. HIls two Iooks, cnti- 1 tehl "i :,:11 lhritr of the Creator" and " The 'l'st imnony of the lRocks," proclaimn edl the banns of an everlasting marriage ( hetweent genulline sceielo anild revelation. On this latter hook he toiled day and ( night, through love of nature and love of God, until he could not sleep and his brain gave way, and he was found dead I with a revolver by his side, the cruel in strument having had two bullets-one for hint and tihe other for the gunsmnith who at the coronler's inquest was examining it andl fell dead. Ilave you any doubt of the teatification of Hlugh Milhler after his hot brain had ceiased throlbbing that winter . night in hifs study at Portobello? Among the migihtiest of earth, among the mnighti est of hearvenl. No one doubted the piety of William Cowper, the author of those three great hymns, "O For a Closer Walk With God," "What Various IIHndrances We fMeet," "There Is a Fountain Filled With Bklood"-William Cowper, who shares with Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley the chief honors of Christian hymnology. In hyp chendria he resolved to take his own life and rode to the river Thames, but found a mtan stated on some goods at that very point from which he expected to spring and re.le hack to his home, and that night threw himself upon his own knife, but the 1 ,land broke, and then he hanged himself to) the ceiling, but the rope broke. No wonder that when God merci fully delivered him from that awful de mlentia he satt down and wrote that other hymn just as rnrerorable: God moves in ia mysterious way His wonders to perform. He pllants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, And lie will make it plain. Treason to the Almighty. While we make this merciful and right cous allowance in regard to those who were plungrd into mental incoherence I declare that the Irian who In the use of his reason, by his own act, snaps the bond be tween his body anld his soul, goes straight into perdition. Shall I prove it? IRevela tion xxi, M, " Murderers shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Revelation xxii, 15, "Without are dogs and sorcerers and whoremlonolgrs land murderers." You do itrot believe thire New Testamuent? Then pierhaps y(ou believe the Ten Command ments, "Thou sihalt not kill." Do you say that all these parssages refer to the tak ing of the life of others? Then I ask you if you are niot as responsible for your own life as for the life of others? God gave you a speciril trust in life and madeo you the cuistodian of your life, and he made yon the custodian of no other life. He gave you as weapons with which to de fend it two armns to strike back assailants, two eyes to watch for invasion, and a nat ural love of life which ought ever to be on the alert. Assassirtmtion of others is a nutild crimar" cmioparcd with the assassina r.'., n varon se.,. ,iw..,a,, in the latter caseo q is treacnery to an espeelal trust. It ib the surrender of a castle you were especial- - ly appointed to keep. It is treason to a a natural law, and it is treason to God added c to ordinary murder. 1'To show how Godl in the Bible looked r upon this criml I point you to the rogues' li picture gallery in some parts of the Bible, i the pictures of the people who have coim uittted this unnatural crime. Here is the c headless trunk of Saul on the walls of g Bathshan. liere is a man who chased l little I)avid--10 feet in stature chasing 4. n IercE is the lman who(ousultted a clairvoy- 4 rant, witch of iindor. Here is a man who, n whipped in battle, instetad of surrelldering a his sword with dignity, as imany a iaarn has done, asks his servant to slay hini, and f . when that servant declined, then tihe giant Ii plants the hilt of his sword in the earth, fl a the sharp pointt sticking upward, andti h tl d throws his body on it and expires-the o ' coward, the suicide! Hcre is Ahitophel, the Machiavelli of oldenl times, betraying V y his best friend, DI)avld, in order that he fl v may become prime minister of Absalom, and joining that fellow ill his attempt at t d parricide. Not getting what he wanted by b d change of politics he takes a short cut out 1 Ii of a disgraceful life into the suicide's v n eternity. There he is, the ingrate! i d Here is Abimelech, practically a suicide. t d He is with an army, bombarding a tower, a o when a woman in the tower takes a grind- s g stone from its place and drops It upon his I e head, and with what life he has left in his it cracked skull he commands his armor I- bearer, "Draw thy sword and slay me, C d lest nmen say a woman slew me." There I i- is his post nlortem photograph in the book e of Samnuel. i. But the hero of this group is Judas Is- i d cariot. l)r. D)onne says he was a martyr, )f and we have in our day apologisti for him. Is And what wonder, in this day when we d have a book rovwiling Aaron Burr as a i- pattern of virtue, and this day when we I ir uncover i statue of George Sand as the o benefactress of literature, andl in this day it when there are betrayals of Christ on the e part of somea of his pretended apostles-a 1 t betrayal so black it makes the infamy of I r Judas Iscariot white! Yet this man by g his own hand hung up for the execration I- of all ages, Judas Iscariot. Increase of Self Murder. n All the g(od lmen and women of the Bi tt ble left to God the decision of their earthly h terminus, and they could have said with e Job, who had a right to conmmit suicide if h any man ever had, what with his destroy s ed property and his odtly all aflame with 10 insufferable carbuncles and everything n gone from his home except the chief curse 1 n of it, a lwstiferous wife and four garrulous it people pelting hint with comfortless talk ,t while he sits on a heap of ashes scratching 1 to his scabs with a piece of broken pottery, d yet crying out in triumph, "All the days .n of my appointed time will I wait till mny 10 change collies." PNotwithstanding the Bible is against i. this evil and the aversion which ft creates e. by the loathsome and ghastly spectacle of or those who have hurled themselves out of life, and notwithstanding Christianity is against it and the arguments and the use ful lives and the illustrious deaths of its disciples, it is a fact alarmingly patent that suicide is on the increase. What is the cause? I charge upon infidelity and agnosticism this whole thing. If there be no hereafter, or if that hereafter be bliss ful without reference to how we live and how we die, why not move back the fold it- ing doors between this world and the next? And when our existence here be I comes troublesome why not pass right Is over into elysium? Put this down among 1e your most solemn reflections. There has ht never been a case of suicide where the a- operator was not either demented and ir therefore irresponsible or an infidel. I re challenge all the ages and I challenge the universe. There never has been a case of id self destruction while in full appreciation lo of his immortality and of the fact that Sthat immortality would be glorious or d- wretched according as he accepted Jesus Christ or rejected him. - You say it is a business trouble or you u say it is.electrical currents or it is this or Sit is that or it is the other thing. Why not ye go clear back, my friend, and acknowledge u that in every case it is the abdication of de reason or the teaching of infidelity, which o practically says, "If you don't like this l1 life, get out of it, and you will land either in annihilation, where there are no notes to pay, no persecutions to suffer, no gout on to torment, or you will lalD where there will be everything glorious and nothing a- to pay for it." Infidelity has always been L, apologetic for self inunolation. After Tom and widely read there was a marked in crease of self slaughter. Evils of Unbelief. A man in Londonl heard Mr. Owon de llver his infidel hleture on sociahliSnim a0nd went home, sat down 'rand 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 Ilumie wrote these words: "It would be no crime for me to divert the Nile or the Danube from its natural bed. Where, then, can be the Mime in my diverting a few drops of blood from their ordinary channel?' And, hav ing written the essay, he loaned it to, a friend, the frieml read it, wrote a letter of thanks and admiration and shot himself. Appendix to the samle book. Rousseau, Voltaire, lGiilon, Montaigne, wer; apologetic for self inimolation. In fidelity puts utl no bar to p1eoplle rushing out from this world into the next. They teich us it does not make any diff.erncue how you live here or g(o out of this world. You will land either in an oblivious no where or a glorious somlewhero. And in fidelity holds the lupper end of the rope for the suicide and alms the pistol with which a man blows his Irains out and mixes the strychnine for the last swallow. If infidel ity could carry the day and persuade the majority of people In this country that it does not make any differcen1 how you go out of this world you will land safely, the Potomac would be so full of corpses the boats would be impeded in their progress, and the crack of the suicide's pistol would be no more alarming than the rumble of a street car. I have sometimes heard it discussed whether the great dramatist was a Chris tian or not. He was a Christian. In his last will and testament he commelnd, his soul to God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I know that he considered appre elation of a future existence the mightiest hindrance to self destruction: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con tumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of offitce and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardel's hIear, To grunt and sweat under a weary lif'. flat that the dread of something aftelf dý:eth The undiscovered country from whose bourne No traveler returns-puzzles the will? Would God that the coroners would be bravo in rendering the right verdict, and when in a case of irresponsibility they say, "While this man was demented he took his life," in the other case say, "Ilay ing read infidel books and attended infidel lectures, which obliterated from this man's mind all appreciation of future retribution, he committed self slaughter." Religion's Bright Light. Have nothing to dowith an infidelity so cruel, so debasing. Come out of that bad company into the company of those who believe the Bible. Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Of this Jesus of Nazareth I have t to say that the system of morals he left 9 and the religion he has given us are the I best things the world has ever seen or is B likely to see." Patrick Henry, the electric champion of liberty, says, "The book I worth all other books put together is the Bible." Benjamin Rush, the leading 9 physiologist and anatomist of his day, the great medical scientist-what did he say? t "The only true and perfect religion is ý Christianity." Isaac Newton, the leading hilosopher of his time-what did he say? The sublimest philosophy on earth is the I philosophy of the gospel." David Brew ster, at the pronunciation of whose name a every scientist the world over bows his f head-David Brewster saying, "Oh, this a religion has been a great light to me, a t very great light all my days." President r Thiers, the great French statesman, ac s knowledging that he prayed when he said, "I invoke the Lord God, in whom I am U glad to believe." David Livingstone, able p to conquer the lion, able to conquer the t panther, able to conquer the savage, yet e conquered by this religion, so when they f find him dead they find him on his knees. SSalmon P. Chase, chief justice of the a supreme court of the United States, ap r pointed by President Lincoln, will take 4 the witness stand. "Chief Justice Chase, t please to state what you have to say about e the book commonly calledl the Bible." g The witness replies: "There came a time Sin my life when I doubted the divinity of i the Scriptures, and I reserolved as a lawyer and iudue 1 would try the book as I would