THE courier
whether the victim of the inquisition lets the rats gnaw him to
pieces or takes his own life with a dagger. It is simply a matter of
individual choice, and posterity is not affected by the selection.
The suicide that is condemned by the world is of an entirely dif
ferent sort. Most persons who commit suicide; do so through
from that contained in his first article; only a few more instances,
a few more illustrations of the fecundity of thought and the elo
quence of expression which are the gifts of the great infidel.
If suicide were confined to the cases cited byGol. Ingeraoll there
would be no legislation against it, no penalties to encumber the
statute books. There would be no protest against Belf destruction.
Col. Ingereoll would not find it necessary to write articles in defense
of it. People would say suicide under these circumstances does not
call for condemnation. A man who is being devoured by a cancer,
from whom all hope of relief is taken, and whose life cannot benefit
anyone has a coward's excuse for taking his own life and ending his
misery. Another case: "A man is on a burning Bhip, the crew and
the rest of the paseengers have escaped gone to the life boats and
he is left alone. In the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of hope.
He cannot swim. If he leaps into the sea he drowns; if he remains
on deck he burns. In any event he can live but a few moments."
It is preposterous to contend that the man in thiB case has not a
perfect right to jump into the sea and battle with the waves instead
of remaining on shipboard to be devoured by the flames. This is
not suicide as it is ordinarily understood. We usually understand
that the suicide is one who voluntarily takes his own life, who elects
of his own free will to forestall fate and Beek death. The man in
Col. Ingersolls illustration can hardly be said - to come within this
meaning. He had to die anyway, it would seem, and in jumping
into the sea he selects the less awful of two modes of death albeit
it cannot be denied that there is an element of hope in jumping
into the sea, whereas there is absolutely none in remaining on the
burning ship. There may be a floating spar to which life may cling
There ma be a passing boat. But Ingereoll says that his critics
would say to this man: "Remain where you are. It is the desire of
your loving, heavenly father that you be clothed in flames that you
slowly roast that your eyes be scorched to blindness and that you
die insane with pain. Your life is not yours now, only the agony is
yours." No right minded person could entertain such a view.
There is nothing in scripture or in the precepts of Christianity that
says a man must submit to every danger that impends, that he must
not move to the right or to the left to avoid a death dealing missile.
This illustration serves to emphasize the absurdity of Ingersoll's con
tention. The other cases are on a par with this: The man who has been
captured by savages and who, when about to be burned to death,
resorts to a vial of poison, does not commit Buicide in the ordinary
sense of the word. A particularly ridiculous.illustration is the fol
lowing: "The Inquisitors of old would take a man who had been
convicted of heresy, lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure his
arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so that he could
not move, put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach;
place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his bouy.
Then these worahipere of God would wait until the rats, seeking
food and liberty, would gnaw through the bodj of the victim. Now
if a man about to be subjected to this torture' had within his band
a dagger, would it excite the wrath of the good God if with one
stroke he found the protection of deatn?"
Suicide isn't a pleasant subject to contemplate under any circum
stances. The average persDn in the enjoyment of good health and
a sound mind hasn't any inclination to part with this life until he
has to, and hasn't much use for the kind of manhood that confesses
its cowardice in an act of suicide. The whole matter of suicide
would be of no importance whatever if confined to the cases made
upo of by Col. lugersoll. But this is not the kind of suicide that
the world, law, morality, discountenances.lt is no particular concern
of anybody whether the man on shipboard dies by drowning or by
fire, whether Ihe captive takes poison or is consumed at the stake;
cowardice, and no condemnation is too severe for an act to foul in
the sight of God and man. Not all the eloquence of Ingeraoll, not
all the specious argument, not all the flowing sentences and polished
and poetic phrases of the gifted infidel can palliate, in the minutest
degree the sinfulness, the cowardice, the depravity of the common
form of self murder. It is contrary to every principle of honor and
conscience and humanity, and a violation of sacred law.
- Search out the Buicide and in nine cases out of ten you will find a
man who had lost heart in the battle of life, who, probably through
his own fault, had fallen by the wayside, who was discouraged.with
out hope; and who, regardless of the claimB of wife and children,
deliberately murdered himself and robbed his family by an act- of
supreme cowardice. The pistol shot that ends a suicide's life often
sounds the knell of a dependent family's hope. The husband and
father, lacking the courage to keep fighting for success or for sub
sistence, seeKs Col. IngeraoU's cool damp earth and leaves the wife
and children to continue the battle he himself gave up. These are
the suicides the world considers. It is cowardice alone that prompts
the act, and it is impossible to find any heroism in it. The suicide
is afraid to live. He lacks the courage to face conditions that other
and braver men have contended with successfully. He shifts the
responsibility to other and weaker shoulders, and Col. Ingereoll
would excuse, glorify, this coward of cowards.
Col. Ingereoll argues on the presumption that this life is a wretch
ed existence and he would find an excuse for bringing it to an end.
To some perhaps who receive more than their share of affliction,
the thought of death is welcome; but to most people it is repugnant.
Even suicide, fitted out with all the garlands of Ingersbllian elo
quence, is not attractive. They prefer to live and think of life
rather than turn their attention to the grave where Col. Ingereoll
finds so much pleasure. Ingersoll's view of life is that of the dreary
pessimist, who dwells on the dark things and regards not the bright
side. He finds death a much more grateful subject for contempla
tion. All of Ingersoll's eloquence has been poured out over the
gravestone. Ho has sung time and again of the baauty and joy of
the unknown existence beyond the grave, an existence that he be
lieves will be inert, and he likes to think and dwell on death because
death moans an end of sorrow and trouble. The trend of his ideas
is indicative of a cowardly view of life, and his argument in favor of
suicido iB an excuse for cowardice. Brave and manly men are will
ing to take life as they find it and make the best of it, and they put
off death as long as they can.
We have had with much poetic coloring a' picture of the goodness
of death, under certain circumstances. Why not let us have a dis
sertation on life, and the joy there is in it under nearly all circum
stances? Instead of finding an excuse for 6elf-murder, for death;
why not give us the reasons why life is worth living? Col. Ingereoll
sings as the lute, and would ho but become attuned to the great
and up-swelling strains of nature's gladness, his song would uplift
men and point to the bright and glittering stars of hope, instead of
casting them down into tbo depths of despair. It is better to lead
men back lo the bright fields of life than send them to a suicide's
grave, as Col. Ingersoll's recent utterances have done. It is better to
tell of the birds singing and the sun shining and mec and women
laughinc, bc'.ter (o tell of human charity and loving-kindness than
to tell doleful talcs of the sepulchre. Ingereoll can find a much
better business than that which is at present occupying his attention.
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