Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1888 — DO THYSELF NO HARM. [ARTICLE]

DO THYSELF NO HARM.

; . A HBWM of Ohicsgo,-MT. D. 0. Felt, has invented a machine which will add, subtract, multiply or divide without error. It is said to work perfectly, and will secure a saving of time in commercial’operations, quite like- a type-writer in the hands of letter writers. Babbage’s calculating machine, which for generations Was the wonder of philosophers, would, if invented now, be only a nine days’ talk. Mr. Felt’s invention will be of vastly more use than Babbage’s, but will draw less oratorical attention. Meanwhile Edisolrturas from machinery to sanitary discoveries, and proposes by science to cordon yellow fever. Science Sis emphatically king. . Steps were taken at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to induce Congress to take action needful to the preservation of the most important arcba-o- ---’ logical remains in America. It was agreed to undertake to secure from spoliation or injury in any way Chaco -Canyon, Canyon De Chelly and two or three more, as well as ruins in Canyon \fan*Mg and elsewhere, the famous round towers of Mancas, and the Cavate Lodges in the Cinder Cone, in Arizona. Beside these groups of ruins there are isolated remains in New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, which ought riot to be despoiled in any manner of their value. The committee appointed fay the American Association consists of two women, who in archspological science stand foremost, Miss Alice Fletcher and Mrs. T. Stevenson. They have already a bill before Congress. The object is the preservation of such objects as we have named from ever passing out of the public domain. It should be promptly passed.

Was Lincoln warranted in suspending habeas corpus during the rebellion? Mr. Sydney G. Fisher, in Political Science Quarterly, says he was not. It is difficult for any one to argue soundly to the contrary. The power to suspend the writ is plainly lodged by the Constitution in Congress, and not with the President But the action taken by Lincoln was acquiesced in partly through confidence in his intentions and more through the ignorance of the people as to the real tenure of the power. There is no question but that Lincoln found it necessary to assume the power in order to save the Union. Washington was not the only place where Judges promptly discharged every one arrested for treasonable practices on a writ of habeas corpus. with discretion and honesty. It is nonsense now to show that he exceeded his constitutional prerogative. If another such' war should arise God give us another Lincoln, and let him suspend the habeas corpus if need be.

.-Xb&Mau Who Looked Like Grant. Kansas City Journal. Col. Zeb Ward, the famous Southerner, who has been W arden of nearly every penitentiary in the South,' 1 was frequently taken for Gen. Grant The resemblance between them was striking. About ten years ago Gen. Grant visited litti^dffiock,-where Cql. Wafd-lives. The people went there from hundreds of miles around to see him. It was arranged that the General should stand in the corridor of the State House and shake hands with the people as they passed through. The General had been doing a good deal of handshaking for several days, and it did not take long for his arm to give out. He complained of bis trouble, and Col. Ward, hearing it, said: “General, just swap coats and hats with me and I'll take your place and these people will never know the difference.” The General did so and. Col. Zeb took his place. Col. Zeb has a grip of iron and he made many a fellow jump up and down while he shook his hand. Col. Zeb, who is a native Kentuckian gave them the genuine grip of his State. In consequence the people agreed that Gen. Grant was the best hand-shaker they had ever met. Col. Ward was getting along splendidly in his impersonation of the “Old Commandor,” and had nearly completed the job when a big strapping negro stepped up and proffered his hand. As he did so he recognized Col. Ward. The negro had served a term in the penitentiary while°the Colonel was Warden of it. “Yese can’t fool dis chile. Yaw yese can’t Kemil Zib. Zese no Giner’l Grant,” roared the negro. “Yud’s Massa Zib Ward.” , ' Col. Ward had no more hands to shake ttfterAhis, <nd-great indignation was espiessed among the. crowd, most of whom were negroes.

A Chicago gentleman of wealth and eccentricity has four fine children, the eldest 10 years old, and he has named them One, Two, Three and Four. - His explanation of thiß curious nomenclature is that he had so often seen the great dissatisfaction of children with names bestowed upon them that lie resolved to simply number his offspring until they were 12 years old and then let them select their own names. The children are pleased with the idea, and are great students of names. . .

TIMELY THOUGHTS ON THE PREVALENCE OF SUICIDE. The AwerlfAn Conirlent* Jiadljr tn Need of Toning Up—Uod'i Em* are Agatu.t Seirxieeirtictioß. y> Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn tabernacle last Sunday: Text: Acts xvi, INV2I. He said: In olden time, and where Christianity had -riot interfered with it, suicide was considered honorable and a sign ol courage. Demosthenes poisoned himself when told that Alexander’s Embassador had demanded the surrender-of the Athenian orators. Isocrates killed himself rather tfian surrender to Philip of Macedon. Cato, rather than submit to Julius Ceeser, took his own life, and after three times his wounds had been dressed tore them open *nd perished.. Mithridates killed himself rather than submit to Pompey, the conquerer. Hannibal destroyed his life by poison from his ring, considering life unbearable. Lycurgus a suicide, Brutus a suicide.After the disaster of Moscow, Napoleon always carried with him a preparation of opium, and one night his servant heard the Ex-Emperor arise, put something in a glass and drink it, and soon after the groans aroused all the attendants and it was only through the utmost medical skill he was resuscitated from the stupor of the opiate. Times have changed, and yet the American conscience needs to be toned up on the subject of suicide. Have you seen a paper in the last month that did not announce 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 tile world because they can not endure earthly existence. Frustrated affection, domestic infelicity, dyspeptic impatience, anger, remorse, envy, jealousy, destitution, misanthropy, are considered sufficient causes for fmsconding from this life by Paris green, by laudanum, by belladona, by Othello’s dagger, by halter, by leap from the abutment of a bridge, by fire arms. More cases of felo dese in the last two years than in any two years of the world’s existence, and more in the last month than in any twelve months. The evil is more and more spreading. A pulpit not long ago expressed some doubt as to whether there was really any thing wrong about quitting this life when it it becomes disagreeable, and there are foiind in respectable circles people apologetic for the crime which Paul in the text arrested. I shall show you before I get through that Buicide is the worst of all crimes, and I shall lift a warning unmistakeable. But in the early part of this sermon I wish to admit that seme of the best Christians that have ever lived have commited self-de-struction, but always in demedtia, and not responsible. I have no more doubt about their eternal felicity than I have of the Christian who dies in his bed in the delirium of typhoid fever. While the shock of the catastrophe is very great, I charge all of those who have had Christian friends under cerebal aberration step off the bounderies of this life to have no doubt about their happiness. The dear Lord took them right out of their dazed and frightened state -Into perfect safety. How Christ- feeßtoward the insane you may know from the kind way He treated the demoniac of Gadara and the child lunatic, and the potency with which He hushed tempests either of sea or braiu. While we make this merciful and righteous allowance in regard to those who were plunged into mental incoherence, I declare that that man who in Tuc use 01 ms reason; Try ltls own act, snaps the bond between his body and his soul goes straight into perdition. Shall I prove it? Revelation xxi., 8: “Murderers shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brimstone.” Revelation xxii., 15': “Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers.” You do not believe the New Testiment? Then, perhaps, you believe the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill.” Do you say all these passages refer to the taking of the life of others? Then I gsk you if you are not as responsible for your own life as for the life of others? God gave you a special trust in your life. He made yotl the custodian of you life as He made you the custodian of no other life He gave you as weapons with which to defend it two arms "jo strike back assailants, two eyes to watch for invasion, and a natural love of life, which ought to be ever on the alert. Assassination of others is a mild crime compared with the assassination of yourself, because in the latter ease it a tareaohwy to an especial trust; it is the surrender of a castle you were especially appointed to keep; it is treason to a natural law, and it is treason to God added to ordinary murder. To show how God in the Bible looked upon this crime, I point \on to the rogue’s picture gallery in some parts of the Bible—the pictures of the people who have committed unnatural crime: Here is the headless trunk of Saul on the- walls of Bathshan. fjere is the man ; who chased little David —ten feet in stature chasing four. Here is the man who consulted a clairvoyant, Witch of Endor. Here is a man who, whipped in battle, instead of surrendering his sword with dignity, as many a man has done, asks his servant to slay him, and when the servant declines, then the giant plants the hilt of the sword in the earth, the sharp point sticking upwards, andhe throws his body on it and expires, the coward, the suicide.

A ll the good men and women of the Bible left to God the decision of their earthly terminus, and they could have said with Job, who had a right to commit suicide if any man ever had—what, his destroyed property, and his body all aflame with insufferable carbuncles, and every thing gone from his home except" the chief curee of it, a pestiferous wife, and four garrulous people pelting him with comfortless talk while he sits upon a heap of ashes scratching his scabs with a piece of broken pottery, yet crying out in triumph: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes.” Notwithstanding the Bible is against this evil, and the aversion which it creates by the loathsome and ghastly spectacle of those who have hurled themselves out of life, and notwithstanding Christianity is against it, and the arguments and the useful lives and the illustrious death of its disciples, it is a fact alarmingly patent that suicide is on the increase. What is I charge upon

infidelity and agnosticism this whole thing. If there be no hereafter, or if that hereafter be blissful without reference to how we. live and how we die, why not move back the folding doors between this world and the next? And when our ' existence here becomes troublesome why not pass right' over into elysium? Put- this down among your mest solemn reflections, and consider it after you go to your homes; there has never been a case of suicide where the operator was not either demented, and therefore irresponsible, or an infidel. I challenge all the ages, and I challenge thq whole universe. There never has been a case of selfdestruction while in full appreciation of his immortality, and of the fact that immortality would be glorious or wretched according * as he accepted Jesus Christ or rejected Him. You say it is a business trouble, or you say it is electrical currents, or it is this, or it is that, or it is the other thing. Why not go clear back, my friend, and acknowledge that in everv case, it is the abdication of reason or the teaching of infidelity,, which practically says: “If you

don’t like this life, go out of it, and you will land, either in annihilation, where there are no notes to pay, no persecutions to suffer, no gout to torment, or you will land where there will be every thing glorious and nothing to pay for it. Infiaelity always has been apologetic for self-immolation. After Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason” was published and wildly read there was a marked increase of self-slaughter. Ah! Infidelity, stand up and take thy sentencel In the presence of God and angels and men, stand up, thou monster; thy lip blasted with blasphemy, thy cheek scarred with lust; thy breath foul witn the corruption of the ages. Stand up, Satyr, filthy goat, buzzard of the nations, leper of the centuries! Stand up, thou monster Infidelity! Part man, part panther, part reptile, part dragon, stand up and take thy sentence! Thy hands red with the blood in which thou hast washed, thy feet crimson with the human gore through which thou hast waded, stand up and take thy sentence! Down with thee to the pit and sup on the sobs and groans of families which thou hast blasted, and roll on the bed of knives which thou hast sharpened for others, and let thy music be the everlasting miserere of those whom thou hast damned! I brand the forehead of Infidelity with all the crimes of self-immolation for the last century on the part of those who had their reason.

My friends, if ever your life, through its abrasions and its molestations, should seem to be unbearable, and you are tempted to quit it by your own behest, do not consider yourself as worse than others. 'Christ himself was tempted to cast Himself from the roof of the temple; but as He resisted, so resist ye. Christ came to medicine all our wounds. In your trouble I prescribe life instead of death. People who have had it worse than you will ever have it have gone songful on the way. Remember that God keeps the chronology of your life with as much precision as He keeps the chronology of nations, your death as well as your cradle. Why was it that at midnight, just at midnight, the destroying angel struck the blow that set the Israelites free from bondage? The four hundred and thirty years were Up at twelve o’clock that night. The four hundred and thirty years were not up at eleven, and one o’clock would have been tardy and too late; The four hundred and thirty years were up at twelve o’clock, and the destroying angel struck the blow, and Israel was free. And God • knows j ust the hour when it is time to lead you up from earthly bondage. By His grace make not the worst of things, but the best of them. If you must take the pills, do not chew them. Your everlasting rewards will accord with yourearthly 'perturbations'’ " T jiiSt &8 CifltUS gUVO Yu Agrippa a chain of gold as heavy as had been a chain of iron. For the asking—and I do not know to whom I speak in this august assemblage, but tbe word may be especially appropriate—for your asking you may have the same grace that was give to the Italian martyr, Algerius, who, down in the darkest of dungeons, dated his letter from “the delectable ©rehard of the Leteine prison.” Anff remeßlber that this brief life of ours is surrounded by a rim—a very thin, but very important rim—and close up to that rim is a great eternity, and you had better keep out of it until God breaks that rim ana separates this from that. To get rid of the sorrows of earth, do not rush into greater sorrows. To get rid of a swarm of summer insects, leap not into a jungle of Bengal tigers.. There is a sorrowless world, and it is so radiant that the noon-day sun is only the lowest door-step, and the aurora that lights up our northern heavens, confounding astronomers as to what it can be, is the waving of the banners of the procession come to take the conquerers home from Church militant to Church triumphant, and you and I have ten thousand reasons for wanting to go there, but we will never get there either by self-immolation or impenitency. All our sins slain by the Christ who came to do that thing, we want to go in at just the time divinely arranged, and from a couch divinely spread, and then the clang of the sepulchral gates behind us will ( be overpowered by tbe clang of tha opening of the solid pearl before us. O, God, whatever others may choose, give me a Christian’s life, a Christian’s death, a Christian’s burial, a Christian’s immortality! .