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Show SUICIDE OR SELF-MURDER. An unhappy man. a Dr. L. T. Wilson, a leading and wealthy physician of El Paso, destroyed himself him-self early this week. With a surgical instrument he opened the veins in both his arms, cut his throat from ear t.j ear. and then stabbed himself in the heart. That is to say, with his eyes open, with a knowledge of what he was about to do. and with full determination to commit this shameful crime against his God, against himself, against his mother's moth-er's sou, this wretched man destroys himself. His friends say he did it in a "fit of temporary insanity." insan-ity." Nonsense. This "insanity" is a shroud th.it. cover's a multitude of sins and a legion of the dead. As well concede that every unnatural crime which a man commits is done in u moment of insanity, in-sanity, or that all sin which leads to destruction of soul and body is the product, of diseased mentality. mental-ity. You are familiar with a man for years, he is the average man. sane, intelligent, a man of common sense. You have passed a delightful evening even-ing with him and at 10 o'clock at night, after a few ilea san t hours in bis company, you shake hands with him and bid him good night. The next morning on your way to your place of work or business you meet an acquaintance who tells yon your friend is dead, suicided at 10:30 last night. "Good God. is it possible f" "Yes. he met with some business reverses, his mind gave way, and he shot himself." Now change it a little. Your acquaintance ac-quaintance t ells you your friend is arrested for forgery. You say he must have been insane. But after his trial, he is sentenced to seven years m the penitentiary. The judge; is of a different opinion from you, and the law and the people are with the judge. If all those who murder themselves be insane, in-sane, huw is it that, in proportion to the population. popula-tion. 90 per cent are non-Catholics? Is there anything any-thing about this Catholic church that makes for sanity and level headedness ? Yes, there is this about it. The Catholic church teaches that the suicide is a murderer, and, with our Blessed Lord and St. John, the Divine, she holds that "murderers "mur-derers will not possess the kingdom of God." She also holds with St. John that those whose names are not found written in the hook of life are cast into the pool of fire, which' is the second death, the death or damnation of the soul. Therefore There-fore when a Catholic cuts his throat, drowns or hangs himself, he must he "out of his mind" or he is not a' Catholic who believes in the teachings of his church. But there is something more. This Catholic church owns in every parish, a piece of land, ten, twenty or -fifty acres, which she protects pro-tects and guards with extraordinary and -jealous care. This piece of land is blessed by the priest of God, is consecrated by special prayers and special rites, .and in it is raised the emblem of man's redemption re-demption the Cross of Christ. And because it is blessed and consecrated the Germans call it "God's acre" and we a graveyard, by reason of the awful solemnity of the place. Cut off or separated from this holy place is a plot of ground over which no prayers have been said. It remains with the primitive curse unlifted b. the church. It is called ihe "potters field" the field of blood since the days of Judas, the suicide, whose thirty pieces of silver purchased the original Haceldama or field of blood. Here, in this gruesome reservation of Catholic graveyards, are deposited the bodies of suicides, unless it be conclusively proved, not supposed, sup-posed, that the suicide was mad. and therefore ir responsible, when he committed tin- awlul act. More than this. Xo masses are offered up for the repose of the suicide's soul, no prayers are officially said for the peace of his spirit, and his body is not allowed to be carried through, the door of a Catholic church. And for this reason. The church believes and teaches that the suicide destroys'his soul when he commits murder on himself, him-self, and that on the last day, the day of judgment, judg-ment, body and soul will go into hell for all eter-uify. eter-uify. Tt is therefore' idle to pray for a lost soul, and it is not fitting that the dead body of a lost soul should rest in the same place with the bodies of the souls of the faithful departed, or receive the same honors. If a combination of untoward events ever conspired to condone suicide it was when the sorely afflicted Job regretted he was ever born. Yet when his wife appealed to him to "bless God" and put an end to himself, he replied: "Thou hast spoken like one of (he foolish women: if we have received good things at the hands of God, why should we not receive evil." It was this Catholic fear of the hereafter which stayed the hand of Hamlet when, tempted by a sea of troubles, he meditated- self destruction. After brooding upon his wretched condition, when he was the living target for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, he holds converse with himself him-self as to the wisdom of end jug all his miseries by 6uicide, and then . ' . . To die, to sleep ; To sleep: perchance, to dream: ay. there'9 the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 'Must give us pause." . ' Further down in his soliloquy he almost decides to do the act and would have done it. But that the dread of something after death. The undiscovered country from whose bourn ' V No traveler returns, puzzles the will, j And makes us rather bear those ills we have j Than fly to others we know not ot? j If it be true that, according to the Rev. Mr. j Mclntire. who lectured in this ciiy last Sumbn . j ;AM persons committed suicide in 11mm) in tl.. United States, and that in ten years 25.ni 111 lum... . beings destroyed them-elves. what are we to hu of the morality of our country? These statist-., we assume to be official, but what about the otficial suicides, the vast numbers of tlu.se wh . killed themselves and whose friends or relatives : had sufficient influence with the doctors and or!: rials to have the disgraceful facts suppressed ;I1! , .1 r heart 'disease or apoplexy given as me cause .., death. ; It is now an admitted fact: tiiat in unbelievi;.;.-and unbelievi;.;.-and irreligious communities murder and suicid. -abound. Irreligion is the parent of suicide aed when self murderers increase in a nation, the ;,, . tion is decaying. Leeky, in his history of Europe-,, u ' civilization, states that when the Roman ctaj.ir.- i was tottering to its fall, suicide had become a m--tional crime. It is also an ominous ami a niehi:.- i eholy fact that all those who have defended uv. g advocated suicide in modem times from Rousseau i to Tngersol. were atheists, deists, free-thinkers and I infidel-. j |
