SECTION XXXIV. ON SUICIDE. When all the blandishments of life are gone, IT is a most lamentable and truly melancholy reflection, that the newspapers should every day present us with accounts of those who have thought fit to offer impious violence to the first and leading law of selfpreservation, as well as the laws of religion and their country. How are we to account for the great increase of self-murderers amongst us? Is it that there is more calamity in our nation than formerly? Are the means of comfort more difficult to be arrived at? Are men become less merciful to the indigent of their species? or are our passions become less governable than they were? It is difficult to say how far either of these causes prevail: one thing is certain, that no distress, even the bitterest that man can suffer, is sufficient to warrant a violation of his life. It is true, indeed, when a man groans under the heavy pressures of poverty; when his days are clouded with disease; when he is obliged to taste the bitter cup of the world's cruelty, and bear, as Shakespeare says, "the proud man's contumely and the insolence of office," he is apt to cry out, in the words of that great poet, "O that the Almighty had not placed his canon against selfmurder!" But however he may be excited to wish himself stript of a being that is miserable, it by no means follows that he has a right to lay down a life he did not give himself, and which he is commanded to bear till the Author of his nature calls for it. To what purpose are we sent into this world, but to act a part in it suitable to the sphere assigned us by the Ruler of human affairs; and if we send ourselves out of being before our task is finished, we behave as ridiculously as that actor would do, who should quit the stage in the first act, when he knew that his part was cast to continue till the last. Should it so fall out that his part if he imagines he could perform another better; and if he has just reason, to believe that his talents might be employed to a higher advantage, yet a man of honour even in this case will not relinquish his post; but after using all natural and lawful efforts to rise in the drama, will wait with patience till an opportunity occurs of distinguishing himself, and moving in a more eminent sphere. is grievous to him, But, abstracted from these considerations of expediency, which perhaps are not powerful enough to work upon sullen natures, let it be reflected on, that he who kills himself is exposed by this offence to the immediate displeasure of his Maker; and what is yet more dreadful in this case, the crime which he perpetrates gains no time for repentance. The murderer lifts his hand against his own existence; he braves his Maker by an M impious assassination; he plunges into another life, with all his crimes about him, and this last the most enormous; he enters into the presence of a Being eternally distant from impurity, who must punish so awful an offence, and send him to perdition, there to bewail his past offences-to wish a thousand times for that life which he had just deprived himself of, with this heightened circumstance of misery, that he must still wish in vain. Can any thing be more alarming to the soul than the thoughts of such a condemnation from the Almighty, when enraged Omnipotence shall blow the unquenchable flame, and the justice of the Divinity is interested to punish such an offence with all the rigour that is consistent with that attribute of his nature. If considerations of this sort will not awaken those who think, and who have any sense or traces of religion in their soul, I know not what will: and as sure as we now exist, so certain it is that God will demonstrate his severe displeasure against such offenders; but the loss is, that few amongst us are influenced by any such principles, and most part are influenced by none: they have only a consciousness of pain and pleasure, and when they find pain predominate, they fall upon an expedient to avoid it, by rushing upon death, without ever reflecting in that sleep of death what ills may come, which ought indeed to give them pain. Many arguments might be advanced to show the absurdity and impiety of suicide; suffer me to mention one, which I imagine may have some influence with those who are apt to value themselves on their personal bravery; which is, that to commit suicide is mean ignoble cowardice. Addison finely observes, that to fly from sufferings, is not half so brave as a resolution to bear them-to bear them like a man: and Milton distinguished the courage of our first parent, in opposition to the cowardice of our general mother, that the one was for flying from her sufferings, and the other, bearing them as well as he could. 'Tis true, when we are afflicted we must feel; and, as Young has nobly expressed it: The blood will follow where the knife is driven; The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear : but then there is a higher part of us, which can still bear up against all the evils that "flesh is heir to." Should we be exposed to pain, the severest pain, what is the consequence? Our nature will, at last, yield to the infliction without any effort of ours; and if we should be marked out for suffering, no more can be said than this, that we are never punished beyond what our provocations deserve; and he who best knows the frame and heart of man, will never counteract his wisdom, or inflict more than we are able, or than it is fit we should bear. Would one then, who is doomed to suffer, act the part of a man, let him nobly bear it a little while, and his sufferings will cease: "the storms of wintry time will quickly pass, and one unbounded spring encircle all." When fate in angry mood has frown'd, The great who'd be released from pain, But know, beneath life's heavy load, 'Midst thousand ills that grieve; Where dangers threaten, cares infest, Where friends forsake, and foes molest, 'Tis braver far to live. |