When wisdom comes from the pulpit I am delighted and surprised. I feel then that there is a little light in the East, possibly the dawn of a better day.
I congratulate the Rev. Mr. Wright, and thank him for his brave and philosophic words.
There is still another thing. Certainly a man has the right to avoid death, to save himself from accident and disease. If he has this right, then the theologians must admit that God, in making his decrees, took into consideration the result of such actions. Now, if God knew that while most men would avoid death, some would seek it, and if his decrees were so made that they would harmonize with the acts of those who would avoid death, can we say that he did not, in making his decrees, take into consideration the acts of those who would seek death? Let us remember that all actions, good, bad and indifferent, are the necessary children of conditions—that there is no chance in the natural world in which we live.
So, we must keep in mind that all real opinions are honest, and that all have the same right to express their thoughts. Let us be charitable.
When some suffering wretch, wild with pain, crazed with regret, frenzied with fear, with desperate hand unties the knot of life, let us have pity—Let us be generous.
SUICIDE AND SANITY.
* New York Press, 1897. An Interview.
Question. Is a suicide necessarily insane? was the first question, to which Colonel Ingersoll replied:
Answer. No. At the same time I believe that a great majority of suicides are insane. There are circumstances under which suicide is natural, sensible and right. When a man is of no use to himself, when he can be of no use to others, when his life is filled with agony, when the future has no promise of relief, then I think he has the right to cast the burden of life away and seek the repose of death.
Question. Is a suicide necessarily a coward?