In quitting this sphere or plane of existence the suicide by no means escapes duty. The environment from which he fled must be met and overcome, and in trying to escape he only strengthens the opposing forces and weakens his own powers of resistance. Nevertheless, the battle must be fought and the victory must be won if he would be free from the hurtful influences which prompted him to avoid learning the lesson of life, and whatever the environment is, it is to be overcome for the good to him there is in the victory. This is the law of compensation, and it is the law of all laws, for it commands that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
The suicide, therefore, not only fails to escape the ills he flees from—but he intensifies the distress which burdens him. Moreover, no occult or spiritual force ever influenced him to burden himself with the consequences of hateful environment, but it aided in the exercise of his free will. And, again, whatever a man's burden may be it is the harvest of his own sowing. If it be of love and sweet memories it is his by natural right, so also it is his by natural right if it be greed and cowardice. The suicide runs from the presence of trouble to the arms of many troubles, and the occult force that aids him in the exercise of his free will holds him to account for committing self-murder with the same firm hand of justice that it would had he murdered his neighbor instead of himself. There is no escape from the consequences of one's acts. The grave is no hiding place. It is the door rather which opens into a court of justice beyond—into a place where the ethical debits and credits of the individual await him that a balance may be struck. Those things which he planted in the field of life will be there as debits and credits. Nothing will be omitted, be they the fruit of omission or of commission, and that which he owes he must come again into the field of the activities of physical environment and pay to the uttermost farthing. This, too, the law of Karma demands, and this it exacts.
THE ETHICS OF SEX.
BY GRACE G. BOHN.
"Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world:
Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die.
Rise with it then! Rejoice that man is hurled
From change to change unceasingly,
His soul's wings never furled."