destitute of all poetical sentiment. Probably it was the too-indulgent kindness of her guardians that made the moral dyspepsia of this last victim fatal; and pity for the young self-destroyer should not be allowed to confuse the stern lesson taught by such unlovely moral perversion.* * SUICIDE NEVER JUSTIFIABLE. Three years ago, I received from a kind-hearted German patient in the City Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri, a letter relating to the subject of the justification of self-destruction. He was hopelessly prostrated with disease, totally destitute of money, far away from all kindred, shut out from the sympathy of beloved brothers and sisters, with every cherished tie on earth broken like his own heart. So conditioned, was it any wonder that he addressed me a letter in substance as follows: "DEAR BROTHER DAVIS: More than once I have held the death-vial in my hand containing enough morphine *This account which appeared in the Sunday World, August 20, 1871, is hear introduced to show, first, that even paragraphical journalists begin to recognize the possibility of a spiritual derangement; "" and, second, to rebuke the inhumanity and impatience flippantly expressed by too many toward persons who gravitate into that horrible doom which no happy human heart ever brought upon itself. to sleep me to my eternal rest. Would it be sinful for a man, who has lost everything that was near and dear to him in this world, forsaken by all friends, crushed by a self-wasting chest disease which pierces painfully by night and day through his body, keeping the mind in a drooping and despairing attitude? I would rather die now, throw off this mortal coil of clay and pass away to the upper spheres, than to endure these fearful pains and this despair any longer. Please let me know what is your true and unhidden opinion of this. "J. W. W." This earnest-hearted German, soon after writing this letter, received sympathy from unexpected angelic But concerning the question of justifiable suicide, I addressed him thus: sources. "MY SUFFERING BROTHER: You know that in our glorious philosophy (which is also a glorious religion), every person is admonished to keep free from disease, and to live as long in the body as is possible. Whether sick or well, whether in pain or in pleasure, the Law of the Divine is: Live in the body as healthily and for as long a time as the body will let you live; for it is by means of the physical organism that the Spirit, together with its intelligent powers, is perfected and prepared to enter upon another and better existence. Children who die, or in fact any person who, by accident or otherwise, is forced out of the body before its full maturity, do not much improve, although they go into the Summerland. They are frequently compelled to return to earth, in order to pass, by means of observation and sympathy, through many of the very same experiences and the very same trials which they would have (or might have) passed through had they remained in the tabernacle of flesh. Suicide, therefore, is as unnatural as it is unfortunate. Like every other voluntary violation of the Divine code it is offset with many and various trials and innumerable sorrows subsequent to the act.* Therefore, my sorrowing brother! teach this gospel to all the unfortunates in the Hospital about you. Be thou firm in the ways of wisdom; then the angels will kindly look down and bless you! "Heed the poet's words: "Though plunged in ills and exercised in care, . When press'd by dangers and beset by foes, And when our virtue sinks o'erwhelmed with grief, "A. J. D." A Remedial Hint.-Persons overwhelmed with any real or imagined provocation, and thus tempted to commit suicide, should immediately exert all their power of will to forget themselves. 66 They that do much themselves deny, Insanity often becomes both functional and organic by too excessive and too protracted self-thinking over trials and afflictions. Moral and affectional insanity is emotional. But intellectual insanity is delusional *There are other considerations, far more emphatic and influential with some minds, given in a volume by the author, entitled, Answers to Questions, p. 77; also see the Penetralia. and absurdly impulsive, especially when stimulated and aggravated by feelings of injured pride, or by the pressure of great disappointment, or by sudden bereavement, and very deep private sorrow. No psychological CURE is so certain and so rapid as the cultivation of a true spirit of self-forgetfulness! A new determination, a fresh hope, a new will to live and to work wholly and benevolently for the good of others, is the medicine of the Temple of Akropanamede. PREVENTABLE CAUSES OF LUNACY AND SORROW. WHAT I shall now write will be complemental to the closing paragraphs of the last chapter. The first thing to be said is most important to every human being, and I am ashamed to confess it! That THINGS, yea, mere things, have (or rather are permitted to have) power to assail and overthrow the immortal king, upon the throne of man's mentality-Reason! Is not this confession humiliating? And do you not say it is shameful to the last degree? Poor, indeed, is the mind of the ignorant man! The wise person knows that all mere "things" are temporal and external compared with the mind and its affections. And yet behold how these same "things" are permitted to assail and oppress and crush into a maniac's cell their sovereign and heaven-ordained master—THE SPIRIT! Look around you, and mark well the lesson : There is a housekeeper who, in order to maintain appearances and present at all hours what her ladyship, Madame Paramount Custom, demands of her subjectsthe constant strain for this effect, the housekeeper breaks down first in her temper (which means that her |