Now for the principle behind the law, the jo throughout teaches the' incomparable value of human life. In Genesis 9, 6, we find a statement of the foundation on which is based the sixth commandment and all interpretations of it. "Whose heddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man," He must not wantonly be destroyed because he is so great, He is made in the image of God. He is the Lord of creation.
He can have fellowship with God—in his spiritual capacities he even shares the divine nature. There may be apparent exceptions. There may be some so low-down In intellect and morals that it would be considered small loss if their life were ended, but that sacred possession of man which separates him from everything that is not man—the possession of conscience and intellect, and power of speech with God—no matter how it may be dimmed and hidden, should make the life of all men inviolate. Only as we remember man's infinite possibilities do we learn thus to regard human life as sacred and see its destruction to be one of the worst of crimes. This which was revealed for or against suicide. Has a man the right to take his own life? Some say yes, arguing that when life is a misery, a burden to self and friends, it is better to end it. On utilitarian grounds they say that human existence, in and by itself, has little ethical value. Everything depends upon what is packed into it; or, again, they argue there are occasions when' death is preferable to dishonour. But the Christian here links hands with the Jew and denies the right of any man to be his own lawyer, judge and executioner, We can adopt the argument of Aristotle and condemn it because it is cowardly, or, taking our arguments in an as. conding scale. we can say that we owe a responsibility to the state in which we have received our birth and early training, and no matter how strongly we feel that our life is no longer serving its purpose, we have no right to shorten it without the consent of the state. Or, again, no man has a right to interfere with the creative purpose of God. He has put us here to serve a purpose for him. Body and mind we are his creation and we have no right to curtail the time of earthly service he has set for us. And then life is a continual education in the things of God. By good and ill he is shaping and fitting us for some high and holy purpose—building character and per-[sonality which will ultimately go on into the life beyond the grave, and no one is competent to judge how or when that education will be, or has been, completed. These arguments &re of weight against abuse of body or mind. How much more are they conclusive in their weight against the idea that we have any right to curtail the span of years he has allotted us or for that matter to anyone else,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.