THE SIN OF SUICIDE.

Waiapu Church Times, Volume I, Issue 1, 1 July 1907, Page 4

THE SIN OF SUICIDE.

The Bishop of St. Germains, sneaking recently m Cornwall, said' that it was an. undoubted fact that the numbers of suicides were increasing. A false charity separated self-murder from other murders, though m truth it was . the most deadly of all, for it was based . on the sin of .despair. He was afraid that this was largely due to the verdict so often given at coroners' inquests. If that inquest was only held to find out whether the dead man died by his own ' act or that of another, let, the jury say simply that he died by his own hand unless . insanity were really proved, or if they shrank from the. old verdiot that the act was done by the instigation of, the deyil. As a matter of fact juries often gave their verdict out of a, wish to spare the feelings of the dead man's, family, and to conceal the shame of the act but if it spared the feelings of the few,it caused the tears of far more by placing silicic^ m so favorable a ' liwht that men committed it feeling "sure that they 'would not be branded as wilful murderers. False

charity never succeeded. In the matter of burying such persons;,, the clergy were thus placed m a difficult position, and it was unusual for twelve men to throw upon a single man the responsibility of doing that which ona m his own heart felt ought not to be done. They wanted to make it quite clear that self-murder was as truly a murder as that of another ; that it was a deadly sin, a sin for which, by its very nature, repentance 'was impossible. • But if the verdict was always to remain the same, what were they to do ? If they set it aside, they must act on some definite inquiry of their own. There seemed to be no course open but to accept - the coroner's verdict, but what they must aim at was having a verdict returned m full accordance with the facts of the case. In reference to the above, statistics show that for. every person who kills another there are seven who kill themselves. It is also of interest to know that suicide m the army, once so prevalent, was reduced very considerably when an order was made by which the bodies of such persons were delivered to the hospitals for anatomical demonstrations.

The Reverend W. Aylmer Stark, son of the Reverend Dr. Stark, of Bon-Accord Congregational Church, Aberdeen, has been received into- the Scottish Episcopal Church, Mr Stark is an M.A. of Aberdeen University. and- was trained at Mansfield College, Oxford, under Principal Faarbairn.