Homilist Ecclesiastes 2:17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is worked under the sun is grievous to me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. What are the causes of suicide? The general impression is, insanity: this is for the most part the verdict of juries over the corpse of the self-slain man. But insanity is not always the cause. In most cases of suicide there have been displayed on the part of the perpetrator forethought, deliberation, plan. What then can prompt a man who is not actually mad to this terrible deed? I. SEVERE TRIALS. The feeling that Solomon had, rushes into the soul of not a few at times. The children of Israel in the wilderness had it when they said, "Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt." Elijah had it when he said, "It is enough now, O Lord! take away my life." Job had it when he said, "I loathe it: I would not live alway." II. SICKENING SATIETY. The men of leisure and affluence, who are freed from the necessity of work, enterprise, and business, who fare sumptuously every day, and run the round of fashionable life and sensuous enjoyment, have always shown the greatest susceptibility to this disgust with life. Over-indulgence in worldly pleasures seldom fails to produce a moral nausea. There is what the French call the ennui that comes out of it, "that awful yawn," says Byron, "that sleep cannot abate." As a proof of this, in the countries where luxuries most abound, suicides are the most numerous. Whilst in Sweden there is only one suicide to every ninety-two thousand people, in Paris there is one to every three thousand. III. SPIRITUAL DISGUST. Men whose moral susceptibilities are exquisitely tender, whose intellectual eye is keen and strong enough to penetrate into the motives that govern society, and whose sympathies run strongly with the right, the true, and the divine, often experience such an inexpressible revulsion at certain popular developments of character and phases of society, as to lead them to say with Solomon, "I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me." IV. TEMPERAMENTAL MELANCHOLY. So oppressive does the dark atmosphere of their irritable tempers become, that they are ready to seize the rope or the razor, or to plunge into the river. V. INORDINATE EMOTIONALITY. There are those whose emotional natures seem stronger than their intellectual force. The winds and the waves of passion are too strong for the helmsman. Their emotional nature is like a deep and tumultuous sea, whose billows are ever breaking over the walls of their understanding. Sometimes, for example, revenge is a passion that prompts the deed. Samson was an example of this. Sometimes humiliation prompts the deed. Something occurs which overwhelms the man with shame. Ahithophel is an example of this. Sometimes desperation prompts the deed. Sometimes fear overwhelms the man, and prompts the deed. It was thus with the Philippian jailor. Sometimes remorse prompts the self-destroying deed. No passion that can seize the soul is so unbearable as this; "A wounded spirit, who can bear?" Thus Judas, when he saw that Christ, whom he had betrayed, was condemned to death, his guilty conscience made life so intolerable that he went out and hanged himself. Other passions may be mentioned, such as jealousy, which perhaps is the most prolific parent of suicides of all the passions. I learn from this subject — 1. That the poor need not envy the condition of the rich. 2. That all men have not an equal love of life. 3. That confidence in the redemptive Providence that is over us is the only security for a happy life.The voice of Providence to every man is, not only "Do thyself no harm": but free thyself from all anxious cares, and trust in the love and guidance of the great Father King. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. |
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