THOUGHT is startled, with apparently increasing frequency, these days, by reports of "tragedies which witness to the willingness and desire of even good, unselfish, and professedly Christian men to flee the bounds of this mortal life, with the evident anticipation or hope that their conditions will thereby be improved, or at least that an endless sleep will bring escape from a no longer endurable experience. Such events, especially when they happen to some one we know, are apt to lead us to ask a question of the most practical significance, "Why?" Why, in a world which We have assumed is of God's creating, should one of His creatures find things so intolerable, so utterly hopeless and unbearable, that he should want to escape from it at any cost? It is a question which has troubled and baffled the wisest and the best. In one case, the reasons given were ill health and financial difficulties. This friend knew of Christian Science; whether he had ever investigated its teachings, I do not know. Probably not; any Christian Scientist could have told him that death is not a remedy for anything. So far as it is anything at all, it is simply a temporary check; an enemy to be met and conquered, not a friend to" be welcomed, nor a conqueror.
But my friend did not know this. He believed in medicine and he believed in God as he understood God. He was a church man and, so far as I ever heard, a good, kind, moral man; at least he so impressed me, and he was so regarded by others. How had death come to appear to him like a refuge from the ills of life, so that he, in his belief, voluntarily gave up life? and why are others doing as he did? The answer is to be found in two lines of thought, equally material (though one calls itself religious), which lead naturally and logically to self-destruction when hope is gone and no other way presents itself. Let no one think for a moment that this is said for the purpose of criticizing either material science or the other churches, least of all for the purpose of finding fault with those poor tired sufferers who believe that their burdens are too heavy to bear. The key-note of the mission of Christ Jesus is love, loving service, and nothing which fails to recognize to the full every unselfish effort to lessen suffering has any right to the name of Christianity or of Christian Science. Lovingly let us give credit for and cherish every good thought and act of doctor or minister,— and they are legion,—while trying to locate the cause of their partial failure.
What is that cause? It is important that we know, because without such knowledge all the tender sympathy in the world cannot perform a cure, can do nothing more than soothe suffering and quiet fear. The doctor, looking upon existence from the belief of life in matter, sees, in the course of his ministrations, human beings in pain which all his skill cannot relieve. He sees disease and uncleanness which he cannot make whole and pure. He sees poverty which it is beyond his power to remove. He sees age and decay go on to utter helplessness, and he knows no way to prevent it. For this reason he comes to the conclusion that death is a good thing; if not a friend, at least a necessary evil, "a wise provision of nature," and thus a part of God's work for the good of mankind. He talks this, writes it, believes it; it becomes a part of his education and therefore a part of the every-day thought of the people; and some of these people when in trouble have the courage of their convictions. The minister, when confronted by the same conditions, after availing himself of all the 'doctor's skill, takes the matter to God and pleads the case, lovingly and to the very best of his ability; but failing, as one surely must when he asks God to interfere with His own decrees, he too believes that death is one of God's ways of relieving suffering. He teaches this to his people, and occasionally one of these has the courage to act upon his word.
