they were considered as enemies to their country whose service they deserted; for which reason Ajax, the son of Telamon, was not according to custom reduced to ashes, for it was declared to be a profanation of that element to consume in it the bodies of such, as had been their own murderers.

Such then is a brief statement of ancient opinion on the present subject, and so far were they from encouraging self-murder, that they resented it as cowardly and unmanly!

To prove that this vice has no claim to courage, but partakes on the contrary of cowardice as well as pride, it will be sufficient to remark, that courage is a virtue which supports the mind under a sense of danger, and gives her fortitude to meet it; for want therefore of a manly resolution to combat against the adversities of life, it happens, that men, by suicides, make a mean surrender

of

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of their own existence; and afraid of their enemies, of confronting their accusers, or outliving their disgrace, by sneaking out of the world, they imagine that they evade such troubles, but these are the impressions of cowardice.

To haughty ambitious pride, which cannot brook disappointment, must be therefore added, this impulse of fear.

That the self-murderer proves himself to be highly charged with infidelity, is suffici ently evinced, by the effrontery of the act.

Before the deliberate suicide can effect the dreadful deed, either a disbelief in the Providence of God in the affairs of the moral world, a contempt of his scriptures, an awful temerity of running the hazard of the die, or a daring presumption of divine pardon, must have strongly influenced the mind.

The

The fear of death is implanted in us, by the author of nature, with the wise design of exciting a proper solicitude for the preservation of life: even subordinate animals, influenced by sensations of this kind, and without impressions of religion, by carefully avoiding whatever endangers their safety or destruction, strongly declare their aversion to death, and a due estimation of life.

On great and laudable occasions, it may be an act of valour to surmount the fear of death, and boldly meet it; but where life is rendered more terrible than death, it then becomes the truest valour to live: but the conduct of the suicide proves that he has not courage so to resolve: overawed by the troubles of the moment, which he has not spirit to resist, nor firmness to endure, the desperate experiment of relief is made, and he forces on himself a violent death!

He, who thus becomes his own executioner, independently of committing so cruel

an

an act against his own nature, must have doubts concerning the veracity of Scripture and of God's government in the moral world; or to speak gently of this atrocious deed; for the sake of avoiding pains, which are but temporal, he will take his chance of those which are eternal; or, on a bold presumption of receiving that mercy, which the sacred oracles of truth have every where discouraged him to expect, he will dare to rush, without the appointed summons, into the presence of an Almighty Judge!

"To be, or not to be; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer

The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by oppofing, end them? To die-to fleep-
No more ;--And by a fleep to fay we end

The heart-ach, and the thousand natural fhocks
That flesh is heir to 'tis a confummation

Devoutly to be wifh'd. To die; to fleep

To fleep! perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub!
For in that fleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have fhuffled off this mortal coil,

Must

Must give us pause. There's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardles bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of }",

Sufficient of itself is the reasoning of th profound bard to arrest the thought, and disarm the hand of those, who are plotting, when, and which way to deprive themselves of existence, voluntarily to punish with death, the turbulence of their own feelings-to become their own assassins! The commission of such a crime, we know, is an act of madness; it ought, however, to be remembered, that all are not mad who are guilty of it; but

on