Amidst this violent denunciation against popery and devilment, evil spirits and saints, it is somewhat singular to find a spirit of anomalous perversity which justifies suicide to rid ourselves of disease and suffering; and these very sanctimonious censors quote ancient and modern authorities to sanction a practice which every Christian must condemn. Let us pursue the disquisition of our learned bookworm Burton:--"Another doubt is made by philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man in such extremity of pain and grief to make away himself, and how those men that do so are to be censured. The Platonists approve of it, that it is lawful in such cases upon a necessity. Plotinus (_L. de Beatitud._) and Socrates himself defend it (_in Plato's Phaedon_): _If any man labour of an incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good_. Epictetus and Seneca say, _Quamcunque veram esse viam ad libertatem_;--any way is allowable that leads to liberty. _Let us give God thanks no man is compelled to live against his will. Quid ad hominem claustra, carcer, custodia? liberum ostium habet._ Death is always ready at hand: _Vides illum precipitem locum, illud flumen?_ There is liberty at hand. _Effugia cervitutis et doloris sunt_, as that Laconian lad cast himself headlong, _Non serviam, aiebat puer_; to be freed of misery. Wherefore hath our mother earth brought out poisons (saith Pliny) in so great a quantity, but that men in distress might make away themselves? which kings of old had ever in readiness, _ad incerta fortunae venenum sub custode promptum_. Many worthy men and women, _quorum memoria celebratur in ecclesia_, sayeth Leminctius, killed themselves to save their chastity and honour, when Rome was taken. Jerome vindicates the same, and Ambrose commendeth Pelagia for so doing. Eusebius admired a Roman matron for the same fact, to save herself from the lust of Maxentius the tyrant. Adelhelmus, the Abbot of Malmesbury, calls them, _beatas virgines quae sic, &c._ Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, commends voluntary death if one be _sibi aut aliis molestus; especially if to live be a torment to him_, let him free himself with his own hand from this tedious life, or from a prison, or suffer himself to be freed by others." However, be it said in justice to our worthy Burton, he condemns this practice as "a false and pagan position, founded in prophane stoical paradoxes and wicked examples;" and although he denounces most fulminating anathemas on papists, he concludes by saying, "we ought not to be rash and rigorous in our censures, as some are; Charity will judge and hope best; God be merciful unto us all!"