In the prevention of suicide, too much stress cannot be laid on the
importance of adopting a well-regulated, enlarged, and philosophic
system of education, by which all the _moral_ as well as the
intellectual faculties will be expanded and disciplined. The education
of the intellect without any reference to the moral feelings is a
species of instruction calculated to do an immense amount of injury.
The tuition that addresses itself exclusively to the perceptive and
reflective faculties is not the kind of education that will elevate
the moral character of a people. Religion must be made the basis of
all secular knowledge. We must be led to believe that the education
which fits the possessor for another world is vastly superior to
that which has relation only to the concerns of this life. We are no
opponents to the diffusion of knowledge; but we are to that description
of information which has only reference “to the life that is, and not
to that which is to be.” Such a system of instruction is of necessity
defective, because it is partial in its operation. Teach a man his
duty to God, as well as his obligations to his fellow-men; lead him to
believe that his life is not his own; that disappointment and misery
is the penalty of Adam’s transgression, and one from which there is
no hope of escaping; and, above all, inculcate a resignation to the
decrees of Divine Providence. When life becomes a burden, when the
mind is sinking under the weight of accumulated misfortunes, and no
gleam of hope penetrates through the vista of futurity to gladden the
heart, the intellect says, “Commit suicide, and escape from a world of
wretchedness and woe;” the moral principle says, “Live; it is your duty
to bear with resignation the afflictions that overwhelm you; let the
moral influence of your example be reflected in the characters of those
by whom you are surrounded.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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