than little children, but as they say, when the thing does not please them, I will play no longer,' so do you, when things seem to you of such a kind, say I will no longer play, and be gone: but if you stay, do not complain."1 Pliny says that the power of dying when you please is the best thing that God has given to man amidst all the sufferings of life.2 4 It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with considerable moral indifference. According to Servius, it was provided by the Pontifical laws that whoever hanged himself should be cast out unburied; 3 but from what has been said before it is probable that this practice only owed its origin to fear of the dead man's ghost. Vergil enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants who have died prematurely and persons who have been condemned to die on a false charge. Throughout the whole history of pagan Rome there was no statute declaring it to be a crime for an ordinary citizen to take his own life. The self-murderer's rights were in no way affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by law, and the regular order of succession was not interfered with. In Roman law there are only two noteworthy exceptions to the rule that suicide is a matter with which the State has nothing to do it was prohibited in the case of soldiers, and the enactment was made that the suicide of an accused person should entail the same consequences as his condemnation; but in the latter instance the deed was admitted as a confession of guilt. On the other hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and praiseworthy act.1 Even Even Cicero, who professed the doctrine of Pythagoras, approved of the death of Cato. 4 In no question of morality was there a greater difference between classical and Christian doctrines than in regard to suicide. The earlier Fathers of the Church still allowed, or even approved of, suicide in certain cases, namely, when committed in order to procure martyrdom, or to avoid apostacy, or to retain the crown of virginity. To bring death upon ourselves voluntarily, says Lactantius, is a wicked and impious deed; "but when urged to the alternative, either of forsaking God and relinquishing faith, or of expecting all torture and death, then it is that undaunted in spirit we defy that death with all its previous threats and terrors which others fear." 5 Eusebius and other ecclesiastical writers mention several instances of Christian women putting an end to their lives when their chastity was in danger, and their acts are spoken of with tenderness, if not approbation; indeed, some of them were admitted into the calendar of saints.6 This admission was due to the extreme honour in which virginity was held by the Fathers; St. Jerome, who denied that it was lawful in times of persecution to die by one's own hands, made an exception for cases in which a person's chastity was at stake. But even this exception was abolished by St. Augustine. He allows that the virgins who laid violent hands upon themselves are worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no necessity for their doing so, since chastity is a virtue of logia cursus, vi. 697). 6 Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, viii. 12 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xx. 769 sqq.), 14 (ibid. col. 785 sqq.). St. Ambrose, De virginibus, xiii. 7 (Migne, op. cit. xvi. 229 sqq.). St. Chrysostom, Homilia encomiastica in S. Martyrem Pelagiam (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, l. 579 sqq.). 7 St. Jerome, Commentarii in Jonam, i. 12 (Migne, op. cit. xxv. 1129). Secondly, by killing himself a person does an injury to the community of which he is a part. Thirdly, "life is a gift divinely bestowed on man, and subject to His power who killeth and maketh alive'; and therefore he who takes his own life sins against God, as he who kills another man's slave sins against the master to whom the slave belongs, and as he sins who usurps the office of judge on a point not referred to him; for to God alone belongs judgment of life and death." The second of these arguments is borrowed from Aristotle, and is entirely foreign to the spirit of early Christianity. The notion of patriotism being a moral duty was habitually discouraged by it, and, as Mr. Lecky observes, "it was impossible to urge the civic argument against suicide without at the same time condemning the hermit life, which in the third century became the ideal of the Church." 2 But the other arguments are deeply rooted in some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity-in the sacredness of human life, in the duty of absolute submission to God's will, and in the extreme importance attached to the moment of death. The earthly life is a preparation for eternity; sufferings which are sent by God are not to be evaded, but to be endured. The man who deliberately takes away the life which was given him by the Creator displays the utmost disregard for the will and authority of his Master; and, worst of all, he does so in the very last minute of his life, when his doom is sealed for ever. His deed, as Thomas Aquinas says, is "the most dangerous thing of all, because no time is left to expiate it by repentance.' He who kills a fellow-creature does not in the same degree renounce the protection of God; he kills only the body, whereas the self-murderer kills both the body and the soul. By denying the latter the right of Christian. 3 "4 Thomas Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 64. Dei, i. 25. Damhouder, op. cit. lxxxviii. 1 sq., p. 258. April of Chuet ecognises that he has placed himself 1 1 colacca of the Church influenced the secular De previstons of the Councils were intro In France Louis IX. enforced Narela de Arong the self-murderer's property,' A sale offect were passed in other European xX assimilated the crime of suicide 1 ་་ According to the law of cos as highly criminal as the killing gland suicide is still regarded by opted by a man on himself ; and, so the self-murderer forfeited his Do your 1872, when forfeitures for In Russia, to this day, the testavancov a suede are deemed void by the so found a vent in outrages Of a woman who drowned Ned a 10%, we are told that her body Fog FA own backwards, and thereafter by France, as late as the Chevy century, self-murderers were dey od 64gh the streets with the face turned torch 50, de, dy were then hanged up with the 166d dowawa A crown into the common amor. 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