afe to be with it in its error.

These exceptions, if we may call them exceptions, suppose the victim to
have forfeited his right to live, to have placed himself in a position
of unjust aggression, which aggression gives to the party attacked the
right to repel it, to protect his own life even at the cost of the life
of the unjust aggressor. This is an individual privilege in only one
instance, that of self-defence; in all others it is invested in the
body politic or society which alone can declare war and inflict death
on a capital offender.

Of course it may be said that in moral matters, like does not cure
like, that to permit killing is a strange manner of discouraging the
same. But this measure acts as a deterrent; it is not a cure for the
offender, or rather it is, and a radical one; it is intended to instil
a salutary dread into the hearts of those who may be inclined to play
too freely with human life. This is the only argument assassins
understand; it is therefore the only one we can use against them.

CHAPTER LXIX.
IS SUICIDE A SIN?

MOST people no doubt remember how, a short time previous to his death,
Col. Robert Ingersoli, the agnostic lecturer, gave out a thesis with
the above title, offering a negative conclusion. Some discussion ensued
in public print; the question was debated hotly, and whole columns of
pros and cons were inflicted on the suffering public by the theologues
who had taken the matter seriously.

We recall, too, how, in the height of the discussion, a poor devil of
an unfortunate was found in one of the parks of the Metropolis with an
empty pistol in his clinched fist, a bullet in his head and in his
pocket a copy of the thesis: Is suicide a sin?

To a Christian, this theorizing and speculation was laughable enough;
but when one was brought face to face with the reality of the thing, a
grim humor was added to the situation. Comedy is dangerous that leads
to tragedy.

The witty part of the matter was this: Ingersoli spoke of sin. Now,
what kind of an intelligible thing could sin be in the mind of a
blasphemous agnostic? What meaning could it have for any man who
professes not to know, or to care, who or what God is?

If there is no Legislator, there is no Law; if no Law, then no
violation of the Law. If God does not exist, there can be no offending
Him. Eliminate the notion of God, and there is no such thing as sin.
Sin, therefore, had no meaning for Ingersoli; his thesis had n