can only be met, as it were, by Suicide. The peculiar feature of
Death by Suicide is that it is not only self-inflicted but sudden. And
there are many sins which must either be dealt with suddenly or not at
all. Under this category, for instance, are to be included generally all
sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from their peculiar
nature, can only be treated by methods less abrupt, but the sudden
operation of the knife is the only successful means of dealing with
fleshly sins. For example, the correspondence of the drunkard with his
wine is a thing which can be broken off by degrees only in the rarest
cases. To attempt it gradually may in an isolated case succeed, but even
then the slightly prolonged gratification is no compensation for the
slow torture of a gradually diminishing indulgence. "If thine appetite
offend thee cut it off," may seem at first but a harsh remedy; but when
we contemplate on the one hand the lingering pain of the gradual
process, on the other its constant peril, we are compelled to admit that
the principle is as kind as it is wise. The expression "total
abstinence" in such a case is a strictly biological formula. It implies
the sudden destruction of a definite portion of environment by the total
withdrawal of all the connecting links. Obviously of course total
abstinence ought thus to be allowed a much wider application than to
cases of "intemperance." It's the only decisive method of dealing with
any sin of the flesh; The very nature of the relations makes it
absolutely imperative that every victim of unlawful appetite, in
whatever direction, shall totally abstain. Hence Christ's apparently
extreme and peremptory language defines the only possible, as well as
the only charitable, expedient: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it
out, and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it
off, and cast it from thee."

The humanity of what is called "sudden conversion" has never been
insisted on as it deserves. In discussing "Biogenesis"[65] it has been
already pointed out that while growth is a slow and gradual process, the
change from Death to Life alike in the natural and spiritual spheres is
the work of a moment. Whatever the conscious hour of the second birth
may be--in the case of an adult it is probably defined by the first real
victory over sin--it is certain that on biological principles the real
turning-point is literally a moment. But on moral and humane ground