During the past year, 1931, according to statistics, twenty thousand people committed suicide in the United States. Among these self-murders are millionaires, paupers, educated and uneducated, merchants and professional men, women and even children. The life insurance companies are becoming greatly alarmed on account of the losses they sustain. The Metropolitan Insurance Company paid in 1921 $880,871 in claims on account of suicides. But in 1931 These claims amounted to $6,494,254. It is now being suggested that a national society for the study and prevention of suicide should be formed. But such a society will not stop suicide, just as the 18th Amendment has not stopped the consumption of liquor.
What is the source of this terrible increase of suicides? Why were there a generation ago only a few cases of suicide? Our first answer is because modernism with its denials has robbed multitudes of people of their faith in a. God, who cares for man, of the Gospel, which gives peace and assurance, and of faith in a hereafter. In modernistic teaching heaven and hell as the goal of human destiny are non-existent. Among these suicides are many young men and women who received training in the modern colleges. Suicide is in numerous cases the harvest of the teaching that man dies like the beast, that death ends it all.
The newspaper reports say that many of these self-murderer committed on account of the depression. But if man has faith in God, trusts His promises, believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, knows that he has endless being, depression or no depression, he will be kept through it all.
But the Editor believes that many suicides are committed by those who have become mentally unbalanced, and behind this unbalance appears that unseen being, who is the murderer from the beginning, Satan. Satan entered into Judas, and after he committed his deed that unseen power rushed him into eternity through suicide. When our Lord came the first time He found Israel’s land filled with thousands of men and women who were demon-possessed. Satan seemed to have put forth all his energy to oppose the Lord in His ministry on earth. Nothing different can be expected as the age ends. Demon powers rush in, getting ready to oppose Him who is soon coming again. And wherever these influences are at Work mental unbalance results, and that frequently leads to this horrible crime. —Our Hope.