Suicide should be made odious among the people of God--it…

““Suicide should be made odious among the people of God--it should be emphasized as a deadly sin, and no undue feelings of tenderness towards the unfortunate dead, or of sympathy towards the living bereaved, should prevent us denouncing it as a crime against God and humanity, against the Creator and the creature. It is true that the exact enormity of the act is not defined with minute detail in the Holy Scriptures, or the limits of its punishment given; but to believers in the God whom we worship it has always been regarded as a sin of great magnitude; and in many countries especial pains have been taken to discourage it, by refusal to bury in consecrated ground, by indignities offered to the lifeless remains, or by such lack of funereal observances as would produce a peculiar and horrifying effect upon the survivors. Now, while not advocating measures of this description, we do not think that the same laudations and panegyrics should be pronounced over the self-murderer as are so freely uttered over the faithful Saint who has gone to his eternal rest. There is a difference in their death, and that difference should be impressed upon the living, unless the deceased, at the time of the rash act, was in such a mental condition as not to be wholly responsible for his actions; but again, if this condition be the result of sin, of departure from God's laws, then the unfortunate one, like the inebriate, is not altogether free from the responsibility of acts committed while in this state of mental derangement. If he is not censurable for the act itself, he is for the causes that induced it. In such cases the mantle of charity must not be stretched so widely, in our desire to protect our erring friends, as to reflect dishonor on the work of God, or contempt for the principles of the everlasting Gospel. There is an unfortunate tendency in the natures of many to palliate sins by which they are not personally injured; but we must not forget that such palliation frequently increases the original wrong, and brings discredit on the Church and dishonor to the name and work of our blessed Redeemer; in other words, to save the feelings of our friends we are willing to crucify afresh the Lord of life and glory.””

— John Taylor