The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-12-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Kissed OF the Stage" the Brook
lyn Preachers Theme.
The Never-Ending Drama of Everyday
Life and the Characters it Devel-
ops-Why Some Succeed and
Others aIiserabIy Fail.


discourse "Hissed OFF the Stage" taking
the following as his text:
Men shall clap ther hands at him and shall
hiss him out of his place.-Job, xvii, 70.
This allusion seems to be dramatic. The
Bible more than once makes such allusion.
Paul says: ''We are made theater Tor
spectacle) to angels and to men," The
theater is SO old that no one can fix the
date of it's birth. Archilochus, Simonides
and Scion, who wrote for it dithyrambics,
lived about 600 OF 700 years before Christ.
1t is evident from the text that some of the
theater- goers were known in Jobs time,
because in the text he describes an actor
Kissed off the stage. The impersonator
comes on the boards, and, either through
lack of study of the part he is to take or in
aptness or other incapacity, the audience
are offended, and express their disappro-
baton and disgust first by over-a applause,
attempting by great clapping of hands to
drown out what he says; and that failing
to stop the performer, they put theirtongue
against their teeth and make terrific sibil-
lation until he disappears behind the cur
tain. ''Men shall clap their hands at him
and shall hiss him out of his place."
My text suggests that each one of US is
put on the stage of this world to take some
part. Mccullough, the actor recently
buried, was no more certainly appointed
on any occasion to appear as Spartacus, or
Edwin Forrest as King Lear, or Charlotte
Cushman as Meg Merrilies, or John KEN
bic as Macbeth, or Cooke as Richard LII.
or Kean as Othello, than you and I are ex-
pected to take some special and particular
part in the great drama of human and i'm
mortal life. Through what hardship and
suffering and discipline these artists went
year after year that they might be perfect
ed in their parts, you have often read.
But we, put on the stage of this life to rep
resent charity and faith and humility and
helpfulness-what little preparation we
have made, although we have three CALLER
les of spectators, earth and heaven and
hell. Have We not been more attentive to
the part taken by others than to the part
taken by ourselves, and while we needed to
be looking at home and concentrating on
our own duty, we have been
"riticising the other performers and
saying "that was too high" or
''too lown or stoo feebleu OF "too
extravaganza" or ''too tamen or "too
1emonstrative,n while we are making our
selves dead failure and preparing to be
ANONYMOUSLY Kissed OFF the stage? Each
one is assigned place; no supernumer-
aries hanging around the drama of life to
take this or that or the other part, as he
may be called upon. No one can take our
place. We can take no other place. Aye,
it is not the impersonation of another: we
ourselves are the real Merchant of Venice,
or the real Shylock, the real filial Cor
della or the real cruel Regain, the real
Portia or the real Lady Macbeth The
tragedian of the playhouse, at the close of
the third scene of the fifth act, takes off
the attire of Gonzalo, or Edward Mortimer,
OF Henry v, and resigns the character in
which for three hours he appeared. But
we never put off our character, and no
change of apparel can make us any one
else than that which we eternally are.
Many make failure of their part in the
drama of life through dissipation. They
have enough intellectual equipment and
good address, and geniality unbounded.
But they have wine closet that contains
all the forces for their social and business
and moral overthrow. So far back as $50
King Edgar of England made a law that
the drink-cups should have pins fastened
at certain point in the side, so
chat the indulger might be reminded
to stop before he got TO the bottom. But
there are no pins projecting from the
sides of the modern wine cup or
beer mug, and the first point at which
millions stop is at the gravelly bottom of
their own grave.
America is a fruitful country, and we
raise large quantities of wheat and corn
and oats, but the largest crop we raise in
this country is the crop of drunkards.
With sickle made out of the sharp edges of
the broken glass of bottle and demiiohn
they are cut down, and there are whole
swathes Of them, whole winrows of them;
and it takes all the hospitals and peniten-
tiaries and graveyards and cemeteries to
hold this harvest of hell. Some of you are
going down under this evil and the never
dying worm of alcoholism has wound
around you one of it's coils, and by
next New Years Day it win have
another coil around you, and it will,
after awhile, put coil around your
tongue, and coil around your brain and a
cell around your lungs, and coil around
your heart; and some day this never-dv-
ing worm will, with one spring, tighten all
the coils at once, and in the first twist of
that awful CONFUSION you will cry out
ooh, my God!" and be gone. The greatest
of dramatists, in the tragedy of the Tenn
pest, sends staggering across the stage
Stephano, the drunken butler: but across
the stage Of human life strong drink
sends kingly and queenly and princely ma
lures staggering forward against the foot
lights of conspicuity, and then staggering
back into failure, till the world is impatient
for their disappearance, and human and
diabolic voices Join in Kissing them off the
stage.
Many also make failure in the drama
of life through Incidence. They are al
ways making calculation how little thew
can do for the compensation they get.
There are more lazy ministers, LAWYERS.
doctors, merchants, artists and farmers
than have ever been counted upon. Com
munity is full of laggards and strikers. 1
can tell il from the way they crawl along
they street, from their hardness in meeting
engagements, from the lethargies that
seem to hang the foot when they lift it, to