The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-12-16
DR.. qhLNkGE'S SERMON.
KISSED OFF THE STAGE.

Bible more than once makes such illusions.
Paul says: ave arc made a theatre or spec
kacle to angels and to men," The theatre is
20 old that no one can fix the date of its
birth. Archilochus, Simonides and Scion,
who wrote for it dithyramhics, lived about
nix or seven hundred years before Christ. 1t
Is evident from the text that some of the hab-
lis of theatre goers We're known in Jobs time
because he describes an actor Kissed OFT the
stage. The lm~personator comes on the
boards and, either through lack Of study OF
the part he is to take or inaptness or other IN
capacity, the audience is offended and ex"
presses its disapprobation and disgust, first by
over applause. attempting by great clapplng
Of hands to. drown out what he says. Thatfall-
Ing to stop the performer. the spectators put
their tongue against their teeth and make
terrific sipilatlOn until he disappears behind
the curtain. "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
70 appear as Spartacus, or Edwin Forrest as
King Lear, or Charlotte Cushman as Meg
Merrilies, or John Kcmble as Coriolanus, or
Garrick as Macbeth, or Cooke as Rich
ard III, or kean as Othello. than you
and I are expected to take some espe-
eial and particular part in the great
drama of human and immortal life. through
what hardship and suffering and discipline
these artists went year after year that they
might be perfected in their parts, you have
,ften read. But we, put on the stage Of this
life to represent charity, and faith, and hu-
mility and helpfulness-what little prepara-
ton we have made, although we have three
galleries 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 concentring on our
own duty, we have been critlclslng the other
performers and saying that was too high"
pr "too low" or too feeble" or 'too extrava-
rant or "too tame" or too demonstrative,"
while we were making ourselves a dead fail.
ure and preparing to be ANONYMOUSLY Kissed
OFF the stage. Each one is assigned q place;
no supernumeraries hanging around the
drama of life to take this or that or the
other part as he may be called upon. No one
ian take our place. We can take no other
place. Aye, it is not the lmperSonatl9n OF
another; we ourselves are the real Merchant
pf Venice or the real Shylock, the real flial
ECordelia or the real cruel Regain, tho real
kortia or the real Lady Macbeth. The
kragedian of the playhouse at the close Of the
third scene of the fifth act takes Oft the at
tire of Gonzalo or Edward Mortimer or
Henry v. and resigns the character in which
tor three hours he appeared. But we never
put oil our character, and no change of ap-
parel can make us any one else than that
which we eternally are.
MANY make a failure of their part Of the
drama of life through dissipation. They
have enough intellectual equipment and good
address and geniality unbounded. But they
have a wine closet that contains all the
forces for their social and business and moral
overthrow. So far back as 959, King Edgar,ot
En~lo~l y,o2o a 10 w fhnf fhn HClnLslnr PI1nS
,hould nave pins fastened at a certain point
In the side so that the indulger might be re-
minded to stop before he got to the bottom.
But there are no pins projecting from the
ides of the modern Wine cup or beer mug,
and the first roint at which millions stop is
ut the gravelly bottom of their own grave.
DR.. Sax, of France, has recently discovered
something with oil drinkers ought to know.
BE has found out that alcohol, in every
shape, whether of wine or brandy or beer,
contains parasitic life called bacillus po-
tumanip. BY a powerful microscope these
living things are discovered, ana when
Fou take strong drink you taxi them into
The stomach and then into your blood, and
vetting into the crimson canals of life, they
70 into every tissue of your bJdy and your
fntire organism is taken possession OF by
these noXiouS intinitesimals. When Ill de-
irium trenens a man sees every form OF
reptiIian life it is only these parasites Of the
brain in exaggerated size. 1t is not a hallu-
eination that the victim is suffering from. He
pnly sees in the room what is actually crawl
ing and rioting in his own brain. Every time
sou take strong drink you swallow these mag
Eots, and every time the imbiber Of alcohol
In any shape feels vertigo o. rheumatism or
nausea it is only the Jubilee Of these maggots.
Efforts are being made for the discovery of
some germicide that can kill the parasites of
alcoholism, but the only thing that will ever
sxtirpate them is abstinence from alcohol
and t~eetotal abstinence, to which l would be-
lore God swear all these young men and old.
BAmerica is a fruitful icountry and we raise
large crops of wheat and corn and oats, but
che largest crop we raise in this country is the
crop of drunkards. With sickle made out Of
the sharp edges of tue broken glass, of bottle
and demijohn they are cut down, and there
are whole swathes of them, whole winrows
of them, and it takes all the hospitals and
commentaries and graveyards and cemeteries
TO hold this harvest of hell. Some of you are
going dow under this evil, and the never
dying worm Of alcoholism has wound around
you one Of its coils, and by next New Years
day it will have another coil around you,
your tongue and a coil around your brain
and a coil around your lung and q coil
YOUR heart, and soms day this never.
dying worm will with one spring tighten all
the coils at once and in the last twist Of that
awful convolution you will cry out, "Oh, my
God!" and be gone. The greatest OF dra.
matists in the tragedy OF the tempest
sends staggering across the stage Stephano,
the drunken butler; but across the stage of
human life strong drink sends kingly and
gueenly and princely natures staggering for
ward against the footlights Of conspicuity
and then staggering back into failure till
the world is impatient for their disappear
ance and human and diabolic voices join in
Kissing them off the stage.
Many also make a failure in the drama of
life, through incidence. They are always
making calculation how little they can do
for the compensation they get. There ore
more lazy ministers, lawyers, doctors, mer-
chants, artists and farmers than have ever
been counted upon. The community is full
of laggers and shirkers. can tell it from
the way they crawl along the street, from
their tardiness in meeting engagements, IRON
the lethargies that seem to hang to the foot
when they lift it: to the hand when they put
it out, to the words when they speak. Two
young men in a store. In the morning the
one goes to his post the last minute or one
minute behind. The other is ten minutes he.
fore the time and has his hat and coat hung
up, and is at his post waiting for duty. The
one is ever and anon, in the afternoon, look
ing at his watch, to see if it is not most time
to Shut up. The other stays half an hour
after he might 20, and when asked why, says
he wanted to look over some entries he had
made, to be sure he was right, or to put up
some goods that had been left out of place.
The one IS very punctilious about doing work
not exactly belonging to him. The other is
glad to help the other clerks in their work.
fhe first will be a prolonged nothing, and he
will be poorer at sixty than at twenty. The
other will be a merchant prince. Incidence
is the cause of more failures in all occupations
fbon vo, have ever suspected. PEOPLE are