The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-12-04
TALMAGE's SERMON.
sHieeed or the Stage" the Brook.
lyn Preachers Theme.

The Never-Ending Drama Of Everyday
xISe and tho Characters It Devel-
ops-why Some Succeed and
Others Alserably Fan.
In recent sermon delivered by the Rev.
T. Dewitt Talmage at the Brooklyn Taber.
nacle, he announced as the subject Of his
discourse "Hissed on the Stage" taking
the following as his text:
Men shall clap Their hands At him and shall
hiss him out Of his place.-Job. xvii, q.
This allusion seems to be dramatic. Tho
Bible more than once makes such allusion.
Paul says: 1--WE are made a theater Tor
spectacie) to angels and to men," The
theater is so old that NO one can fix the
date of its birth. Archilochus, Simonides
and Scion, who wrote for it dithyrambics,
lived about 900 or 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
Missed off the stage. The impersonator
comes on the boards, and, either through
lack of study of the part he is to take or in
0PehCSo VI oehSi iAStpdSltyS VIC ouu1CuS0
are offended, and express their disappro-
baton and disgust first by over-applause,
attempting by great clapping of hands to
drown out what he says; aud that failing
to stop the performer, they put their tongue
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 Kem-
BILE as Macbeth, or Cooke as Richard Ill,
or Kean as Othello, than you and are ex-
pected to take some special and particular
part in the great drama of human and inn
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
he'll. 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
cur own duty, we have been
criticising the other performers and
saying ''that was too high" or
''too low" or "too feeble" or ''too
extravaganza or ''too tame' or "too
demonstrative," while we are making our
selves a dead failure and preparing to be
ANONYMOUSLY Kissed of the stage: Each
one is assigned a place; no srparnumer-
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 Shylork, the real flial Cor
della or the real cruel Regain, the real
Portia Of 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, OF Edward Mortimer,
Or Henry Y, and resigns the character in
which for three hours he appeared. Blu.
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 G 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 drila-cups should have pins fastened
ct certain point in the side, 80
that 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.
DR.. Sax, of France, has recently discoy-
cred something which all drinkers ought to
know. He has found out that alcohol in
every shape, whether of wine, or brandy
or beer, contains parasitic life called
bacillus potumania. By powerful micro
scopes these living things are discoGered,
and when you take strong drink yoa take
them into your stomach, and then into
your blood, and getting into the crimson
canal of life they go into every It's
sue of your body, and your entire
organism is taken possession of by these
noxious infni.esimals. When in delirium
tremens n man sees every form Of
reptilian life, it is only these para
sites of tie brain in exaggerated size. 1t
is not a hallucination that the victim is
suffering from. He only sees in the room
wha. is actually crawling and rioting in
his own brain. Every time you take strong
drink you swallow those maggots, and
every time the imbiber of alcohol in any
shape feels vertigo or rheumatism or nau-
sea, it is only the jubilee Of these maggots.
Efforts are being made for the discovery
of some germicide that can kill the para
sites of alcoholism, but the only thing that
will ever extirpate them is abstinence, to
which would before God swear all these
young men and old.
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 delnijohn
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
dying worm of alcoholism has wound