Connecticut western news., 1896-05-28
CAUSES OF FAILURE.
REV. oR. TALMAGE's SERMON ON THE DRAMA OF LIFE.

It Appears That People Used to Go to
 the Theatsr In the Days of Job-A
 Unique Peroration vindicating shAkes- psars of Inndelity.
 WASHINGTON, May 24-Rev. Dr. Tal- mage in this discourse sets forth the causes of failure in life, drawing on a Biblical reference to the theater for star ting Illustration. His text was Job xvii, 2S, "Men shall clap their hands at him and shall hiss him out of his place.
 This allusion seems to be dramatic. The Bible more than once makes such allnsions. Paul says, "We are made theater or spectacle to angels and to men" It is evident from the text that some of the habits of theater goers were mown in Jobs time, because he de- scribes 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 inaptness or other incapacity, the audience is offended and expresses its disapprobation and disgust by missing. "Men shall clap their hands at him and shall hiss him out of his place"
 The Actors of Life.
 My text suggests that each one of us is put on the stage of this world to takes some part. What hardship and suffering and discipline great actors have under gone year after year that they might be perfected in their parts you have often read But we, put on the stage of this life to represent charity and faith and humility and helpfulness-what little preparation we have made although we have three galleries of spectators, earth and heaven and helll Have we not been more attentive to the part taken by oth- ers 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 criticising the other performers. and saying, ''that was too high, :" or "too low" or "too feeble" or "too extravagant, or "too tame, " or ''too demonstrative," while we our selves were making dead failure and preparing to be ignominiously hissed off the stage? Each one is assigned place, no supernumerariesh hanging around the
 
 other part. as they may be called upon. No one can take our place. We can take no other place. Neither can we put off our character; 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 equip ment and good address and geniality mbounded But they have wine closet that contains all the forces for their so- cial and business and moral overthrow. So far back as the year 959, King Edgar of England made a law that the drink ing cups should have pins fastened at certain point in the side, SO that the in- dulger 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 gravity bottom of their own grave. Dr. Sax of France has discovered some thing which all drinkers ought to know. He has found out that alcohol in every shape, whether of wine or brandy or xs lus potumani@. By powerful micro scope these living things are discovered. and when you take strong drink you take them into the stomach and then into your blood, and, getting into the crimson canals of life, they go into ev- cry tissue of your body, and your entire organism is taken possession of by these noxious infinitesimals. When in delir- inn tremens, a man sees every form of reptilian life, it seems it is only these parasites of the brain in exaggerated size It is not hallucination that the victim is suffering from. He only sees in the room what is actually crawling and rioting in his own brain. Every time you take strong drink you swallow these maggots, and every time the i'm biber of alcohol in any shape feels yer tigo or 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 extirpate them is abstinence from alcohol and teetotal abstinence, to which I would before God swear all these young men and old.
 Dangers of Strong Drink.
 America is a fruitful country, and we raise large crops 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 demi- john they are cut down, and there are whole swathes of them, whole windrows of them, and 1t takes all the hospitals and penitentiaries 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 alco- holism has wound around you one of its coils, and by next New Years day it will have another coil around you, and 1t will after Awhile put coil around your tongue, and coil around your brain, and coil around your lung, and g coil around your foot, and coil around your heart, and some 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 GodP' and be gone. The greatest of dramatists in the tragedy of '"The Tempest" sends stag gering across the stage Stephano, the drunken butler; but across the stage of human life strong drink sends kingly and queenly and princely natures stag ssring forward against the footlights of oonspicuity and then staggering back into failure till the world is impatient for their disappearance, and human and diabolic voices join in hissing them of the stage
 Many also make "a failure in the drama of life through indolence. They are always making calculations how little they can do for the compensations they get. There are more lazy ministers, laWxera doctors rnarchanfa arfista and