The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-06-03
THE DRAMA OF LIFE.
"MEN SHALL CLAP THEIR HANDS AT
HIM AND HISS HIM"

Rev. DR.. Taln,age Chooses Another Unique
Text and breaches an Eloquent aud Hor-
tatorv Sermon Full of Vivid Pictures.
List Act of the Drama.
WASHINGTON, May 2l.-Rev. Or.
Talmage, in this discourse, sets forth
the causes Of failure IN life, drawing
on a Biblical reference to the the thea-
ter for startling illustration. His text
was Job xvii, %, 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
illusions. Paul says, I'VE are made
8 theater or spectacle to angels and to
men," It is evident from the text that
some of the habits Of theater goers
were known in Jobs time, because he
describes an actor hissed 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 Of
Tended and expresses its disapproba-
ton and disgust by Kissing. Men
shall clap their hands at him and shall
hiss him cut of his place.
My text suggests that each one OF
us is put on the stage OF TINS %or!o -
take some part. What hardship ana
suffering and discipline great actors
have undergone year after year that
thew might be perfected IN their parts
YOU have often read. But we put on
the stage of this life to represent char
ity and faith and humility and help-
fulness-what little preparation we
have made, although we have three
galleries Of spectators, earth and heav-
en- 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 criticising the 9th
er performers and saying, that was
too high" or s'too low" or too feeble"
or too extravagant'' or too tame" or
sstoo demonstrative," while we our.
selves were making dead failure and
preparing to be ignominiously hlssed
off the stage? Each one is assigned a
place. No supernumerarleS hanging
around the drama of lifeto take this
or that or the other part, IS they may
be called upon. No one can take our
place. We can take no other place.
Neither can we put off our character
Ne change of apparel can make US
any one else than that which we eter
nalIy are.
8 Many make a failure OF their part in
the drama of life through dissipation.
They have enough Intellectual equip
ment and good address and geniallty
unbounded. But they have a wine
closet that contains all the forces for
their social and business and moral
overthrow. So far back as the year
$50 King Edgar of England
made a law that the drinking cups
should have pins fastened at certain
point in the side, so 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 mil
lions stop is at The gravelly bottom OF
their own grave. DR.. Sax of France
has discovered 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
potumanie. By powerful micro
scope these living things are discovered
and when you take strong drink you
tske them into your stomach and then
: ITO your blood, and, getting into the
crimson canals of life, they go into
every tissue of your body, and your
entire organism is taken possession Of
by these noxious infnitesimals. When
in delirium treuens man sees every
form of reptilian life, it seems it IS only
these parasites of the brain IN exag-
oerated size. Il is not a hallucination
mat 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 imbiber of alcohol IN any
shape feels vertigo or rheumatism or
nausea it is only the jubilee of these
naeeots. Efforts are being made for
the discovery Of some germicide that
can kill the parasites of alcoholism,
but the only thing that will ever extlr-
nats them IS abstinence from alcohol
and teetotal abstinence, to which l
would before God swear all these
ro,oo mon and old.
America is 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 drunk
ards. With sickle made out of the
sharp edges of the broken glass OF bot
tie and demiiohn they are cut down,
and there are whole swathes Of them,
whole vinrows of them, and it takes
all the hospitals and penitentiaries
and erayeyards and cemeteries to hold
this harvest of hell Some of you are
going down under this evil, and the
never diving worm Of alcoholism has
wound around you one of its coils,
and by next New Years day it will
have another coil around you, and it
will after awhile put a coil around
your tongue, and coil around your
brain. and a coil around your lung,
and a coil around your foot, and
coil around your heart, and some day
this never dying worm will, with one
spriae, tighten all the coils at once,
and in the last twist of that awful con-
volution you will cry out, "Oh, my
God!" and be gone. The greatest of
dramatists in the tragedy of 1.-The
Tempest" sends staggering across the
stage Stephano, the drunken butler,
but across the stage of human life
strong drink sends kingiy and queen
y and princely natures staggering
forward against the footlights of con-
spicuity, and then staggering back