Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-05-25
CAUSES OF FAILURE.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON ON
THE DRAMA OF LIFE.

THE DRAMA OF LIFE.
It Appears That People Used TO Go t.
Unique Peroration indicating Shakes
peare of Infidelity.
~-WAsHINGToN, May "a Rev. DR.. Tai
mage in this discourse sets forth the
causes CT failure in life, drawing on
Biblical reference to the theater for star
Ting illustration. His text was Jot
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, eve are made q
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 de-
scribes an actor Kissed off the stage.
The iInpersonator comes on the boards
and, either through lack of study Of the
part he is to take or happiness or other
incapacity, the audience is offended and
expresses it's disapprobation and disgust
by kissing. '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
D. I, e-4<, 81 h;
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 hell! Have we not been
more attentive to the part taken by 9th
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 'stoo tame, - or
''too demonstrative, while we our
selves were making q dead failure and
preparing to be ignOminiOusly Kissed off
the stage? Each one is assigned place,
no supernumeraries hanging around the
drama Of life to take this or that or 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
unbounded. 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 $50, King Edgar
of England made q 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
beer, contains parasitic life called bacil-
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 infnitesimals. When in delir-
ium treInens, a man sees every form of
reptilian life, it seems it is only these
parasites of the brain in exaggerated
size. 1t 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 inn
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 teetota1 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 windows
of them, and it 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