Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-06-02


time, because he describes an actor
Kissed off the stage The imper-
senator come 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"
My text suggests that each one Of
us is put on the stage Of this world to
take some part. What hardship and
suffering and discipline great actors
have undergone year after year that
they might be perfected in their parts,
you have often read. But we, put on
the stage Of this life 10 represent
charity and faith and humility and
elpfulness-what little preparation we
have made, although we have three
galleries of spectators, earth, heaven
and he'll! Have We rot been more at
tentive 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 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 a dead failure and
preparing to be ANONYMOUSLY 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 anyone 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 a wine
cIoset that contains all the forces for
their social and business and moral
overthrow. So. far back as the year
55Ss-KinS Z Gar of England made
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 mod
ern 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 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 potumaniae. BY
powerful microscope 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 every tissue of your body,
and your entire organism is taken pos
session of by these noxious infin-
itesimals. When in delirium tremens
a man sees every form of reptilian life,
ii seems it is only these parasites of
the brain in exaggerated size. 1t is
not hallucinat:on 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 para
sites of alcoholism, but the only thing
that will ever extirpate them is alb
stInence from alcohol and teetotal alb
stinence, to which l would before God
cwear all these young men and old.
America is fruitful country, and we
laise 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
demijohn they are cut down, and there
are whole swathes of them, whole win
rows of them, and it takes all the hos
pitfalls and penitentiaries and grave
yards and cemeteries to hold this har-
vest of hell. Some of you are going
down 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 an
pther coil around you, and it will after
a while put coil around your tongue
and a coil around your brain and a
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 convulsion you will cry out.
"Oh, my God" and be gone. The great
est OF dramatists 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 queenly
and princely natures staggering for
ward against the footlights OF con-
sp!cuity and then staggering back into
galloping horses dash by. whirlwind |