Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1896-05-30
CAUSES OF FAILURE.
Rsy. Or. TALMAoE's SERMON ON
The DRAMA or LIFE.

Rsy DR. TALMAoE's SERMON ON
The DRAMA or LIFE.
II Appears That People Used to Go TO
che TI,eater In the Days of job A
rp,oue Peroration vindieatins Shakes
peare Of IniideIity.
WASHINGTON, May "a. Rev. DR. Tai
mage in this discourse sets forth the
causes Of failure in life, drawing on a
Biblical reference to the theatcr for star
fling illustration His text was Job
xvii. 90. 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
allusions. Paul says, "We are made a
theater or spectacle to angels and to
men" 1t is evident from the text that
some of the habits of theater goers were
known in Jobs time, because he de-
scribcs an actor Kissed off the stage.
The inpersonator comes on the boards
and, either through lack of study of the
mart he is to take or happiness 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.
NV text suggests that each one of us
is nut ON thestage 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 i'll 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 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 en- our own
duty, we have been criticising the ether
performers. and saying, ''that was too
high, -" or s'too low or too feeble, "
or "too extravaganza, or too tame, +" or
''too demonstrative, while we cur
selves were making 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 ono 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 gcniality
unbounded. But they have wine closet
that contains all the forces for their So
eial and business and moral overthrow.
SO far 1.szsls-Ess the year $50, King Edgar
of England made 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 CT 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-
lus potumanie. 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 infnitesimals. When in delir-
ium trelnens, q man sees every form of
reptilian life, it seems it is only these
parasites Of the brain in exaggerated
size 1t is not a hallucination that the
/ victim is suffering from. lie only sees
III the room what is actually crawling
I and rioti1Ig in his eETn 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 teetotal abstinence, to
which I would before God swear all
! these young men and old.
Dangers of Strong Drink.
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 drunkards.
With sickle made out Of the sharp edges
Of the broken glass Of bottle ard demi
/ john they are cut down, and there are
I whole swathes of them, whole windrows
Of them, and it takes all the hospitals
and penitentiaries and graveyards and
I 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
it Will after awhile put coil around
your tongue, and a coil around your
brain, and 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 spring
tighten all the coils at once, and in the
last twist Of that awful convolution you
will cry out, 'tOh, my Godp' and be
gone. The greatest of dramatists in the
tragedy of 1.-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
gering forward against the footlights of
conspicuity and then staggering back
into failure till the world is impatient
for their disappearance, and human and
diabolic voices join in kissing them off
the stage.
Many also make a failure in the
drama Of life through incidence They
are always making calculations how