The Iola register., 1896-05-29
FAILURE IN LIFE.
Dr.. Talmage Gives Some Of the
Chief Causes.
intempersnce and Incidence Two Prime
Bins of the nsuccessful-G reatest
Successes Have Been Made
by God-Fearing Men.

causes of failure in life, drawing on a
Biblical reference to the theater for
startling illustration His text was
Job xvii, %: Men shall clap their
hands at him and shall hiss him out Of
his place" DR.. Tslmsge said:
This allusion seems to be dramatic
The Bible more than once makes such
illusions. Paul says: 1--WE are made
thester 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 of the stage
The impersonator 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 Of
Tended, and expresses its disapproba-
ton and disgust by kissing. Men
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 perfect in their parts,
you have otter read But we, put on
the stage Of this life to represent
charity and faith and humility and
nelpfulness-what little preparation
we hae made, although we have three
galleries of spectators, earth and
Heaven 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 con-
centrating on our own duty, we have
been criticising the other performers,
and saying, THAT was too high" or
too low" or "too tame," or too dem
onstrative," while we ourselves were
making dead failure and preparing
| to be ANONYMOUSLY hissed 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
|
| 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
closet that contains all the forces for
their social and business and moral
overthrow. So far back as the year
959 King Edgar, of England, made a
law that the drinking cups should
have pins fastened at a 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 millions stop is at
the gravelly bottom of their own
grave.
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 drunk
ards With sickle made out of the
sharp edges of the broken glass of
bottle and demijohns they are cut
down, and there are whole swathes of
| them, whole winrows of them, and it
takes all the hospitals and peniten-
tiaries 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 alcohol
ism 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 coil around
your lung, and a coil around your foot,
and a 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 con-
volution you will cry out: 'Oh, my
God!" and be gone. The greatest of
dramatists in the tragedy of The Tenn
pest send 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 forward
against the footlights of conspicuity
and then staggering back into failure
till the world is impatient for their
disappearance, and human and dia-
bolic voices join in kissing them off
the stage.
Many also make failure in the
drama of life through Incidence They
are always making calculations how
little they can do for the compensa-
tion they get There are more lazy
ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants,
artists and farmers than have ever
been counted upon. The community
is full of laggards and shirkers- can
tell it from the way they crawl along
the street, from their tardiness in
meeting engagements, from the lethar.
gies that seem to hang to the foot
when they lift it, to the hand when
they put it out, to the words when
they speak.
Two young men in a store In the
morning the one goes to his post the
last minute or one minute behind The
other is ten minutes before the time
and has his hat and coat hung up, and
is at his post waiting for duty. The
one is ever and anon, in the afternoon,