Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1896-06-05
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Washington pivine'S
Sunday Sermon.
Subject. "Cnuscs of Failures In Life

tN-N t-N~~'
job xvii, %.
This allusion seems to be dramatic. The
Bible more than once makes such illusions.
Paul says; 1--WE are made theatre or spec
tacle to angels and to men," 1t is evident
from the text that some OF the habits OF
theatregoers were known in Jobs time, be-
cause he describes an actor Kissed 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 offended and eX-
presses its disapprohation aud disgust by
| Kissing. "Nlen shall clap their hands at
him and shall hiss him out OF his place"
Ny text suggests that each one OF us Is
| put on the stage OF this world to take some
| part What hardship and suffering and discip-
! line 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 to represent charity and
faith and humility and helpfulness-Wnat
little preparation wa have made. although
we have three galleries OF spectators, eartn
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 no looking at home and
concentrating on our own duty, We have
| been crticising tho other performers, aud
| saying, "that was too high" or too low,
| or 'tOO feeble" or "toO extravaganza, or
''too tame" or "too demonstrative," while
we ourselves were making a dead failure
and preparing to DO ANONYMOUSLY Kissed of
the stage? Each one is assigned place, no
| supernumeraries hanging around tho drama
of lie 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 of our
character; no change Of apparel eau make
US any ono else than that which we eternally
are.
Many mako failure OF their part in the
drama of life through dissipation. They
have enough intellectual equipment and
good address and geniality unbounded. But
they have wine closet that contains all the
forces for their social and business and
moral overthrow. SO 'ar back as the year
$50, King E agar Of Englan made law that
the drinking cups should have pins fastened
at certain point in the side, 50 that the ill.,
dulger might be reminded to stop before he
got tothe 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 something which all drinkers
ought to know He has found out that alco-
hol in every shape whether of wine or
brandy or beer, contains parasitic life called
bacillus potumani1. BY Il 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 lie,
they go into every tissue Of your body, and
your entire organism is taken possession OF
by these noxious inlnitesimas. When 10
delirlum tremenS, mal sees every form oil
reptilian life, it seems it is only these para
| q nc Of thn hr0iD m Nv o. cd size II lS
not hallucination that the victim is suffer
ing 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 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 killthe parasites OF alcoholism, but
the only thing that will ever extirpate them
is abstinence from alcohol and teetota! a5-
stinence, to which would before God swear
all these young men 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 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 windows OF them, and it takes
all the hospitals and penitentiarles and
graveyards 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 another coil around you, and it will AZ
ter awhile put coil around your tongue,
and coil around your brain, and coll
around your lung, and 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 convolution you
will cry out, "Oh, my God" and be gone.
The greatest of drlmatists in the tragedy oil
'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 ma
lures staggering forward against the foot
lights of conspcuity and then staggering
back into failure till the world is impatien
for their disappearance, and human and Oh
abolic voices join i'll Kissing them oil tut
stage.
MANY also make a failure in tho drama o
life through Incidence. They are Away
making caIcu atoms how little they can do
for the compensations they get. There art
more law ministers, lawyers, doctors, mer
chants. artists and farmers than have eve
been counted upon. The community is full
of lacgards and STRIKERS. | can tell it from
the way thev crawl along the street. from
their Hardness in meeting engagements
from the lehargies that seem to hang to INT
foot when they lift it. to the hand when the.
put it out, to the words when they speak.
Two young men in store. In the morn
ing the one goes to his post the last minut
or one minute behind. The other is tel
,oirr+os hafore th , time and has his bat an
coat hung up and is at his post waiting 10
duty. The one is ever ard anon in the after
noon looking at his watch to see ii it is no
most time to shut up. The other stays ma
an hour after he might go, and when asXe
WHY. saws he wanted to look over some ell
tries he had made 10 be sure he was right, Q
TO put up some goods that had en- 1911 GU
OF place. The one is very touchy apou
doing work not exactly belonging to MIN
The other is glad to help the other clerks
their work. The first will be pro onSe
nothing, and he will be poorer at sixty yeai
of ace than at twenty. T1a other will be
merchant prince. Indoenca is the cause
more failures in all occupations than 20
have ever suspected. People are too laz
to do what they can do, and want to unde
take that which they cannot do. In the Gram
of life they don't want to be a commo
soldier, carrying halberI across the stag
or a falconer, or mere attendant, anu :
thew lounge about the scenestill they shall |
called to be something great After awhll
by some accident of prosperity or clrcul
stances, they get into the place Tor VINO
they have no qualification. Aud very 500
itrne man be merchant, he is going arouu
asking his creditors to cOmpron Mise for &c
cents on the dollar. Or, if 2 clergyman,
is makicS Trades against the ingratitude
churches. Or, if an attorney by unskillf