Life
Illustration★★★★Tragedy of Act. 1—Young man starting from home. Parents and sisters weeping to see him go. Wagon passing over the hill.
Farewell kiss thrown back. Ring the bell and let the curtain drop. Act 2.— Marriage altar. Bright lights.
Full organ. White vail trailing through the aisle. Prayer and congratulations, and exclamations of “How well she looks!” Ring the bell and let the curtain drop.
Act 3.—Midnight. Woman waiting for staggering steps. Old gar ments stuck into broken window panes. Many marks of hardship on the face.
Biting the nails of bloodless fingers. Neglect, cruelty, disgrace. Ring the bell and let the curtain drop. Act 4.—Tbree graves in a very dark place.
Grave of a child, who died from want of medicine; grave of a husband and father, who died of dissipation; grave of a wife and mother, who died of a broken heart. Plenty of weeds, but no flowers!
Oh, whata blasted heath, with three graves! Ring the bell and let the curtain drop. Act 5.—A destroyed soul’s eternity. No light; no music; no hope!
Despair coiling around the heart with unutterable anguish. Blackness of darkness forever! Woe! woe! woe! I cannot bear longer to look.
1 close my eyes at this last act of the tragedy. Quick! quick! Ring the bell and let the curtain drop.
— Talmage
The point
A dramatic five-act allegory traces a life from a hopeful young man leaving home, through marriage, into a spouse's descent into alcoholism, resulting family graves, and finally a lost soul's eternity in despair.