  We have used the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) aboard HST to
measure a sulfur abundance of [S/H] = -0.41 +/-0.06 in the interstellar medium
(ISM) of the nearby damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) absorbing galaxy SBS 1543+593. A
direct comparison between this QSO absorption line abundance on the one hand,
and abundances measured from HII region emission line diagnostics on the other,
yield the same result: the abundance of sulfur in the neutral ISM is in good
agreement with that of oxygen measured in an HII region 3 kpc away. Our result
contrasts with those of other recent studies which have claimed
order-of-magnitude differences between HI (absorption) and HII (emission)
region abundances. We also derive a nickel abundance of [Ni/H] < -0.81, some
three times less than that of sulfur, and suggest that the depletion is due to
dust, although we cannot rule out an over-abundance of alpha-elements as the
cause of the lower metallicity. It is possible that our measure of [S/H] is
over-estimated if some SII arises in ionized gas; adopting a plausible star
formation rate for the galaxy along the line of sight, and a measurement of the
CII* 1335.7 absorption line detected from SBS 1543+593, we determine that the
metallicity is unlikely to be smaller than we derive by more than 0.25 dex. We
estimate that the cooling rate of the cool neutral medium is log [l_c (ergs
s^{-1} H atom^{-1})] = -27.0, the same value as that seen in the high redshift
DLA population.
