The Leavenworth weekly times., 1876-07-06
WATERING PLACE RELIGION.
Extract from . Sermon Preached At the
Brooklyn Tabernacle. Last Sunday, by the
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmsge.

Mr.. Talmage took his text from St. John
", ., So pool, which is called in the
Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five
porches. In these lay great multitude oil
impotent folk, Of blind, halt, withered,
waiting for the moving of the water" He
said Just outside of the city of Jerusalem
there was watering place, the popular re-
sort for invalids. To this day there is a
dry basin Of rock, which shows thar there
mus, have been pool there $50 feet long,
l3O ieet wide, and IS feet deep. So far as
was concerned it must have
been a Saratoga and Long Branch on a
small scale, q bennington and q Brighton
and therapeutic. That
angel Of God that stirred up the Judeah
watering place had his counterpart in the
angel OF the healing that in our days steps
into the mineral waters of Congress OF
Sharon or Sulphur Springs, or into the salt
sea at Cape May and Nahant, where multi.
tudes who are worn out with commercial
and professional anxieties, as we'll as those
who are afflicted with rheumatic, neuralgia,
and splenetic diseases, 90 and are cured by
We are at q season Of the
v ar when our rail trains are laden with
passengers and baggage on their way to
the mountains and the lakes and the sea
shore. The city heats are pursuing the
people with torch and fear of sunstroke
Glad am l that
TAGGED OUT AMERICAN LIFE,
for the most part will have an opportunity
to rest, and that nerves raeked and destroy.
ed will find Bethesda. Let not the com.
mercial firm begrudge the clerk, or the en-
ployer the journeyman, or the patient the
or the church its pastor, a sea.
son of inoccupation. l have observed that
those who do not know how to rest do moi
know how to work.
But l have to declare this truth, thai
our fashionable water places are the tenn
poral and eternal destruction of "a greaI
multitude that no man can number" and
amid the congratulations OF this season
and the prospect Of the departure Of many
of you for the country, must utter a warn
ing, plain, earnest and unmistakable. The
first temptation that is apt to hover in thii
is TO leave yOur piety all at home
i"e
NO SURPLUS OF PIETY AT THE WATERING
PLACES.
i never knew any one TO grow very rap
idly in grace at the Catskill Mountain
House or Sharon Springs or the falls O
Montmorency. 1t is generally the cas-
that the Sabbath Is more OF carousal thar
any other day, and there are Sunday walks
rides and excursions. Elders, deacons and
who are entirely consistent a
upon them at Niagara Falls or the White
Mountains, take the day TO themselves
Laughter. If they go to church 1t is ap
TO be for the sake of parade. From thu
way the ladies hold their fans you know
that they are not so much impressed with
the heat as with the picturesqueness o
half disclosed features. -Four puny soul
stand in the organ loft and squall tun.
that nobody knows, and worshippers with
$1,000 worth Of diamonds on the righ
hand drop a cent in the poor box, laugh
ter, and then the benediction is pro
nounced and the farce is ended.
oN A." Z nD AZ n-'-.
The great day at nearly all the watering
places is the day of the races. Three week,
before the race takes place the struggle il
decided. and the men In the secret know OF
which steed to bet their money. All! my
friends have nothing to do with horse-racine
deceptions this summer. With the bull
fights of Spain and the er-baitling of the
pit may the Lord God annihilate the infa.
nous snd accursed horse-racIng system oi
England and America. TApp ause New
York and BROOKLYN idiots, boasting of hav.
ing imbibed twenty-five glasses of ongress
water before breakfast /; families accustom.
ed to going to bad at ten O'Clock at nigh,
gossipping until one and two o'clock in the
dyspeptics, usually very cautious
about their health, mingling ice creams and
lemons and lobster salads and cocoanuts
until the gastric juices lift up their voices
in lamentation and protest delicate wo-
men and brainless young men chasseing
themselves unto vertigo and catslepsyN
of men and women coming back
from our watering places in autumn with
the foundations laid for ailments that will
last them all their lifetime. A fragment of
St. Paui's charge to the iailers would be an
inscription ior the hotel regis.
ter in every wa,erin g place, "Do thyself no
harmn
watering places IS the fountain oil hasty
are responsible formore'of the domestic infe-
licities of the country than all other things