Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1879-12-20
Use and Abuse Of Amusements.

much croqnet playing" We know one
who made that game the means of lead
ing a young lady to live Christian life.
This minister called upon one OF his par
ishioners and found party playing GRO
quet. He joined them; and, after an
hour spent in the game, the minister
walked home with one OF the young peo-
pie and talked with her OF the value OF
religion in pleasure as well as in sorrow.
When that Young lady gave - the
church committee her Christian e4peri-
ence, she said her pastor, after playing
croquet with her, talked TO her OF her
spiritual interests, and she felt that re-
| ligiOn that was at home everywhere was
desirable. The point of all this is, that
anything innocent in itself may be alb
used and when it is, il is the abuse that
is wrong, not the thing abused. ii a
minister should be seen out on a lawn
every afternoon for weeks, praying or
singing, he might destroy his Christian
influence, for the people would think
him crazy; and il playing, they would
think him, as he is foOlish.-Gotden
Rule.
| Inc MOTEL 1ulcIToBhu"-
One of the stories lately told OF Mr..
Lincoln, is the following: When he
was young he boarded with a deacon,
who came one night to his room and
told him to arise, for the stars were fall
ing, and the judgment day had come.
Young Lincoln arose, looked out OF the
window, and sure enough, the stars
seemed to be falling in showers, but
when he looked away in the distance
and saw the grand old consultations re-
naming firm in their places, Just as he
had seen them from his childhood, he re-
| turned to his bed, feeling that all was
we'll so long as the old consultations
were not moved. So amid all the al
arming signs which Mr.. Goodwin Smith
| discerns in the social and political heav-
ems, filling him with the fear that col
lapse of religious belief, of the most
complete and tremendous kind, Is at
hand" there are eternal consultations
Of truth, the same to-day as when they
shOne out into the darkness OF the world
and lifted the thoughts Of men from
earth to heaven. They move not
Northern Christian advocate.
Defining the Sabbath.
The definition of the Sabbath as day
in which men are to be "taken up the
whole time in the public and private ex-
ercises of worship, and in the duties of
necessity and mercy is buried in a
deaper grave in New England than in
the Empire state. To refuse to see this
fact-to go quietly to church with your
wife on your arm and your hymn-book
in your hanl, whilst in your hearing
the boot and skriek OF the locomotive
and the steamboat mingle discordantly
with the chimes of the church bells, and
in your sight men stink down the side
streets TO lounge in neighboring grog-
shops or openly resort by thousands TO
the Sunday excursion train or steamboat
and then to be indignant because a
neighbor with clearer eyes beholds the
evil and describes il, is but sorry way
of serving the day or its Maker. The |
Puritan Sabbath, we repeat, is not 60
ing, it is gone; and the business of Am
erican churches to-dayis not to relnstate !
the ruined observances OF their fathers,
but 10 search the Scriptures, and learn, !
il they can, the nature and spirit OF the !
day OF the Lord as indicated in Old Tes- |
lament law and yet more clearly in the |
New Testament teaching, and then TO /
provide for its preservation and It's
larger fruitiuness by methods accordant !
with the spirit and eXigencies OF the 18th |
century.-ChriStidn UniOn.
Christ's Conquest of the World.
In stable, in an obscure quarter OF a
city thronged by unhecding travellers,
ignored by the whole world except by |
one little family, man-child was born. |
OF poor and comparatively Ignorant pa
rents, he received but a niggardly edu- |
cation, and pursues the trade ola carpen-
ter for thirty years. At the age OF thir- !
ty he begins occasionally to preach IN
the temples of his religion, and soon al
ter dies a felon's deatn-the event UNI
noticed by a single secular historian.
Imagine for a moment the legend
which condemned certain Jew to walk
the earth till the Lord came again TO he
true. and that Ahasuerus is travelling up
and down the nineteenth century seeing
all the wonders that the influence OF that
simple carpenter has wrought in the
world. He sees that the book that |
chronicles His life and death and indy
ING ideas. is printed at the rate OF hun
dred copies every minute, and that the
majority of the books springing from a
teeming press discuss His liie-literature
His servant. He sees every govern
ment on the earth bound by the iron
hands of custom TO fealty to Him, once !
Knocked by crown of thOrns and reed !
scepter He sees every legal document |
bearing the legend, "In the year OF our
Lord, and nearly every witness in the |
courts pledged to truth upon His Tesla
ment-the institutions OF justice ac-
knowledging that humble carpenter as
supreme. He sees the emblem OF His |
torture and death transformed into the |
highest symbol, placed upon the tenn
pies of the time-wOrn as an ornament |
on the person OF fashion. He sees that
his people find only in lands called after
the despised NaZarene, Christian a COM
Portable home and prosperity. He sees !
the natal day OF his DEGRADED country
man the day Of days OF all the year; the
day when all men, if ever, are happy,
the day celebrated by unselfshness and
good cheer.
And We can fancy this man belated in
the ages standing for a moment at the
uncurtained window OF some Christian
home on Christmas eve, and recalling
the words which he has somewhere
heard, "For other foundation can no
man lay that is laid in Jesus Christ"
W., o.. 49, s,,,,,tli,o old vo1, lno,vf