West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1881-11-02
WESTVIRGINIA FREEMAN.
The New Religious Summer Re
sort.
BY j. B. VAN METER.

sought to establish summer resorts
ola distinctively religious charac-
ter. Whoever has witnessed the
folly and dissipation, the tempta
tions and sins of our fashionable
watering-places must have felt that
however conducive to health and
pleasure the atmosphere and waters
Of Saratoga, the serf and breezes of
Cape May, Long Branch, Newport,
the moral environment is anything
but favorable to the cultivation Of
a pure and elevated character. A
season" can scarcely be spent amid
such surroundings without either
a moral letting down or a moral
WEAKNESS. Christian people do not
wish to refresh the body at the ex-
pense of the soul. 1t is more in
accord with their feelings to build
up body and soul at the same time
in that healthfulness peculiar to
each. Hence, Ocean Grove, Allan
tic Highlands, Ocean City, Chau-
tauqua and the like.
Moreover, it has turned out that
a very large proportion of the world
itself has come to perceive that the
Christian conduct of a summer re-
sort does not initiate against
healthfulness or pleasure, while
the absence of ostentatious display
and vulgar rivalry in dress and
equipage enables many to avail
themselves of privileges which are
denied to them by the expensive
ness of fashionable resorts.
1t is strange that until now no
one has thought of establishing
such a resort in the mountains. AS
a refuge from the summer heat and
a place of recuperation from the ex-
haustion of years hard works the
mountains possess many advantages
above the sea-shore. Sea- breezes
and bathing are perhaps more i'm
mediately refreshing than noun
tain atmosphere. One feels that
the first few inspirations of sea air
brings instant relief and calms his
excited nerves. But mountain air
possesses greater tonic properties.
AS rule the invigoration realized
from a sojourn in the mountains
will stand by one longer than the
refreshment by the sea. So fully
has this been realized that it has
become the practice of many who
can afford it to spend a couple of
weeks by the sea in the beginning
of the summer for immediate rest,
and the remainder of the season in
the mountains. Beside this there
are many persons who realize no
benefit, some who receive only
harm, from sojourn at the seaside.
Then in the mountains there are
no such pests as at times render the
sea-shore almost unendurable-no
land breezes, no mosquitoes-no suf-
locating nights, and even the heat
of day does not Cypress in that ex-
hilarating atmosphere. There is
an endless variety of walks, drives
new tangles to explore, new dells to
discover, springs, cascades, shady
hooks where light and heat are tenn
pered and quiet is enshrined. No
glinting sea and glaring sands to
dazzle the eye, but blue and green,
the soft and pleasing shades which
rest the sight. From this region Of
country where we are accustomed
to breathe the salt, heavy air Of the
coast, there is no particular change
in going to Cape May or Ocean
Grove. We breathe the same at
mosphere. But in the mountains
every breath of air we inhale gives
to the lungs an accustomed bath,
and by it's very novelty stirs the
blood within US. We are now to
have a Christian mountain resort
as near Baltimore as Ocean Grove
and more accessible, land that in re-
gion already celebrated throughout
the land for it's invigorating atmos-
phere. Between Oakland and Deer
Park on the north side Of the Balti-
more and Ohio railroad, two hun
bred and forty-six miles west Of us,
on the summit Of the Alleghanies,
with the Mississippi waters on the
west and the Atlantic rivers on the
east, twenty-seven hundred feet
above the level of the sea, a proper
ty has been purchased containing
,ooorl,- o;rb+ b,,pdrod ocrnc of land