The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-02-17
3Ats1e11anepMs.
REV, 7. DEWITT TALMAGE.
AMUsEMENTs-- KIND TO IN"
CREASE HAPPINESS,
AID the Folly Of Those Which are PerliciOu'--'
Economy the Safeguard Against
Sin and Shame.
Subject .-"what Places to stand Clear Of"

Subject :--"What Places to Stand Clear Of"
Text Luke vi, "A: EVERY tree is
known by its own fruit"
This morning pass on to lay down
certain principles by which you may
judge in regard to any amusements or
recreation, finding out for yourself
whether it is right or whether it is
wrong. remark, in the first place. that
you can Judge of the moral character of
any amusement by it's healthful result,
or by its baleful reaction. There are
people who seem made up Of hard facts.
They are combination of multipliCa
tion.table and statistics. If you show
them an exquisite picture, they will be-
gin to discuss the pigments involved in
the Coloring. If you show them beau
tiful rose, they will submit it to botan-
iCal analysis, which is only the post
mortem examination of flower. They
have no rebound in their nature. They
never do anything more than smile.
There are no great tides Of feeling surg
ing from the depths of their soul, in bill
low after billow Of reverberating laugh
ter. They seem as if nature had built
them by contract, and made bungiing
job out of it. But blessed be God, there
are people in the world who have bright
faces, and whose life is song, an an
them, psalm of victory. Even their
troubles are like the vines that crawl up
the side of great tower, on the top Of
which the sunlight sits and the soft airs
of summer hold perpetual carnival.
There are people you like to have come
TO your house; there are people like to
have come to my house. If you but
touch the hem Of their garments, you
are healed. Now, it is these exhilarant
and sympathetic and warm.hearted peo-
pie that are most tempted to pernicious
amusements. In proportion as a ship is
swift it wants a strong helmsman; in
proportion as horse is gay it wants a
stout driver, and these people of exuber.
ant nature will do we'll to look at the
reaction of all their amusements. II an
amusement sends you home at night
nervous, 30 that you can not sleep, and
you rise up in the morning, not because
you are slept out, but because your du
ties drag you from your slumbers, you
have been where you ought not to have
been. There are amusements that send
q man next day to his work bloodshot,
yawning, stupid, nau9ested end they
are wrong kinds of amusement. There
are entertainments that give a man dis.
gust with the drudgery of life, with tools
beCsdse they are not swords, with work.
ing-aprons because they are not robes,
with cattle because they are not infuri.
Sted bulls of the arena. If any smuse.
ment sends you home longing for life
Of romance and thrilling adventure, love
that takes poison and shoots itself, moon.
light adventures and hair-breadth es-
Capes, you may depend upon it that you
are the sacrificed victim of unsanCtifed
pleasure. Our reCreations are intended
TO build US up, and if they pull us down
as to our moral or as to our physical
strength, you may come to the ConClu.
sion that they are obnoxious.
Still further: those smuspments are
wrong which lead you into expenditure
beyond your means. Money spent in
recreation is not thrown away. II is all
folly for US to come from a place of
amusement feeling that we have wasted
money or time. We may by it have
made an investment worth more than
tie transaction that yielded you a hum
dred or a thousand dollars. But how
many properties have been riddled by
costly amusements The table has been
robbed to pay the club. The champagne
has cheated the Children's wardrobe.
The carousing party has burned up the
boys primer. The table-Cloth of the
corner saloon is in debt to the wife's
faded dress. Excursions that in day
make tour around q whole months
wages, Ladies whose lifetime business
is to go shopping have their counter.
parts in uneduCated children; bank
ruptCies that shock the money market
and appall the Church, and that send
drunkenness staggering across the rich.
ly'fgured carpet OF the mansion, and
daehing into the mirror and drowning
out the carol of music with the whoop.
ing Of bloated sons come home to break
their old mothers heart. heard of
beautiful home, where the bell rang
violently late at night. The son had
been off in sinful indulgences. His com.
rades were bringing him home. They
carried him to the door. They rang the
bell at one o'clock in the morning.
Father and mother came down. They
we're waiting for the wandering SOD, and
then the comrades, as soon as the door
was opened, threw the prodigal head
lOrg into the doorway, crying: There
he is, drunk as fool Hs Hal" When
men 80 into amusements which they
can not afford they first borrow what
they can not earn and then they steal
what they cannot borrow. First they 90
into embarrassment, and then into living.
and then INTO theft; and when man
gets as far on as that he does not stop
short Of the PenitentiRry. There is not
prison in the land whore there are not
victims OF unsancti6ed amusemente.
How often l have had parents come to
mo and ask me to 20 over to New York
and beg their boy off from crimes that
ne had committed against his employer
the taking Of funds from his employ.
er'g till or the diearranQemenk of the !,