Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1882-07-14
CONCERNING ADJUSTMENTS.

1t was very excellent and pious,
though not hilarious mar, who said o
his little boy: -" No, my son, | can't
take YOU to the circus; but if you are
very good boy until next Sunday af-
tenoon, will take you out to visit
your grandmother's grave" He was
man who had 4 due sense OF the great
fact that children need fun, or he would
not have consented to plunge this child
into such a mad, whiriing vortex Of
pleasure as visit to his grandmother's
grave. A child's appetite for fun is
like his appetite for sweet things. 1t
is by the keen demand for rompng
games that nature makes sure that he
Shall have enough health-giving exer-
else. Ne must have it. Old age Is
content to sit quiet, and sometimes
wonders rather peevishly at the restless
fidgets of childhood. Youth demands
rapture; age is well satisfied with CON-
fort. Youth should. therefore, be con-
siderate of the quiet the serenity and
repose of age, and age should respect
the God.glven appetite of youth for
pleasure. If the young lambs may
skip. NAV not the children dance? If
kittens may frolic and young puppies
tumble over each other in merry romp,
may not children romp and frolic also2
And is there any hour of any day so
holy that it is not made holier by the
laugh of an innocent child2 There
have been times in the history of reli-
gion when pride, gloom, fear, and
austerity ruled the world. Pride, be-
cause there was phase of Protestant
ism that thought that God had made
man entirely wrong, and that the first
thing to do was to root out all the I'M
pulses of nature as "carnal'' and "de-
praved," and substitute the blue laws
and the knottiest of catechisms. Pur-
itanism tried to improve human nature
after this method, and the result was,
to produce set OF men, not devoid Of
grand lines of character, but who made
human life one perpetual visit to grand
mothers grave, tlnctured with envy,
hatred, malice, hypocrisy, tyranny and
cruelty. They took all the gaiety out
of life. People of this generation
whose spirits are low naturally take the
Puritanic view of life. They do not
know how to be gay and they hate to
see other people gay. When minis.
ter has a gloomy temper, due to his
sedentary life, he is almost sure to sup
pose that his dislike of gaiety is deriv-
ed from lis love of virtue. When a
hundred or so of such people meet in
convention or synod the aggregate
temper rules. and they are almost sure
to denounce the amusemerts of youth.
1t very often happens just
about this season IF the year. Not
very long ago even athletic sports were
considered worldly, and hollow chest
and slender legs were somehow asso-
ciated with goodness. Now the young
preachers may play base ball if they
like. Young Sunday school teachers
dance through the season and stop du- |
tifully when the Lent begins; but to
dance is no longer considered wicked
by persons whose hearts and brains
are healthy. There may be excess in
this as in other things, but the good
deacon no longer limits his daughter
to a visit to her grandmother's grave.
In short silent revolution is coming
over Christian thought on this subject.
The sour, morose, gloomy view of life
embodied in the creeds of the old Puri-
tans and covenaters is giving way to
the more joyous and healthful view
which regards the gospel truly as glad
tidings, and which thinks that the
Christian should be the happiest of
mortals; and those ministers are most
useful who lead on and assist in the
innocent pleasures of youth, and who
do not insist on dragging a bounding,
happy child to see his grandmother's
grave.