St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-04-13
ROLLER SKATING CRAZE.
The Possibilities of Health and Re-
cuperatiOn in the Exercise and the
Damaging Effects.
Plenty of Gates of Hell Wide Open
Where the Temptresses are Cry
ing Come In!"
Filtration is Damnation and Let the Well
Dressed Devils Wh0 Haunt the Kinks
Get Quick Justice.
DR.. Talmage on What Young People Should
Have in Their Amusements-The Father
Of the Rink.

Special to the Globe.
BROOKLYN, N. Y, April 12.-Dr. Talmage
preached in the Brooklyn tabernacle this
morning on The Roller Skating Craze. After
expounding appropriate passages of Scrip
ture, he gave out the opening hymn:
Mid scenesof confusion and creature complaints
How sweetsto my soul is communion of saints
To find at the banquet of mercy there's room
And feel in the presence of Jesus at home!
The usual great throngs inside and outside
the tabernacle we're present, including
from other lands.
DR.. Taimage chose two texts-Ezekiel ill.,,
13: 'The noise of the wheels over against
them" and Nahum ill.,: ''The noise of the
rattling of the wheels.'' Following is the
sermon in full:
In the one verse are the wheels of help
and Ezekiel heard them. In the other verse
are the wheels of destruction and Nahum
heard them. The good wheels and the bad
wheels will decide the destiny of this planet
Archimedes eulogZed the lever and said If
he could find fulcrum for it to rest on he
could move the world. But he found no
such fulcrum and it is not the lever which is
to lift or sink the world but the wheel,
whether a solid disk or composed of outer
rim and spokes and hub. Wheel of the rail
train that aecelerates travel. Wheel OF
printing press that multiplies intelligence.
Wheel of ship, wound with tiller ropes, guild
ing navigation. Wheel of sewing machine
that alleviates toll. Wheel of cbronometer
that measures the flight of the hours. Balance
wheels, fly wheels, belt wheels, spur wheels,
racket wheels,
DRIVING WHEELS.
The wheel, invented by whom know not,
but it is suggested to us by the fact that the
planetary system is a wheel, and constella-
tions and galaxies are wheels, and all OF
these smaller wheels working into the great
wheel of the universe, the axis of which is
the periphery on which rests the throne OF
God. Show me which way the majority of
the worlds wheels turn and 1 will tell you
whether it is rolling toward redemption or
ruin, and tell me how many revolutions they
make in an hour and 1 will tell you how near
the world is to its disenthrallment or demo-
lition. In our day the principle of the wheel
has come to be applied to amusements and
recreations, and the velocipede and bicycle
and tricycle. and the roller skate are the con-
ton to be met is, are the roller skate wheels
of help, like those which Ezekiel heard, or
wheels of destruction, like those which rack
eted in the ears of Nahumi
Never within my memory or yours has
there been in this country such wide, deep,
more popular agitation on the subject of
amuselnents, and all ministers of religion
and a farents and all young people and all
old people must answer the question and
answer it right, and have reason for the
answer. Let me premise that | have for
twenty-five years been waiting for some
NEW STYLE OF AMUSEMENT,
heathful for body and mind, hoping it
might come in time to rescue this genera
ton. Such amusements have been appall-
ingly scarce. Plenty Of places to blast and
blight and consume body and soul Never
any lack of gambling saloons. Within one
hour of every home and hotel in New York
and Brooklyn there are places where young
man can get divorced from his money while
the old spider of the gaming table officiates
at the funeral of innocent flies. Plenty of
places where you can lose ten cents or a
house and lot or all you have in one night.
Plenty of drinking saloons where the owner,
by outlay of $40, can mix up
stuff that he sells for $3.50. They
will let young man have
all he wants as long as his money lasts-one
glass, two glasses, three glasses, four glasses
and then when, having felt in all his pock-
cts for more money, it is demon strated that
he has not so much as postage stamp left,
they will help him into the street to look after
himself or be taken home by some other
young man not quite as intoxicated; for
rum-sellers never help their victims home
lest getting to the door they confront the
mother or wife to whom God might lend one
of his smaller thunderbolts with which she
could strike the despoiler into ashes. Plenty
of gates of hell and all Of them wide open,
the temptresses crying 'Come in come in !''
But of good places a great deficit.
Seven O'Clock in the evening finds tens of
thousands of young people home or at hotel
or boarding house. ''What shall | do with
myself this eveningl' he asks. You answer
$50 to prayer meeting" Well that is good
advice for two nights of the week, but there
are seven nights in most weeks. Subtract
Sunday night and two other church nights
and you have four nights left. $50 and
hear lecture on astronomy" you say. Well,
the young mans brain is tired from run ming
up the figures of
THE ACCOUNT BOOK,
or from trying TO sell goods to people that
don't want to buy, and he has no appetite
for a lecture on astronomy He does not
want to learn about other worlds, he has
more than he can do to get along with this.
Now take up the newspapers and pick out for
him place of healthful recreation. The
most of the places advertised are unventi-
lated audience rooms, where the companion
ship is depraving and much of the spsctacu-
L. l.; It'd
such place and the man goes home body
asphyxisted mind-weakened, soul-scarred. |
Constant amusement of that kind makes |
thriving business for undertakers and affords |
tragedies of illustration for discourse on the |
text, "The end thereof Is DEATH What |
our young people want in their amusement |
is recreation for the body aud soul, some |
thing that viii allow them to be asleep on
their pillow at IL o'clock every night and |
awake fully rested at 7:30 in the morning.
something that will put our boys and girls at |
the goal of anhood and womanhood ready |
for useful and practical life, not invalids at |
10 and 20 and 21, not splinters Of humanity, |
not q maseuline or
FEMININE APOLOGIES,
but ready to command respect and with their |
own right arm, under God shove aside all |
obstacles. Will this modern roller skating
amusement help do thisl
The amusement was invented in 1919 by
Plimpton, q Frenchman, and he has been
called the father Of the rink He kept |
tight grip on the patent for his skate until
1888, when his patent came out and now
there are factories all over the country and
seven weekly newspapers devoted to this one
sport, aud every night in the rinks, north,
south. east and west, hundreds Of thousands
of people on wheels, good or bad Should
We favor this style of amusementl / answer
yes under restriction. aud no If II be un-
guarded. In other words, it is the best thing