The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-04


with blstered feet attempt toclimb. the hot sides
of fire -belchiug Cotopaxii
Now all opera-hcuses, theaters, bowling-al-
Seys skatingrinks, and all styles OF amusement,
good and bad. put on trial to day. and judge or
them by certain cardinal principles First, you
may judge Of any amusement by its healthful
result or by it's baleful reaction. There are peo-
pie who seem made up of hard facts They are
combination Of multiplication tables and sta
SIstics. IL you show them an exquisite picture,
4hey will begin TO discuss the pigments involved
in the coloring If you show them beautiful
Tose, they will submit it to botanical analysis,
which is only the postmortem examination Oh
flower. They have no rebound in their nature.
They never do anything more than smile. Tnere
are no great tides of feeling surging up from the
depths Of their SOUL in billow after billow OF re-
verberating laughter. They seem as II nature
bad built them by contract. and made ounghng
Job out of it. But blessed be God, there are
people in the world who have bright faces, and
whose life is song, an anthem, pecan OF veto
~. Even their troubles are like the vines tn@t
crawl up the side OF great tower, on the TOP or
which the sunlight sits, and the soft airs OF sum-
mer hold perpetual carnival They are the peo-
pie you like to have como to your house; they
are people like to have come to my house. IL
you but touch the hem Of their garments, you
are healed. Now, it is these exhilarant, and
sympathetic and warm-hearted people that are
most tempted to pernicious amusements. In
proportion as ship is fast, it wants strong
helmsman in proportion as horse is
these people Of exuberant nature will
do well to look at the reaction of all their amuse
ment If an amusement sends you home at
night nervous so you cannot sleep, and you rise
in the morning, not because you are slept out,
but because your duty drags you from your
slumbers, you have been where you ought not to
have been. There are amusements that send
man next day to his work bloodshot. yawning,
stupid nauseated; and they are wrong kinds of
amusement There are entertainments that
give man disgust with the drudgery of life,
with tools because they are not swords, with
working-aprons because they are not robes, with
cattle because they are not Infatuated bulls OF
the arena. If any amusement sends you home
longing for a life of romance and thrilling ad
venture, love that takes poison and shoots itself,
moonlight adventures and hair breadth escapes,
you may depend upon it that you are the sacri-
feed victim of unsancti6ed pleasure. Our re-
creations 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 conclusion that
they are obnoxious.
COSTLY ADJUSTMENTS.
Still further; those amusements are wrong
which lead you into expenditure beyond your
means Money spent in recreation is not thrown
away. 1t is all folly for us to come from place
of amusement feeling that we have wasted our
money and time. You may by it have made an
investment worth more than the transaction that
yielded you hundred or thousand dollars.
But how many properties have been
riddled by costly amusements2 The table
has been robbed to pay the club The cham
payne has cheated the chldrens 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 a tour around a whole months wages
ladies whose lifetime business it is to Ego shop
ping have their counterparts In uneducated
children, bankruptcies that shock the money
market and appal the church, and that send
drunkenness staggering across the richly figured
carpet of the mansion and dashing into the mir
ror, and drowning out the carol OF music with
the whooping Of bloated sons coming home to
break their old mothers heart When men 60
into amusements that they cannot Afford they
first borrow what they cannot earn, and then
they steal what they cannot borrow First they
go into embarrassment, and then into lying, and
then into theft: and when man gets as far OH
as that he does not stop short of the peniten-
tary. There is not prison in the land where
there not victims of unsanctified amuse
ments How often have had parents come to
me and ask me to 60 over to New York and beg
their boy off from crimes that he had committed
against his employer-the taking of funds out
Of the employers till or the disarrangement of
the accounts Why he had salary enough to
pay all lawful expenditure, but not enough sal
airy to meet his sinful amusements And again
and again l have gone and implored for the
young man, sometimes, alas, the petition all
unavaing Merchant of New York, is there
disarrangement in your accounts Is there
leakage in your money drawer! Did not the
cash account come out right last nighu will
tell you: There is young man in your store
wandering off into bad amusements. The salary
you give him may meet lawful expenditures,
but rot the sinful indulgences in which he has
entered, and he takes by theft that which you
do not give him in lawful salary.
How brightly the path of unrestrained amuse-
ment opens. The young man says: Nov am
off for good time. Never mind economy. I'll
get money somehow. What fine road What
. beautiful day TOR a ride! Crack the whip, and
over the turnpikel Come. boys, fill high your
glasses. Drink Long life, health, plenty of
rides. just like this' Hard-working men hear
the clatter of the hoofs, and look up and say,
"Why, | wonder where those fellows get their
money from2 We have to toll and drudge. They
thrill and an excitement They stare at people,
and in turn are stared at. The watch chain
jingles. The cup foams. The cheeks flush.
The eyes fash. The midnight hears their
men off the sidewalk They take the name Of
God in vain. They parody. the hymn they
learned at their mothers knee; and to all
pictures of coming disaster they cry out, WHO
cares!' ard to the counsel of some Christian
friend: '.&sho are youe" Passing along the
street some night you hear shrek in a grog-
shop, the rattle of the watchmans club, the
rush of the police. What is the matter nowl
oh, this reckless young man has been killed in
a grog shop fight Carry him home to his
fathers house. Parents will come down and
wash his wounds and close his eyes in death.
They forgive him all he ever did, though he can
not in his silence ask it. The prodgal has got
home at last. Mother will go to her little
garden and get the sweetest flowers, and twist
them into a chaplet for the silent heart of the
hayward boy and push back from the bloated
brow the long locks that were once her pride.
And the air will be rent with the fathers cry,
"Oh, my son. my son, my poor son Would to
God had died for thee Oh, my SON, my son,
my son!"
HOW TO JUDGE AMUSEMENTS
You may judge of amusements by their effect
upon physical health. The great need of many
good people is physical rscuperation. There are
Christian men who write hard things against
their immortal souls when there is nothing the
matter with them but incompetent liver