Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-12
MORAL ADJUSTMENTS.
Rev. George Hodges Discusses, Among
Other Things, the Question,
OUGHT A CHRISTIAN TO DANCE9
BE. Concludes That Our Duty in the Matter
Of Amusements is
SIMPLY THE DUTY OF DISCRIMINATION
WRITTEN ron THE D1srArcH.1 j


seen at the card-table, or the parson at the
play? People are all the time asking thes
questions, and other people are just as per
sistently answering them. The trouble il
that the answers do not agree. Some say
"ves" and some mo-" Suppose we study
the matter.
It is evident that in the mind of the Mas
ter there was distinction between "the
world" and the evil of the world. ''I pray
not that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil" 1t is also evident that, in
the opinion of many good people, this is a
distinction without difference. "The
world" and ''the evil' mean the same
thing. 1t is evident, further, that this pop.
ular confusion of ''the world" and "the
evil" rests on certain historical founda-
tions.
The adjective worldly" began to have a
bad meaning as long ago as the first century
of the Christian era. In those days Of
storm and struggle, when young and pure
Christianity was fighting its good fight
against old paganism, finging stones Of
truth against the forehead of sin-in those
days the world stood on one side and the
church on the other. and gave no truce and
made no compromise, and had no speech
one with the other, except such speech as
David had with the Philistine.
The amusements of the people of that day
were pretty much upon the side of the world.
They had no time for play, those messengers
of Gcd, standing with hands clenched and
eyes looking straight before them, in the
lace of generation dying in its sins. They
had no time and no temper for amusement
1t is significant that the Apostle Paul,
journeying through countries remarkable
for beautiful scenery and famous for histori-
cal associations, had no comment in all his
letters upon the grandeur Of sea or sky or
mountain. He visits Troy without men,
ory of Hector or of Homer, and sees nothing
in Athens but images and temples. He had
something else to think about. The fact is
typical Of the whole Christian
SPIRIT OF THE TIME.
The world managed the amusements, and
as the world was pagan world it amused
itself, very naturally, in pagan ways. The
amusements of the day were, in the first
place, distinctly heather. The games and
shows were celebrated upon the festivals of
the pagan year and in honor of the pagan
gods. There was good reason why Christian
young men and naidens should not dance.
When the dance circled about the idolatrous
image of some heathen deity, to dance was
to deny the faith.
And worse still, the amusements of that
generation reflected not only the pagan
religion, but the pagan morals. The theater
stood for all that was unclean, and the
amphitheater for all that was cruel in a
wicked world. There was good reason why
the Christian should not be counted among
the crowd which pushed in through the
gates of the arena in those strange
days when gentle Roman mothers and their
tender daughters clapped their soft hands at
the sight of human blood, and cried "Killl
killr when some miserable gladiator hesi-
tated to stab his brother or his son. Men
have never forgotten that brave Christian
minister, Telemachus, who came one day
running into the Colosseum at Rome, leaped
down over the barriers into the arena when
the tragic play was at its fercest, parted the
blood-stained actors, pushing his way be-
tween the swords, and cried indignant shame
upon the audience. That was the only way
in which Christian could be present with
a clean conscience at the worlds amuse-
ments then.
The first thing which made the pagan
world really know that there were such peo-
pie as Christians in it was this attitude to-
ward the popular amusements. The pagans
described the Christian religion as an un-
social superstition.
Those early Christians had only one word
for the wicked world and its wicked ways
of amusing itself, and that was the stern
6 kaek NAa r,1a
ures of the people fell, of necessity, under
the ban of the church. There was no chance
for discrimination, then. There was no OPP
portunity for distinguishing between the
i'world" aud the "evil." Practically, they
were synonymous.
THE PURITANs OF ENGLAND
looked in the same stern way upon the
amusements OF the cavaliers. Those sober,
grim, determined, righteous men, with their
vivid realization of sin and penalty, with
their constant consideration of the shortness
and uncertainty of human life. with the
fierce mouth of hell ever open close beside
their feet-to them the gaiety, the light
ness, the bright garments, the smiling faces,
the ceaseless pleasures of the society about
them, seemed actually wicked. To these
men, thus standing face to face with the
great realities of human life, with
eternity, sin, death, hell; standing, as it
seemed, alone for God in a world lying in
darKness-to these good people it was
almost sin to be particularly happy. 1
make no doubt that Macaulay's comment is
true, that the Puritans objected to barbarity,
not on account of the pain which it gave
the bear, but on account OF the pleasure
which it gave the spectators. That good
woman, who, with her own protesting eyes,
beheld people in the streets of the city of
Edinburgh smiling upon the Sabbath day,
and described it as an awful sight, was
good Puritan. John Bunyan thought HIM
bate, because he played tip-cat and danced
on the village green.
We find the reason for this Puritan tenn
per in the spirit of the age. The Puritans
lived in a generation which, to say the
least of it, was utterly frivolous, prodigal
and ungodly. In such an age there was
only one thing for righteous man to do,
and that was to protest. The Puritan pro-
tested. The whole evil of the time centered
about its amusements. The men of the
world seemed to care for nothing else but to
be amused, and to be amused after their
own unrighteous fashion. That they
set such emphasis upon amusement was
their first fault in Puritan eyes; and that |
they CQOSe SUCH 6OTb .OI dluuscAucub W cll-
phasize was their second fault.
And so, to the Puritan, the world and the
evil were the same thing. They were not to
be parted. The world was evil all the way
through, and all the amusements of the !
world were sin.
PAGAN AND PURITAN
have long since passed away. Nero, the
Emperor, and Charles, the King, with all
their courtly and uncourtly society, with
all that was good and all that was bad
about them, have gone to their own place
wherever that Island our world is not
their world. Civilization and Christianity
have not worked in the world for nothing
during the centuries which part their time
from o;.rs. The world is good deal better
world to-day than it has ever been before.
To condemn the amusements of the world to-
day in the Wholesale and indiscrimina te
fashion OF the Christian of either Puritan
or pagan times is simply to shut our eyes
and put our hand into the guiding hand of
There are few things which live longer
than prejudice Prejudice at the beginning
means principle. 1t can give reason for
its being, and good one. But by and by
the time comes when prejudice is puzzled to
give a rational account Of itself. The old
relations, the old conditions, have changed.
II = L. IL