The Opelousas courier., 1890-09-20
REV. DR.. 4ALMAGE
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE's SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: Summer Vacation

IT, ooMs We Ioufsetts : opdfe tato q
ep.o'e H fest ato0fte.D-MarK W., 81.
mere thirst advises His apostles to take q
vacation. They have been living an excited
shey geto out into the country. | am glad that
LOT longer or shorter time muiiittldes of our
people viii have summer vacation. Tie rail
way trans are being laden with passengers
ana baggage on their way to the mountains
ahd tne sea shore. Multitudes of our citi-
zens ere packing their trunks for a restora-
i've absence.
The city heats are pursuing the people
WIN loren and fear of sunstroke. The long
silent halls OF sumptaois hotels are all abuzz
with excited arrivals. The crystalline sur
lace or Wlnnipiseogee is shattered with the
sTToke OF steamer. laden with excursionists.
Inc antlers OF Adirondack deer rattle under
me shot Of city sports,nen. The trout make
Iatai snaps OF the hook of adroit sportsmen
and toss their spotted hrilliance into the
game basket. Already the baton OF tho
orchestral leader taps the music stand on the
motel green, and American life puts on festal
array, and the rumbiing of the tenpin alley,
ana the crack OF the ivory balls on the green
oalze billiard tables. and the jolting Of the
bar-room goblets, and the explosive uncork-
ing of champaign bottles, and the whirl and
the rustic of the bathroom dance INT the
gathering hoofs of the race courses attest
that the season for the great American
watering-places is fairly in~augurate1.
Music-hute and drum and cornet-a-piston
and clapping cymbals-Wiu wake the echoes
OF the mountains.
Glad l am that tagged out American life
for the most part will nave an opportunity to
rest, and that nerves racked and destroyed
Will lind . Bethesda. l believe in watering
places. Let not the commercial firm be-
grudge the clerk, or the employer the jour-
ncynan, or the patient the physician, or the
church its pastor a season of inoccupation.
Luther used to sport with his children; Ed
mund Burke used to caress his favorite horse;
Thomas Chalmers, in the dark hours of the
church's disruption, played kite for recrea
tion-as I was told by his own daughter
md the busy Christ said to the busy apostles,
Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place, and rest awhile And have OBJ
served that they who do not know how to
rest do not know how to work.
But / have to declare this truth to-day,
that some of our fashionable watering places
are the temporal and eternal destruction of
"a multitude that no man can number and
amid the congratulations Of this season
and the prospect of the departure of many
of you for t~hecountry / must utter a note
of w~arning-plain, earnest AMI unmistak-
able.
The first temptation that il apt to hover
In this direction liz TO leave your piety all at
home. You will sendtlle dog and cat and
canary bird TO be we'll cared for somewhere
else, but the temptation will be to leave
your religion In the room with the blinds
down n the door bolted, and then you will
starved and suffocated, lying stretched on
the rug stark dead. There is nc surplus of
any one to grow very rapidlyip, grace at the
fashionable summer resort. IT, generally
thecase that the Sabbath is morex Pf a ca
rousal than any other day. and Shere are
Sunday walks and Sunday rides and Sunday
excursions.
Elders and deacons and ministers of relig-
ion who are entirely consistent at home
sometimes when the Sabbath dawHs on them
at Niagara Falls or the Whit5 Mountains
take the day to themselves. II they go to the
church, it is apt to be o sacred parade. and
the discourse, instead OF being a plain talk
about the soul, is apt to be what is called q
crack sermcn-that is, some discourse picked
out of the illusions Of the year as the one
most adapted 70 excite admlratiun; and IN
those churches, from the way the ladies hold
their fans. YOU know they are not haif so
much impressed with the heat as with the
picturesqueness OF nall disclosed featur 8.
Four puny souls stand IN the organ lott and
squail a tune that nobody knows, and wor-
shippers. with two Thousand dollars worth OF
diamonds on the right hand. drop q cent
into tho poor box, and then the benedic-
ton is pronounced and the farce Is ended.
The air is beWitciled with the world, the
flesh and the devil There are Christians
who in three or four wrecks IN such a place
hfiStjfaI athm e.. Morl1ad to keep darniug
Gherkrnnasamnative of st. I'D mendedl The
/ health Of 4 ~ ~ tha saple makes an an
nuai visit to solns1a5iifaeEEsA spring an absolute
necessity: but take your Bible a!ong with
| you and AXE an hour for secret prayer every
| day. though you be surrounded BY guff1w
and saturnaiia. Keep holy the Sabbath,
| though they del1ounce you as a bigotefPuri-