The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-08-20
DR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: Summer Vacation

TEXT: "Come ye yourselves apart into a
desert place and rest awhile" e"-Mark vi, ST.
vacation. They have been living sn excited
as we'll as useful life, and He advises that
they getout into the country. am glad that
for longer or shorter time multtudes OF our
people will have summer vacation. The rail-
way trains are being laden with passengers
and baggage on their way to the mountains
and the sea shore. Multitudes Of our citi-
zens are packing their trunks for restora-
tive absence.
The city heats are pursuing the people
with torch and fear Of sunstroke. The long
silent halls Of sumptuous hotels are all abuzz
with excited arrivals The crystalline sur
face Of Winnipiseogee is shattered with the
stroke of steamer. laden with excursionists-
The antlers Of Adirondack deer rattle under
the shot Of city sportsmen- The trout make
fatal snaps at the hook of adroit sportsmen
and toss their spotted brillianco into the
game basket. Already the baton Of the
orchestral leader taps the music stand on the
hote! green, and American life puts on festal
array, and the rumbling of the tenpin alley,
and the crack Of the ivory balls on the green
baize billiard tables, and the jolting Of the
bar-room goblets, and the explosive uncork-
ing of champagne bottles, and the whirl and
the rustic Of the ballroom dance and the
Gathering hoofs Of the race courses attest
that the season for the great American
watering-places is fairly inaugurated.
Music-fute and drum and cornet-a-piston
and clapping cymbals-will wake the echoes
of the mountains.
Glad am that tagged out American life
for the most part will have an opportunity to
rest, and that nerves racked and destroyed
will find Bethesda. believe in watering
places. Let not the commercial firm be-
grudge the clerk, or the employer the jour.
neyman or the patient the physician, or the
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 was told by his own daughter
and the busy Christ said to the busy apostles
"Come ye yourselves apart into q 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 I 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 the country I must utter a note
of warning-plain, earnest and unmistak-
able.
The first temptation that is apt to hover
in this direction is to leave your piety all at
home You will send the dog and cat and
canary bird to be well cared for somewhere
else, but the temptation will be to leave
your religion in the room with the blinds
down and the door bolted, and then you will
como back in the autumn to find that it is
-,,fTD toll lx-sy, cfr Chnl
the rug stark dead. There is no surplus OF
piety at the watering places. I never knew
any one to grow very rapidly in grace at the
fashionable summer resort. It is generally
thecase that the Sabbath is more Of ca
rousal than any other day, and there are
Sunday walks and Sunday rides and Sunday
excursions.
Elders and deacons and ministers of relig-
ion who are entirely consistent at homo
sometimes when the Sabbath dawns on them
ut Niagara Falls or the White Mountains
take the day to themselves If they SO to the
church, it is apt to be a sacred parade, and
the discourse, instead Of being plain talk
about the soul, is apt to be what is called q
crack sermon-that is, some discourse picke;l
out of the effusions Of the year as the one
most adapted 20 excite admiration; and in
those churches, from the way the ladies hold
their fans you know they are not half so
much impressed with the heat as with the
picturesoueness OF half disclosed features.
Four puny souls stand in the organ loft and
squall tune that nobody knows, and wor-
SLIPPERS, with two thousand dollars worth Of
diamonds on the right hand, drop cent
into the poor box, and then the benedic-
ton is pronounced and the farce Is ended.
The air is bewitched with ''the world, the
flesh and the devil.n There are Christians
who in three or four weeks in such place
have had such terrible rents made in their
Christian robe that they had to keep darning
it until Christmas to get it mended! The
health of great many people makes On an
nual visit to some mineral spring an absolute
necessity; but take your Bible along with
you and take an hour for secret prayer every
day, though you be surrounded by guffaw
and saturnala. Keep holy the Sabbath,
though they denounce you as a; ;bigoted Puri-
tan. Stand off from these institutions which
propose to initiate on this side the water the
iniquities of olden time Baden-Baden. Let
your moral and your immortal health keep
pace with your neutrality-suspicious., andr re
member that all the waters of Hathorne and
sulphur and chalybeate springs cannot do
you so much good as the mineral, healing,
perennial flood that breaks forth from the
"Rock of Ages" This may be your last sum-
mer. If so, make it a fit vestibule Of
heaven.
Another temptation around nearly all our
watering places is the horse racing business
We all admire the horse There needs to be
redistribution of coronets among the brute
creation. For ages the lion has been called
tne king OF beasts. I knock OF its coronet
and put the crown upon the horse, in every
way nobler, whether in shape or spirit or
sagacity or intelligence or affection or USE
fuiness. He is semihuman, and knows how
to reason on small scale The centaur Of
olden times, part horse and part man, seems
TO be suggestion Of the fact that the horse
Is somsthing more than beast.
But we do not think that the speed Of the
horse should be cultured at the e1psnse of
human degradation. Horse racas in olden
times were under the ban Of Christian peo-
pie, and in our day the same institution has
come up under fictitious names, and it is
called "su unmsr mestiny," alm oSt su5yes.
tive Of positive religious exercises. Anlit
IS calle1 an Agricultural fair" susg ,stive
Of everything that is improving in the art Of
farming. But under these deceptive titles
are the same cheating AMI the sano b>tting,
the same drunkenness and same vaga5ond-
age, and the same denominations that were
to be found under the old horse racing sys-
tenn.
never knew O man yet who could give
himself to the pleasures of tho turf for O
long reach Of time and not be battered in
morals They hook up their spanking team
and put on their sporting cap. and light their
cigar, and take the reins, ani dash down the
road to psrjition. The great day at Sara
toga au1 Long Branch aad Caps May, anil
nearly all tho other watering places, is thu
day Of tho races. The hotels are thron yed,
nearly every kind OF equipage is taken up OF
an almost fabulous price, anl thsre are
many respectable people mingling with
bar tender stirs up thu brandy smash. The
bets run high. Ths gresnhorns, supposin5
all is fair, put in their money sooa enough
to loso il. Three weeks before tho race