Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-10
HAVING LOTS OF FUN.
This Generation Isn't Paying Much
Attention to Old Ideas.
PLEASURES ARE HELD HARMLESS
That Would Have Filled Our Good Grand.
mothers With Horror.
SPECULATION As TO THE RESULT
IwRrrTES FOR THE DISPATCH. ]


II anybody has the time or the taste to
wade through the reports of the doings at
the summer resorts, he can hardly fail. to
agree with Brother Talmage in his last Sum
days sermon, when he says that "the air is
bewitched with the world, the flesh and the
devil" In the good old days of the
straightlaced grandmothers and Presby-
terian grandfathers, children were kept in
pinafores and the background. They were
not permitted to talk. or in anyway obtrude
themselves upon the notice Of their elders.
"Children were to be seen and not heard"
was the most oft-repeated quotation with
which they were "sot" upon when they
wanted to know anything or to express an
opinion.
They were made to eat bread and milk
and plain food, to go to bed with the chick
ems, to wear plain clothes, and to be humble
ana obedient at all times. They were more
over most carefully taught the Ten Com
mandments. They were well drilled and
disciplined as to the wickedness of profan-
ing the Sabbath day by any suggestion of
amusement or enjoyment that would make
its long, long hours less dreary and dismal.
They were carefully instructed as to the hei-
nous sin of dancing. and the utter vileness
Of card playing. So deeply was this idea
implanted, that men and women grown
have confessed that when they were chill
dren, they could not see q card without
thrill of horror.
TEMPORAL MoREsl
But as Longfellow says, "All things
must change to something new, to something
strange" but who could imagine that in a
few short years Puritan and Presbyterian
doctrines and usages could have SO changed
that the children and grandchildren OF the
severe old sages and strictly pious mothers
would be disportIng themselves at every
watering place and summer resort in doing
the very things they had been taught of old
were devices of Satan to drag them down to
everlasting destruction. In the reports of
the gay doings up at Cresson, for example,
mothers bearing names famous in Pittsburg
Presbyterian annals are daily induIging in
card parties and games of chance for prizes.
And openly, too. not in lonely spots in the
woods, up in barn lofts or remote corners
from which no whispers Of such wickedness
could reach the ears of the ''old folks" the
prying spinsters of the sewing circle or the
formidable parson and elders.
Up at Cresson the other day even little
girl of 13 gave a card party-a game of
chance which is said to be under ban of the
law-and that little Miss So-and-So won the
first prize and another pet boy and girl the
other prizes. Shades of the strict fathers
and stricter mothersl If their spirits are
lowering around their descendants, as
spirualism teaches, what must they think of
such a change from their times and teach
ings! Is it not plainly to be seen that the
early creeds and doctrines need to be re-
vised, or rather abolished-since clearly the
standards of right have been changed, and
new lines have been drawn as to the limits
OF sin?
POWER OF THE PULPIT.
How much the pulpit has lost in power,
even among the straightest sects, is shown
by the almost universal disregard of its
preachings and teachings upon the subject
OF worldly amusements. Thousands OF the
best supporters of the churches now frequent
the thesters and opera houses and bathrooms,
which have been denounced as the ante
rooms of perdition. The clergy OF the Ro-
man Catholic church forbids all but square
dancing, but that is too tame and unfashion-
able Tor anything but church picnics, and
with its members-as with others-"stolen
sweets are always sweeter," so they dance
the round ones on the sly.
On all hands in these midsummer days
myriads of people are making merry in all
the ways so powerfully described by Brother
Talmage. They are putting in their holi-
days for all the lun they can get out of them
whether in conformity to creeds or church
VOWS, or whether the clergy approve or not.
Talmas e's sermon-addressed to over a mill
ion readers by means OF the press-is hardly
likely to make single one of the amuse-
ment seekers TO pause in his mad career, or
take one step less in the giddy whirl.
Society has made law unto itself, and only
the question remains: What are the spirit
ual superiors going to do about it? They
cannot begin to read all OF their members
out of meeting. They cannot constrain them
to make a bonfire of all the cards in the
country, as was done some centuries ago.
They cannot prevent their church members
by threat or fright of the future from send |
ing their children to dancing school and in |
dulging in chops" and germans" They |
cannot restrain their most staid and respect |
able parishioners from reading books which |
the church deems dangerous.
WHAT CONDEMNATION DOES. |
The religious views presented In "Robert |
Elsmere" were pronounced as unsound, and |
the book was denounced from many a
pulpit, and as consequence everybody
men, women and children forthwith pro-
ceeded to read Robert Elsmere." 1t seems
to be only necessary for the pulpit to decry
a book to set everybody wild to read it.
Good John Wanamaker in order to protect
the public morals, has decided that Tolstol's
latest work, "The Kreutzer Sonata" is too
improper to be allowed to 60 through the