Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1890-08-15
REV, DIR. .TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject; Summer Vacation"


desert place and rest aWhile. MARK vi, 81.
Here Christ advises His apostles to take a
vacation. They have been living an excited
as well as useful life, and He advises that
they get out into the country. am glad that
for longer or shorter time multitudes 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-
Eens are packing their trunks for O restora-
tive absence
The city heats are pursuing the people
with torch and fear Of sunstroke. The long
silent halls OF sumptuoIs hctels arc all abuzE
with excited arrivals. The crystalins sur
face OF Winuipiseogee 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 brllliance into the
game basket. Already the baton of the
orchestral leader taps the music stand on the
hotel green, and American life puts on festal
array, and the rumbling Of the tenpln alley,
and the crack Of the ivory balls on the green
bsize billiard tables and the jolting OF the
bsr-room goblets, and the explosive uncork-
Ing OF champagne bottles, and the whirl and
the rustic of the ballroom dance and tho
that the season for tho great American
watering-p places Is fairly inaugurated.
Music-fiute and drum and cornet-a- piston
and clapping cymbals-will wake the echoes
Of the mountains.
Glad l am that tagged out American life
Tor 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
church Its pastor season OF inoccupation.
Luther used to sport with his children; Ed
nund Burke used TO csress his favorite horse:
Thomas Chalmers, in the dark hours of the
ehurch's disruption, played kite for recrea
hon-as l 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.n And have OBJ
erved 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
ire the temporal and eternal destruction OF
"a multitude that no man can number and
amid tho congratulations Of this season
and the prospect Of the departure Of many
h you for the country must utter a note
u warning-plain, earnest ami unmistak-
able.
The first temptation that Is apt to hover
h 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
hse, but the temptation will be to leave
Tour religion In the room with the blinds
Down and the door bolted, and then you will
come back in the autumn TO find that it Ia
starved and sutfocated, lying stretched on
The rug stark dead. There is no surplus OF
piety at the watering places. never knew
any one to grow very rapidly in grace at the
fashionable summer resort. 1t is generally
the case that the Sabbath Is moro OF q ca
rousal than any other day, and there are
Sunday walks and Sunday rides and Sunday
lxcursionA
Elders and deacons and ministers OF relig-
lon who are entirely consistent at home
sometimes when the Sabbath dawns on them
lt Niagara Falls or the White Mountains
lake the day to themselves. II thcy 90 to the
church, 1t 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 a
rack sermon-that is some discourse picked
,ut of the effusions OF the yesr as the one
most adapted co 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
picturesqueness OF half disclosed features.
Four pury souls stand in the organ loft and
Iquall tune that nobody knows, and wor-
,hipers, with two thousand dollars worth OF
diamonds on the right hand, drop a cent
into the poor box, and then the benedic-
lion is pronounced and the farce is ended.
The air is bewitched with "the world, the
desh and the devil" There are Christians
who In three or four weeks in such q place
have had such terrible rents made in their
Nhrte 10, fhaf fhaxy had 10 ft,n
Il until Christmas to get it mendedi The
health of a great many people makes an an
nual visit to some mineral spring an absolute
necessity, but take your Bible along with
Tou and take an hour for secret prayer every
day, though you be surrounded by guffsw "
and saturnalia. Keep holy the Sabbath,
though they denounce you as bigoted Puri
tan. Stand off from these institutions which
propose to initiate on this side the water the
lniquities of olden time Baden Baden. Lei
your moral and your immortal health keer
pace with your physical lrecuperation, and re.
member that all the waters Of Hathorne and
sulphur and chalybeate springs cannot dc
you so much good as the mineral, healing
perennial food that breaks forth from thu
"Rock of Ages" This may be your last sum
mer. II so, make it fit vestibule oi
heaven.
Another temptation around nearly oil our
watering places is the horse racing business
We all admire the horse. There needs to b,
redistribution Of coronets among the brute
creation. For ages the lion has been calleC
the king Of beasts. / knock of its corone
and put the crown upon the horse, in every
way nobler, whether in shape or spirit oi
| Iagacity or intelligence or affection or use
tulness He is semi-humnu, and knows how
10 reason on a small scale. The centaur o.
MI - md Narttt
10 be a suggestion Of the fact that the hors
y something more than a boast.
But we do not think that the speed of tn
horse should be cultured at the expense O
human degradation. Horse races in older
times were under the ban Of Christian peo
pie, and in our day the same institution ha
come up under fictitious names, and it 1
called summer meeting" almost sugges
tive of positive religious exercises. And il
Is called an agricultural fair" suggestiv
Of everything that is improving In the art o
farming. But under these deceptive title
are the same cheating and the same betting
| the same drunkenness and same vagahond
age, and the same denominations that wer
to be found under the old horse racing sys
tenn.
never knew man yet who could Civ
himself to the pleasures Of tho turf for
long reach of time and not he battered 4
morals. They hook up their spanking team
and put on their sporting cap, and light thei
cigar, and take the reins, and dash down til
road to perdition. The great day at Sars
toga and Long Branch and Cape May, an
nearly all tho other watering places, is th
day OF the races. The hotels are thronget
nearly every kind Of equipage is taken up {
an almost fabulous price, and there al
m1ny respectable people mingling wit
| nd M nm
toul-mouthed men and nashy women. II
bar tender stirs up the brandy smash. Th
bets run high. The greenhorns, supposin
all is fair, put in their money soon enoug
to lose it. Three weeks before the rat
takes place the struggle is decided, and Il
men In the secret know on which steed
bet their money. The two men on the hors
riding around long before arranged who shs
beat.
Leaning from the stand or from the Gu
riage are men aud women SO absorbed in u
| strIIopie of hone and muscle and mettle tbs