The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-05-21

man next day to his work DloOd-
shot, yawning, stupid nauseated; and
they are wrong kinds of amusements.
They are enter tainments that give
man disgust with the drudgery of life,
with tools because they are not swords,
with working aprons because they are
not robes, with cattle because they are
not Infatuated bulls of the arena. If
any amusement sends you home long
ing for life of romance and thrilling
adventure, love that takes poison and
shoots itself, moonlight adventures and
hair-breadth escapes, you may depend
upon it that you are the sacrificed vic
tim of unsanctifed pleasure. Our recre-
ations are intended to build us up; and
if they pull us down as to our moral or
as to our physical strength, you may
come to the conclusion that they are OBJ
noxious.
There is nothing more depraving than
attendance upon amusements that are
full of innuendo and low suggestions.
The young man enters. At first he sits
far back, with his hat on and his coat
collar up, fearful that somebody there
may know him. Several nights pass
on. He takes off his hat earlier, and
puts his coat-collar down. The blush
that first came into his cheek when any
thing indecent was enacted comes no
more to his cheek. Farewell, young
mani You have probably started on
the long road which ends in consum-
mate destruction. The stars of hope
will go out one by one, until you will
be left in utter darkness. Hear
you not the rush of the maelstroz,
in whose outer circle your boat
now dances, making merry with the
whirling waters? But you are being
drawn in, and the gentle motion will
become terrific agitation. You cry for
help. In vain! You pull at the oar to
put back, but the struggle will not
avail You will be tossed, and dashed,
and shipwrecked, and swallowed in the
whirlpool that has already crushed in
| its wrath ten thousand hulks. Young
men who have just come in from country
residence to city residence will do well
to be on guard, and let no one induce
you to places of improper amusement.
1t is nightly alluring when young
man, long citizen, offers to show a
newcomer all around.
Still further; those amusements are
wrong which lead you into expenditure
beyond your means. Money spent in
recreation is not thrown away. 1t is
all folly for us. to come from place of
amusement feeling that we have wasted
our money and time. You may by it
have made an investment worth more
than the transaction that yielded you
hundreds of thousands of dollars But
how many properties have been riddled
| by costly amusements.
The first time I ever saw the city-it
was the city of Philadelphia was a
mere lad. 1 stopped at a hotel, and 1
remember in the even-tide one of these
men piled me with his internal art He
show me the sights of the town.
He painted the path of sin until
it looked like emerald; but l was
afraid of him. l showed back from
the basilisk-I made up my mind he
was basilisk. 1 remember how he
wheeled his chair round in front of me,
and with concentered and diabolical
effort, attempted to destroy my soul;
but there were good angels in the air
that night. 1t was no good resolution
on my part, but it was the all-encom-
passing grace of a good God that deliv-
cred me. Beware! beware! oh, young
man. There is a way that seemeth
right into a man, but the end thereof is
death. The table has been robbed to
pay the club. The champagne has
cheated the children's wardrobe. The
carousing party has burned up the
boys primer. The tablecloth of the
corner saloon is in debt to the
wifes faded dress. Excursions that in
a day make tour around whole
months wages; ladies whose lifetime
business is to ''go shopping;" large bets
on horses, have their counterparts in
uneducated children, bankruptcies that
shock the money market and appall the
church; and that sends drunkenness
staggering across the richly-fgured
carpet of the mansion, and dashing
into the mirror, and drowning out the
carol of music with the whooping of
bloated sons come up to break their old
mothers heart.
I saw a beautiful home, where the
bell rang violently late at night. The
son had been off in sinful indulgences.
His comrades were bringing him home.
They carried him to the door. They
rang the bell at one o'clock in the
morning. Father and mother came
down. They were waiting for the
wandering son, and then the comrades,
as soon as the door was opened, threw
the prodigal headlong into the floor.
way, crying: ''There he is, drunk as a
fool. Ha, hap When men go into
amusements that they can not afford
they first borrow what they can not
earn, and then they steal what they
can not borrow. First they go into EN-
barrassment, and then into lying, and
then into theft; and when a man gets
as far on as that, he does not stop short
of the penitentiary. There is not q
prison in the land where there are not
victims of unsanctified amusements.
Merchant of Brooklyn or New York
is there disarrangement in your &C.
counts? Is there a leakage in youl
ruouavy d,-oxuorC hid not +ba a,~l -