Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-04-03
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN
DAY SERMON.
subject: 'tBalefuI Amuscments,.

TEXT: Let the yo1tng men now nria
ana play before ats."-II Samuel, H., a.
F. There are two armies encamped bv tn.
pool OF Gibeon. The time hangs heavily or
ttneH names. One army proposes a game OF
sword fencing. Nothing could be more
thealthful and innocent. The other army &C
cepts the challenge. Twelve men against
Twelve men, the sport opens. But something
went adversely. Perhaps one of the swords
men got an unlucky clip, or in some way hao
his Ire aroused and nat which opened in
sportfulness ended in v1oIence, each one tax
ing his contestant by the hair, and then with
the sword thrusting him in the side, 50 that
that which opened in innocent fun ended m
the massacre of all the twenty-four sports
men. Was there a better illustration
of what was true then, and is true now, that
that which is innocent may be made de-
structive?
What OF worldly nature is more i'm
portant and strengthening and innocent than
amusement, and yet what has counted more
victims? have no sympathy with a straight
jacket religion. This is very bright world
to me, and propose to do ell | can to make
it bright for others.
l never could keep step to dead march.
A book years ago issued says that Chris
tan man has a right to some amusements.
For instance, if he comes home at night
weary from his work and feeling in need OF
recreation, puts on his slippers, and goes into
his garnet and walks lively round the floor
several times there can be no harm IN it. |
believe the church OF God has made ire
mendOus mistake in trying to suppress the
spOrtfulness Of youth and drive out from
men their love Of amusement. LIZ God ever
implanted anything il US he implanted this
desire.
But instead Of providing for this demand
Of our nature, the church of God has, for the
main part, ignored 1t. AS In a riot the
mayor plants battery at the end OF the
street, and has it fired off so that everything
is cut down that happens to stand in the
range, the good as we'll as the bad, so there
are men in the church who plant their Dat
teries of condemnation and fire away indis-
crlmlnately. Everything is condemned.
But my Bible commends those who use the
world without abusing it, and in the natural
world God has done everything toplease and
an1use u.s. In poetic figures we sometimes
speak of natural objects as being in pain,
but it is mere fancy. Poets say the clouds
weep, but they never yet shed tear; and
the winds sight but they never did have
it never lost its temper. The world Is a
rose, and the universe a garland.
| am glad to know that in all our cities
there are plenty Of places where we may find
elevated, moral entertainment. But all
honest men and good women will agree with
me in the statement that one Of the worst
plaques OF these cities is corrupt amusement
Multitudes have gone down under the blast
ing influence never to rise. Ii we may judge
of what is going on in many of the places of
amusement by the Sodon1ic pictures on
board fences and IN many of the show
windows, there is not a much lower depth Of
profigacy to reach. At Naples Italy, they
keep such pictures locked up from indis-
criminate inspection. These pictures were
exhumed from POmpeii and are not fit for
public gaze. If the effrontery of bad places
of amusement in handing out improper ad-
vertisements OF what they are doing night
by night grows worse in the same proper
ton, in fifty years New York and Brooklyn
will beat not only Pompeii, but Sodom.
To help stay the plague now raging pro-
ject certain principles by which you may
judge in regard to any amusement or re-
creation, finding out for yourself whether it
Is right or whether it Is wrong.
remark in the first place that you can
judge of the moral character of any amuse-
ment by its heathful result or by its baleful
reaction. There are people who seem made
up of hard facts. They are a combination Of
multiplication tables and statistics. If you
show them an exquisite picture they will be-
gin to discuss the pigments involved in the
colOring. If you show them a beautiful rose
they win submit it to botanical analysis
which is only the post-mortem examination
Of q flower. They have no rebound in their
nature. They never do anything more than
smile. There are no great tides of feeling
surging up from the depths OF their soul in
billow alter billow of reverberating laugh
ter. They seem as if nature had built them
by contract and made bungling job of it.
But, blessed be God, there are people in the
NOt1u "nO HdNS Ae1CeS, anu WHOSE 1A0
is a song, an anthem, paean of victory.
Even their troubles are like the vines that
crawl up the side of great tower, on the top
of which the sunlight sits, and the soft air
of summer hold perpetual carnival. They
are the people you like to have come to your
house; they are the people | like to have
come to my house. If you but touch the
hem Of their garments you are healed.
Now it is these exhilarant and sympathe-
tic and warm hearted people that most
fonntp1 aOnIS0mPnfS m
portion a ship is swift it wants a strong
helmsnan; in proportion as horse is gay,
it wants a stout driver; and these people Of
exuberant nature will do we'll to look at the
reaction of all their amusements. If an
amusement sends you home at night nervous
so that you cannot sleep, and you rise UP in
the morning, not because you are slept out,
but because your duty drags you from your
slumners, you have been where you ought
not to have been. There are amusements
that send a man next day to his work blood
shot, yawnng, stupid, llauseated; and they
are wrong kinds of amusement. They are
entertainments that give man disgust with
the drudgery of bfe, 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 longing
for a life of romance and thrilling adventure,
love that takes poison and shoots itself,
moonlight adventures and hair breadth es-
capes, you may depend upon it that you are
the sacrificed victim of unsanctitied pleasure.
Our recreatons are intended to build 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 obnoxious.
There is nothing more depraving than at