Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-16


you give him may meet lawful expenditures.
| but not the sinful Indulgence in which he has
entered, and he takes by theft that which you
| do not give him in lawful salary.
How brightly the path of unrestrain ed
| amusement opens. The young man says,
Now am of for a good time. Never mind
economy, FL get money somehow. What
| fine road! What a beautiful day for ridel
| Crack the whip. and over the turnpike! Come,
| boys. MI high your glasses. Drink! Long lie,
! health. plenty of rides Just like thisI' Hard
| working men hear the clatter of the hoofs, ana
| look up ana say, "Why. wonder where those
fellows get their money from! We have to toll
men life is thrill and an excitement They
stare at other people. and in turn are
stared at. The watch chain jim
! giles. The cup foams. The cheeks
their gutfaw. They swagger. They Jostle de-
cent men of the sidewalk. They take the name
of God in vain. They parody the hymn they
| learned at their mothers knee; and to all pct
| ures Of coming disaster they cry out. who
cares!" and to the counsel of some Christian
| friend. who are your Passing along the
street some night, you hear a shrek in a grog-
| shop. the rattle of the watchman's club the
rush of ;he police. What is the matter now?
| Oh, this reckless young man has been killed IN
| a grog shop fight. Carry him home to his faith
! er's house. Parents will come down and wash
| his wourds and close his eyes in death. They
forgive him all he ever did, although he cannot
in his silence ask it. The prodical has got home
at last Mother will go td her little garden,
and get the sweetest flowers, and twist them
into chapet for the silent heart of the way
ward boy, and push back from the bloated brow
| the long locks that were once her pride. And
| the air will be rent with the agony. The great
| dramatiSt says "How sharper than serpents
! tooth il is to have a thankless child"
go further, and say those are unchristian
amusemeHts which become the chief business
| of 4 mans life Life is an earnest thing.
Whether we were born in palace or hovel;
| whether we are affiueut or pinched we have to
| work. Ii you do not sweat with toll, you will
sweat with disease You have soul that is TO
be tranStgured amidst the pomp of Judgment
day; and after the sea has sung its last chant,
and the mountain shall have come down IN an
avalanche of rock. you will live and think'and
act. high on throne where seraphs sing or
deep in dungeon where demons howl. In a
world where there is so much 10 do for your
selves and so much to do for others, God pity
that man who has nothing to do.
The Real Purpose of Amusement
Your sports are merely means to an end.
They are alterations and helps. The arm of
toll is the only arm strong enough to bring up
the buckle: out of the deep well of pleasure.
Amusement is only the bower where business
and philanthropy rest while on their way to
stirring achievements. Amusements are merely
tile vines that grow about the anvil of toll and
the blossoming OF the hammers. Alas for the
man who spends his life in laboriously doing
nothing his days in hunting up lounglng
places and loungers, his nights in seeking out
some gas-lighted foolery! The man who al
ways has on his sporting jacket. ready to hunt
for game in the mountain or fish in the brook.
with time 10 pray, or work or read. is not SO
well off as the greyhound that runs by his side
or the fiy bait with which he whips the stream.
\ man who does not work does not know how
to play. If God had intended us to do nothing
but laugh he would not have given us shoulders
with which to lift, and hands with which to
work, and brains with which to think. The
amusemeuts of life are merely the orchestra
playing while the great tragedy of life plunges
through its five acts-infanCy, childhood, man.
hood. old age and death. Then exit the last
earthly opportunity. Enter the overwhelming
realities of an eternal world!
go further. and say thai all those amuse-
ments are wrong which lead into bad company.
II you go to any placD where you have TO assG-
cIate with the lntemperate, with the uncear,
with the abandoned, however well they may be
dressed, in the name of God quitit. They wilt
despOil your ture. They Nlll undermine your
moral character They will drop you when you
are destroyed. They will give not ! cent to
suppOr- your children when you are dead.
They will weep not one tear at yonr burial.
They will chuckle over your damnation.
/ had friend at the West-a rare friend. He
WAS enc of the first to welcome me to my new
home. 70 fine personal appearance he added
a generosity. frankness, and ardor of nature
that made me low nim like a brother. But l
saw evil peopI. gathering around him. They
came up from The Saloons. from the gambling
hells They piled him with a thousand arts.
They seized upon his SOCIAL nature and he
could not stand the charm. They drove him on
the rocks. like ship full-wingei, shiveTing on
the breakers. l used to admonish him. l
",
bad habits and become Christian" "Oh," he
would reply. Il would like to; would like to;
but have gone so far don't think there is any
way back In his moments of repentance, he
would 20 home and take his little girl of
years. and embrace her convulsively, and cover
her with adornments. and strew around her
pictures and toys, and everything that could
make her happy; and then, as though bounded
10y evil spirit, he would go out to the en-
flaming cup and the house of shame, like fool
10 the correction of the stocks.
Another Good Test in Choosing.
Again: Any amusement that gives you dis
taste for domestic life is bad. How many
bright domestic circles have been broken up by
sinful amusemenls! The father went off, the
mother went off, the child went off, There are
to-day The fragments before me of blasted |
households Oh, if you have wandered away |
would like to charm you back by the sound of |
tnat one word "home." Do you not know that |
you have but little more time to give to domes- |
tic welfare? DO you not see, father, that your |
children soon to go out into the world, and |
all the influence for good you are to have over |
them Won must have now? Death will break in |
oil your coniugal relations. and alas if you |
have to stand over the grave of one who per- |
iShed from your neglect!
saw a hayward husband standing at the |
the death-bed af his Christian wife, and 1 saw |
her point TO a ring on her finger, and heard her
say TO her husband, DO you see that ring?' |
He replied, Yes, see it," "Wen" said she, |
do you remember vino put it there?' "Yes," /
said he. 81 put IL there and all the past |
seemed to rush upon him. By the memory of |
that day when, in the presence of men and |
angels, you promised to be faithful in joy and |
sorrow, and in sickness and in health; by the |
memory of those pleasant hours when you sat /
together in your new home talking of brighs
future: by the cradle and the joyful hour
when one life was spared and another given;
by that sick-bed, when the little one
lifted up the hands and called for
help, and you knew he must die, and
he put one arm around each of your necks. and
brought you very near together in that dying
kiss; by the little grave in Greenwood that you
never think OF without a rush of tears; by the
family Bible, where, amid stories of heavenly
and deaths; by the neglects of the past, and by
the agonies OF the future: by judgment day,
when husbands and wives, parents and children,
III immortal groups, will stand to be caught up
in shining array, or to shrink down into dark
ness; by all that, beg you give to home your
best affections.
An, ny friends, there is an hour coming
when our past life will probably pass before us
in review. 1t will be our last hour Ii from
our death-pillow we have to look back and see
a life spent in sinful amusement, there will be
a dart that will strike through our soul sharper
than the dagger with which Virginius slew his
child. The memory of the past will make us
ing through which we have passed will come
upon us weird and skeleton as Meg MerrilIes.
Death, the old Shylock will demand and take
the remaining pound of flesh and the remain
ing drop of blood: and upon our last opDor
tunity for repentance and our last chance for
heaven, the curtain will drop forever.
LOCATING THE TURN FEST