The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-22
ETHICS OF THE WHEEL,
DR.. Graft Says the Bicycle Is a
GodSend and a Moral
Agent.
On the Sabbath, Though, It May B..
come a Pew.Emptying
Machine.
OAKLAND OFFICE SAN FRANCISCO CALL,
Drnnrtrrrn

9OS Broadway, June u. }
This evening at the Twenty-frst-street
Free Baptist Church the pastor, Rev.
Philip Graft, preached on "The Ethics OF
the Wheel" He said: "This is, perhaps,
not so much the age of newspapers, cleo
tricity and the gold debate as it is OF
wheels, whether of steamcar or factory,
sewing machine or bicycle. From time to
time various recreation crazes have cooled
off and vanished, but evidently cycling is
not passing fad-the quirk or toy OF
a day. Is the wheel an agency for
good or ill-which? What are its moral
uses? If this style of sport helps to
brighten the lack-luster eye, fill out the
hollow cheek, exhiarate the sluggish limb
and recuperate the outworn brain and
he art. it is no small hygienic boon both to
body and soul. To neglect physical self
cul ture Is not only to remain unsymmetr1-
cal in development, but to lack the best
elements of moral vitality and magnet
ism.
FOR the young especially the bicycle
seems q godsend, inasmuch as it utilizes
pent-up energies which otherwise might
find vent in unnatural ways. Overlooking
animal spirits, unless held in leash and
paths. Athletics are safer than an un-
guarded imagination lolling in ease and
luxury. 1t is less risk to punt a football
or sprint wheel than to leave the pruri-
ent and pampered flesh to its unholy de-
vices.
1.-THE best way to keep the veins red
blooded and the mind a-sparkle is in right
measure to WOO the delights and freedom
of outdoor exercise. The new-fangled
vehicle not only relaxes the overwrought
nerve and unwrinkles the knit brow, but
gives to the cheek a roster tint and teaches
the veins TO run with a deeper crimson
and a happier food. 1t is too often the
sedentary body that breeds sickly fancies
and paints religion in unhappy hues. To
get away now and then from the smoke
hung, roaring City into broad azure hori-
IONS and dewy grass and green woods and
swells of bird song is to the humdrum
tethered toiler no small blessing.
ION a pneumatic steed, in park and
glen, to seek sweet release from dust and
din, is a freeman's privilege and JOY.
When man once becomes the mere acct
dent of his workshop or countlng-room
he is a slave, no matter if his yoke
be OF gold or iron. Certainly if the bicycle
will cure our American nervousness, it
will prove desira Die step in the evolution
and dignity of our National TEN permanent.
"But while the benefit of bicvcle-ridine,
IN many respects, is great, there are all
too visible, some grave perils. So long as
it is not overdone, or does not infringe,
with libertine hand on the sacred uses of
the Lord S day, it fulfills high mission.
Better let every day in the week sweat
and groan under the whip than turn Sun
day into a cinder path or into a parade
ground. Bicycle larks on the Sabbath are
not accepted yet as the best method for
training youth in morals or greatness.
Loud as may have been the pulpit 8
thunder against wheel carpivals on Sun
days, the sane bicycle is not a pew
emptying machine, but an instrument
that makes the mind hungry for truth and
the heart eager for the affairs OF religion.
| Much as the bigoted Puritan has been
pricked and ridiculed in this fin de steele
age, the moral sense nastens to prefer the
straitlaced biue-law maker to the bicycle
fend sc0rching round the racetrack and
marring Sundays rest and sanctity. No
matter how much good the wheel may do
as factor in physical culture, it cannot
afford, in the long run, to ignore or out
rage that higher civilization which grows
out of mans moral ideals and Sunday
worship"