Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-06-27

In the following Rev. T. Dewitt Tai
mage discusses amusements, and APP
plies tests by which their character
may be decided. The text is:
And it came to pass, when their hearts were
merry, that they said Call for Samson, that
he may make US sport. And they called for
Samson out Of the prison house; and he mace
them sport.-Judges xvi. Is.
There were 5000 persons assembled
in the Temple of Dagon. They had
come to make sport of eyeless Samson.
They were all ready for the entertain
ment. They began to clap and pound,
impatient for the amusement to begin,
and they cried: "Fetch him out! Fetch
him out!" Yonder / see the blind old
giant coming, led by the hand OF a
child into the very midst of the temple.
AT his first appearance there goes up a
shout of laughter and derision. The
blind old giant pretends he is tired and
wants to rest himself against the pillars
of the house, so he says to the lad who
leads him: Bring me where the main
pillars are" The lad does so. Then the
strong man puts his hands on one OF
the pillars, and, with the mightiest
push that mortal ever made, throws
himself forward until the whole
house comes down in thunderOus crash,
grinding the audience like grapes in a
winepress. 'And so it came to pass,
when their hearts were merry, that
they said: Call for Sampson, that he
may make sport" And they called for
Samson out of the prison house; and
he made them sport. In other words,
there are amdsements that are destruc-
tive and bring down disaster and death
upon the heads of those who practice
them. While they laugh and cheer
they die. The 5000 who persisted that
day in GAIA are nothing compared
with the tens of thousands who have
been destroyed, body, mind and soul,
by bad amusements and by good amuse-
ments carried to excess.
In my sermons you must have no.
ticed that l have no sympathy with
ecclesiastical straight-jackets, or with
that wholesale denunciation of amuSe-
ments to which many are pledged. I
believe the church of God has made
tremendous mistake in trying to sup
press the sportfulness of youth and
drive out from men their love of amuse.
ments. If God ever implanted anything
in 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 it. AS in a riot
the mayor plants battery at the
end of the street and has it fred
off so that everything is cut down
that happens to stand in the range, the
good as well as the bad, so there are
men in the church who plant their
batteries of condemnation and fire
away indiscriminately. Everything is
condemned. They talk as if they would
like to have our youth dress in blue
uniform, like the children of an orphan
asylum and march down the path of
life to the tune of the Dead March in
Saul. They hate blue sash, or rose
bud in the hair, or a tasseled gaiter,
and think a man almost ready for the
lunatic asylum who utters a conun-
drum.
Young Mems Christian associations
of the country are doing glorious
work. They have fine readiug rooms,
and all the influences are of the best
kind, and are now adding gymnasiums
and bowling alleys, where, without any
evil surroundings, our young men may
get physical as we'll as spiritual inn
provement. We are dwindling away
to narrow-chested, weak-armed, fee
ble-voiced race, when God calls to a
work in which He wants physical as
well as spiritual athletes. would to
God that the time might socn come
when in all our colleges and theo-
logical seminaries, as at Prince
ton, a gymnasium shall be estab-
lished We spend seven years of hard
study in preparation for the ministry,
and come out with bronchitis and
dyspepsia and liver complaint, and
then crawl up into the pulpit, and the
people say: "Dont he look heavenly"
because he looks sickly. Let the
church of God direct, rather than at
tempt to suppress, the desire for
amusement. The best men that the
world ever knew have had their sports.
William Wilberforce trundled hoop
with his children. Martin Luther
helped dress the Christmas tree. Min.
listers have pitched quoits, philanthro-
pists have gone a-skating, prime min
listers have played ball.
Our communities are filed with men
and women who have in their souls un.
measured resources for sportfulness
and frolic. Show me man who never
lights up with sportfulness and has no
sympathy with the recreatlons of 9th
ers, and will show you man who is
umbling block to the kingdom of
God. Such men are caricatures of re-
ligion. They lead young people to
think that a man is good in proper
ton as he groans and frowns and looks
sallow, and that the height of a mans
Christian stature is in proportion to the
length of his face. l would trade OFF
500 such men for one bright-faced, radi-
ant Christian on whose face are the
words: Rejoice evermorep Every
morning by his cheerful face he
breaches so sermons. l will go further
and say that L have no confidence in a
man who makes religion of his