The Yale expositor., 1898-06-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
PLEASURES OF LIFE" SUM-
DAYS SUBJECT.
From the rext Judges XVI; rs,
Follows: And 1t Came to Pass When
Their Hearts Were Merry That They
Said, Call for samson.''


had come to make sport of eyeless Sam
son. They were all ready for the enter
tainment. They began to clap and
pound, impatient for the amusement
to begin, and they cried, Fetch him
out! Fetch him Quit" Yonder see the
blind old giant coming, led by the
hand of child into the very midst or
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 I'M
til the whole house came down In thun-
derous crash, grinding the audience
like grapes in a wine-press. And so
1t 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 made them sport. In
other words there are amusements that
are destructive and bring down disaster
and death upon the heads of those who
practice them. While they laugh and
cheer. they die. The three thousand
who persisted that day in GAIA are
nothing compared with the tens OF
thousands who have been destroyed,
body, mind and soul by bad amuse-
ments and by good amusements carried
to excess.
In my sermons you must have no.
ticed that have no sympathy with &C.
clesiastcal strait-jackets, or with that
wholesale denunciation of amusements
to which many are pledged. l 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.
II 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 1t. AS in riot the
mayor plants a 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 batteries of
condemnation and fire away indiscrim-
inately. 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 "Deat March in Saul" They
hate a blue sash, or rosebud in the
hair, or a tasseled gaiter, and think
man almost ready for the lunatic asy-
lum who utters conundrum.
Young Mems Christian associations
of the country are doing a glorious
work. They have fine reading 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 well as spiritual inn
provement. We are dwirdling away to
a narrow-chested, weak-armed, feeble
voiced race, when God calls us to a
work in which he wants physical as
we'll as spiritual athletes. / would to
God that the time might soon come
when in all our colleges and theological
seminaries, as at Princeton, gymna-
Stun shall be established. We spend
seven years of hard study in prepare
ton for the ministry, and come out
with bronchitis aud dyspepsia and liver
complaint, and then crawl up into the
pulpit, and the people say, Don't he
look heavenly because he looks sick
ly. Let the church of God direct, rath-
er than attempt to suppress the de-
sire for amusement. The best men
that the world ever knew have had
their sports. William Wiberforce
trundled hoop with his children. Mar
tin Luther helped dress the Christmas
tree. Ministers have pitched quoits,
philanthropists have gone a-skating,
prime ministers have played ball
Our communities are filled with men
and women who have In their souls
unmeasured resources for sportfulness
and froiic. Show me a man who never
| lights up with sportfulness and has no
sympathy with the recreations of
who is a stumbling block to the king
dom of God. Such men arc caricatures
of religion. They lead young people to
think that man is good in proper
ton as he groans and frowns and looks
sallow, and that the height OF mans
Christian stature is In proportion to the
length of his face. I would trade of
five hundred such men for one bright
faced. radiant Christian on whose face
are the words, Rejoice eyermorei"
Every morning by his cheerful face he
breaches fifty sermons. l will go fur
Their and say that have no confidence
in a man who makes a religion Of mis-
gloomy looks. That kind Of a man al
ways turns out badly. l would not
want him for the treasurer OF an or
phan asylum. The orphans would suf-
fer.
Among forty people whom received
into the church at one communion.
there was only one applicant of whose
I