Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1898-07-29


the hiss of dragon? Why turn back
from the mountain-side all abloom
with wild flowers and adash with the
nimble torrents, and with blistered
feet attempt to climb the hot sides of
Cotopaxi?
Now, all opera houses, theaters,
bowling alleys, skating Kinks and all
styles of amusement, good and bad, l
put on trial to-day and judge of them
by certain cardinal principles. First,
you may judge of any amusement by
its healthful result or by its baneful
reaction. There are people who seem
made up OF hard faces. They are a
combination of multiplication tables
and statistics. If you show them an
exquisite picture they will begin to
discuss the pigments involved in the
coloring; if you show them beautiful
rose, they will submit 1t to a botanical
analysis, which is only the post
examination of flower. They never
do anything more than feebly smile.
There are no great tides of feeling
surging up from the depth of their
soul in bilow after billow of reverber-
ating laughter. They seem as if ma
ture had built them by contract and
made bungling job out of it, But,
blessed be to God, there are people in
the world who have bright faces and
whose life is song, an anthem, a
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
airs OF the summer hold perpetual
carnival, They are the people you
like to come to your house; they are
the people like to have come to my
house. Now it is these exhilarant
and sympathetic and warm-hearted
people that are most tempted to
pernicious amusements. In proportion
as n ship is swift it wants a strong
helmsman; in proportion as a horse is
gay it wants strong driver; and these
people of exuberant nature will do
well to look at the reaction of all their
amusements. II an amusement sends
you home at night nervous so you can
not sleep and you rise in the morning,
not because you are slept out,
bat because your duty drags
you from your slumbers, you
have been where you ought not
to have been. There are amuse-
mcnts that send man next day to
his work bloodshot, yawning, stupid,
nauseated, and they are wrong
kinds of amusements. There
are entertainments that give
a man disgust with the drudgery OF
life, with tools because they are not
swords, with working aprons because
they are not robes, with cattle be-
cause they are not Infatuated bulls oil
the arena. If any amusement sends
you home longing for life of romance
and thrilling adventure, love thai
takes poison and shoots itself, moon
light adventures and hairbreadth cs
capes, you may depend upon it thai
you are the sacrificed victim OF un
sanctiied pleasure. Our recreation'
are intended to build us up, and il they
pull us down as to our moral or as t.
our physical strength, you may come
to the conclusion that they are OBJ
noxious.
Still further; Those amusements are
wrong which lead into expenditure be
yond your means. Money spent il
recreation is not thrown away. 1t i
all folly for MS to come from place o
amusement feeling that we have WASTED
our money and time. You may by /
have made an investment worth NOR,
than the transaction which yielde,
you hundred or a thousand dollars
But how many properties have beel
riddled by costly amusements? TIL
table has been robbed to pay the club
The champagne has cheated til
children's wardrobe. The carousin
, party has burned up the boys primer
, The tablc-cloth Of the corner ST
loon is in debt to the wife's fade
, dress. Excursions that in a day max
a tour around whole months wages
ladies whose lifetime bushes it is t
; Ego shopping" have their counterpart
, in unedncated children, bankruptcies
, that shock the money market and 81
pail the church, and that send drunl
enness staggering across the richl'
figured carpet of the mansion an
dashing into the mirror, and drownin
out the carol of music with the whool
/ ing of bloated sons come home to brea
, their old mothers heart When me
a go into amusements that they ca
:, not afford, they first borrow whit
a they can not earn. and then the
=. steal what they can not borrow
r First they 20 into embarrassment
- and then into theft, and when ma
gets as far rs that he does not sto
, short of the penitentiary There
;. not prison in the land where thei
are not victims of unsanctificd anus
: ments. How often have had paren
come to me and ask me to go and be
their boy off from the consequence
n crimes that he had committed again
b. his cmployer-the taking of funds OF
S of the employers till or the disarrang
r ment Of the accounts! Why, he ha
o salary enough TO pay all lawful C
penditure, but not enough salary
IS meet his sinful amusements. Ar
If again and again have gone and il
;. plored for the young man-sometime
o alas, the petition unavaiing.
f. How brightly the path of unr
IS strained amusement opens! The your
"a man says: Now | am off for 90,
Ie time. Never mind economy; I'll g
f. money somehow. What a fine roa
i. What beautiful day for ride! era,
lie the whip, and over the turnpils
" Come, boys, fill high your glasst
Ie Drink Long life, health, plenty
n rides, just like this Hard workil
a men hear the clatter OF the hoofs al
is look up and say: "Why, wond
l. where those fellows get their mon,
If from. We have to toll and drude
m They do nothing To these gay M