The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-06-24

styles OF amusement good and bad,
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 it's bapeful
reaction. There are people who seem
made up of hard facts. They are
combination of multiplicat Uu 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 IL to botanical
analysis, which is only the post-mor-
tenn examination of a 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 billow after billow of
reverberating laughter. They seem
as If nature had built them by con-
tract and made a bunRling job out of
IL. But, blessed be God, there are
people in the world who have bright
faces and whose life is song, an
anthem, 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 have come
to your house; they are the people l
like to have come to my house Now
IL is these exhilarant and sympathetic
and warm-hearted people that are
most tempted to pernicious amuse-
ments. In proportion as a ship is
Cxyift N Of hahn, In
PROPORTION as horse is gay it wants a
strong driver; and these people of exu-
berant nature will do well to look at
the reaction of all their amusements
If an amusement sends you home at
night nervous SO you cannot sleep. and
you rise in the morning, not because
you are slept out, but because your
duty drags you from your sfumb ers,
you have been where you ought not TO
have been. There are amusements
that send a man next day to his work
bloodshot, yawning. stupid, nauseat-
ed, and they are wrong kinds of amuse-
ments. There are entertainments that
give man disgust with the drudgery
of life, with tools because they are not
swords. with working aprons because
they are not robes, 18th cattle because
they are not Infatuated bulls of the
arena. If any amusement sends you
home longing for life of romance
and thrilling adventure, love that
takes poison and shoots itself moon
light adventures and hairbreadth es-
capes, you may depend upon it that
you are the sacrificed victim of un-
sanctitied pleasure. Our recreations
are intended to build us up, and if they
pull us down as to our moral or as TO
our physical strength, you may come
to the conclusion that they are OBJ
noxious.
You may Judge of amusements by
their effect upon physical health. The
need of many good people is physical
recuperation. There are Christian
men who write hard things against
their immortal souls when there is
nothing the matter with them but an
incompetent liver. There are Chris
tian people who seem to think that it
is good sign to be poorly, and be-
cause Richard Baxter and Robert Hall
were invalids they think that by the
same sickness they may come to the
same grandeur of character. want to
tell Christian people that God will hold
you responsible for your invalidism IL
IL is your own fault, and when through
right exercise and prudence you might
be athletic and we'll. The effect of
the body upon the soul you acknowl-
edge. Put a man of mild disposition
upon the animal diet of which the In
dian partakes, and in little while
his blood will change it's chemical
proportions 1t will become like unto
the blood of the lion, or the tiger, or
the bear, while his disposition will
change and become fierce, cruel and
unreleu;ing. The body has a power
full effect upon the soul. There are
people whose ideas of Heaven are all
shut out with clouds of tobacco smoke.
There are people who dare to shatter
the physical vase in which God put
the jewel of eternity.
Again, Judge of the place of amuse-
ment by the companionship into which
they put you. If you belong to an or
ganization where you have to associate
with the Incorporate, with the un-
clean, with the abandoned, however
well they may be dressed. in the name
of God quit it. They will spoil your
nature. They will undermine your
moral character They will drop you
when you are destroyed. They will
not give you one cent to support your
children when you are dead. They
will weep not one tear at your
burial. They will chuckle over your
damnation. But the day comes when
the men who have eXerted evil influ-
ence upon their fellows will be
brought to judgment. Scene: the last
day. Stage: the rocking earth. Enter
dukes, lords, kings, beggars, clowns.
No sword. No tinsel. No crown. For
footlights, the kindling flames of
world. For orchestra, the trumpets
that wake the dead For gallery the
clouds filed with angel spectators.
For applause, the clapping floods of
the sea. For curtains, the heavens
rolled together as a scroll. For