The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-06-24

tain cardinal principles. First, you
may Judge Of any amusement by its
healthful result or by its baneful reac-
ton. There are people who seem made
up of hard facts. They are a combina-
ton of multiplication tables and sta
tistics. If you show them an exQuis-
fte picture, they will begin TO discuss
the pigments involved in the coloring;
if you show them a beautiful rose,
they will submit it to a botanical an
alysis, which is only the post mortem
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 reverbrating
laughter. They seem as II nature nao
built them by contract and MADE a
bungling job out Of 1t. But, blessed be
Tod there are people in the world VINO
have bright faces and whose life is a
song. an anthem, a paen of victory.
Even their troubles are like the vines
that crawl up the side of a great tower
on the top Of which the sunlight sits
and the soft airs of summer hold per-
petual carnival. They are the people
you like to have come to your house;
they are the people I like to ave come
to my house. Now it is these exhil-
arant and sympathetic and warm
hearted people that are most tempted
to perniciOus amusementS. In proper
ton as a ship is swift it wants a strong
helmsman; in proportion as a horse is
gay it wants a strong driver, and these
people of exuberant nature will do well
to look at the reaction of all their
a~musements. If an amusement sends
you home at night nervou so you can
not sleep, and you rise in the morning,
not because you are slept out, but be-
| cause your duty drags you from your
slumbers, you have been where you
| ought not to ave been. There are
amusements hat send a m next day
to work bloOdshOt, yawning, stupid,
| n~auseated and they are wrong kinds Of
! amusements. There are entertainments
that give a man disgust with the druid
| gerry of life, with tools because they are
not swords, with working aprons be-
cause they are not robes, with cattle
because they are not Infatuated bulls
Of the arena. If any amusement sends
you home longing for a life of romance
and thrilling adventure, love that takes
poison and shoots itself. moonlight ad-
ventures, and hairbreadth escapes, you
may depend upon it that you are the
sacrificed victim of unsanctified pleas
ure. 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 conclu-
ion that they are obnoxious.
Still further, those amusements are
wrong which lead into expenditure be-
yOnd means. Money spent in recrea-
ton is not thrown away. 1t is all fol-
ly for us to come from a place of amuse-
ment feeling that we have wasted our
money and time. You may by it have
mad an investment worth more than
the transaction hat yielded you 500
or 81, 600. But how many properties
have been riddled by costly amuSe-
ments? The table has been robbed to
pay the club. The champagne has
cheated the children's wardrobe. The
%carousing party has burned up the
boys primer. The tablecloth of the
corner saloon is in debt to the wife's
faded dress-excurisons that in a day
makes a tour around a whole months
wages; ladies whose lifetime business
it is to "gO shopping" have their cOun-
terpart in uneducated children, bank
ruptcieS that shock the money market
and appall the church aud that send
drunkenness staggering across the rich
ly figured carpets of the mansion and
dashing into the mirror and dawning
out the carol of music with the whoop-
ing of bloated sons come home to break
their old mothers heart. When men
go into amusements that they canno
afford, they first borrow what they
cannot earn, and then steal what they
cannot borrow. First they go into en-
barrassment and then into theft, and
when a man gets as far on as that he
does not stop short of the penitentiary.
There is not a prison in the lam where
there are not victims Of unsanctified
amusements. How often I have had
parents come to me and ask me to &C
and beg the boy off from the conse-
quence of crimes that he had commit
ted against his employer-the taking Of
; funds out of the employers till OF the
disarrangement of the accounts. Why
he had salary enough to a all Lawful
expenditure, but not enough salary tC
meet his sinful amusements. And agair
and again I have gone and implored fol
the young man-sOmetimes, alas, the
petition unavailing!
How brightly the path of unrestrain.
ed amusement opens! The young mar
says: Now I am off for a good time
Never min economy. I'll get money
somehow. What a fine road! What a
beautiful day for a ride. Crack the
whip, and over the turnpike! Come
boys, fill high your glasses! Drink!
Long life, health, plenty of rides just
like this!" Handwriting men hear the
why I wonder where those fellows
get their money from. We have to toll
and drudge. They do nothing" TIC
these gay men life is a thrill and an ex-
element. They stare at other people
and in turn are stared at. The watch
chain jingles. The cup foams. The
cheeks flush. The eyes flash. The mid
night hears their guffaw. The swag-
ger. They jOstle decent men off the
sidewalk. They take the name Of God
in vain. They parody the hymn they
learned at their mothers knee, and to
all pictures Of coming disaster they cry
out, who cares!" and to the counsel
of some Christian friend. who are
you?" Passing along the street some
night you hear a shrek in a gropshop.
the rattle of the watchman's club, the
rush of the police. What is the matter
now? Oh, this rockies young man ha
been killed in a grogshop fight. Garry
him home to his fathers house. Parents
will come down and wash his wounds
and close his eyes in death. They for.
Civ him all he ever did. though he
cannot in silence ask it. The prodiga
has got home at last Mother will go t.
her little garden and get the sweetest