Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1898-07-21

YOU are slept out, but because your duty
drags you from your slumbers, you have
been where you ought not to have been.
There are amusements that send man
next day to his work bloodshot, yawning,
stupid, nauseated, and they are wrong
kinds sofamusements. There are entertain
nents that give man disgust with the
drudgery of life, with tools because they
are not swords, with working aprons be-
cause they are not robes, with cattle because
they are not infuriated bulls of the arena.
II any amusement sends you home longing
for life OF romance and thrilling adven-
ture, love that takes poison and shoots IT.
self, moonlight adventures and hair
breadths escapes, you may depend upon it
that you are the sacrificed victim OF un-
sanctiiled pleasure. Our recreations are
intended to build US up, and II they pull us
strength, you may come to the conclusion
that they are obnoxioHs.
Still further: Those amusements are
wrong which lead into expenditure beyond
your means. Money spent 10 recreation is
not thrown away. 1t is all folly for us to
come from a place OF amusement feeling
that we have wasted our money and time.
You may by 1t have made an investment
worth more than the transaction that
Welded you hundred or thousand dol
lars. But how many properties have been
riddlel by costly amusement? The table
mas D6Gu IODUti tO pay LILO CluU. 1u0
champagne has cheated the children's
wardrobe. The carousing party has burned
up the boys primer. The table cloth Of the
corner saloon is in debt to the wife's faded
dress. Excursions that in a day make
tour around whole months wages; ladies
whose lifetime business it is tc ego shop
ping, "have their counterpart in uneduca-
ted children, bankruptcies that shock the
money market and appall the church, and
that send drunkenness staggering across
the richly figured carpet of the mansion and
dashing into the mirror, and drowning out
the carol of music with the whooping of
bloated sons come home to break their old
mothers heart. when men go into amuse-
ments that they cannot afford. they first
borrow what they cannot earn, and then
they steal what they cannot borrow. First
they go into embarrassment and then into
theft, and when man gets as far on as
that he does not stop short of the peniten-
tiary. There Is not prison in the land
where there are not victims of unsanctifed
amusements. How often I have had par
ents come to me and ask me to go and beg
their boy off from the consequence of
crimes that he had committed against his
employerzthe taking of funds out of the
empoyers till, or the disarrangement of
accounts! Why, he had salary enough to
pay all lawful expenditure, but not enough
salary to meet his sinful amusements.
And again and again have gone and i'm
plored for the young man-sometimes,
alas! the petition unavaiing.
How brightly the path of unrestrained
amusement opens! The young man says:
"Now / am off for good time. Never
mind economy; I'll get money somehow.
What fine road! What a beautiful day
for q ride Crack the whip and over the
turnpike! Come boys, FIJI high your glassesl
Drink! Long life, health, plenty OF rides
just like thisl'' Hard working men hear
the clatter of the hoofs and look up and
say, why, l wonder where those fellows
get their money from. We have to toll and
drudge. They do nothing" To these gay
men life is thrill and an excitement.
They stare at other people and in turn are
stared at. The watch-chain jingles. The
cup foams. The cheeks flush, the eyes
fash. The midnight hears their guffaw.
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 your" Passing
along the street some night you hear u
shrek in grog-shop, the rattle of the
watchman's club, the rush of the police.
What is the matter now? oh, this reckless
Young man has been killed in a grog- -shor
fight. Carry him home to his fathers
house. Parents will come down and wash
his wounds and close his eyes in death.
They forgive him all he did, though he
cannot in his silence ask it. The prodigal
has got home at last. Mother will go to
her little garden and get the sweetest
flowers and twist them into a ehaplet for
the silent heart of the wayward boy and
push back from the bloated brow the long
locks that were once aer pride. And the
air will be rent with the fathers cry: "Oh,
my SON, my son, my poor son; would God
1 had died for thee, oh, my son, my son!'
You may judge of amusements by their
effect upon physical health. The need of
many good people is physical recupera-
tion. There are Christian men who write
hards things against their immortal souls
when there is nothing the matter with
them except an incompetent liver. There
are Christian people who seem to think it
is good sign to be poorly, and because
Richard Baxter and Robert Hall were in
valids they think by the same sickness they
may come to the same grandeur OF charac-
ter. want to tell Christian people that
God will hold you responsible for Your in
validism II 1t 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 acknowledge,
Put man of mild disposition upon the an
imal diet OF which the Indian partakes, and
in little while his blood will change its
chemical proportions. It will become like
the bear, while his disposition will change
and become fierce, cruel and unrelentng.
The body has powerful effect upon the
soul. There are people whose ideas of
Heaven are all shut out with clouds of to-
bacco smoke. There are people who dare
to shatter the physical vase in which God
put the jewel OF eternity. There are men
with great hearts and intellects In bodies
worn out by their own neglects. Magnificent
machinery capable OF propelling the great
Etruria across the Atlantic, vet fastened In
a rickety North River propeller. Physical
development which merely shows itself In
a fabulous lifting, or in perilous rope walk
ing, or in pugilistic encounter. excites only
our contempt, but we confess to great
for man who has a great soul
in an athletic body, every nerve, muscle
and bone Of which is consecrated to right
uses. Oh, it seems to me outrageous that
men through neglect should allow their
health to go down beyond repair,
spending the rest of their lives not In some
great enterprise for God and the world,
but In studying what Is the best thing to
take for dyspepsia. A ship which ought
with all sails set and every man at his post
to be carrying a rich cargo for eternity
employing all its men in stopping up leak
ages! When you may through some OF the
popular and healthful recreations OF our
time work of your spleen and your quer-
lon nd ~