The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-08-30
WATERING PLACES.
Dr.. TaImage Draws Some Lessons
From Summer Outings.
DANGERS AND TEMPTATIONS
The Necessity For a Period OF
Inoccupation. No Surplus
Of Piety at those
piac0c
Places.

this discourse Of DR.. Talmage is sug-
gestive and appropriate 7 .c text is
John V, 2, 3: "A pool, which IS called
in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, hav-
ing FIVE porches. In these lay great
multitude of impotent folk, of blind,
halt, withered, waiting for the moving
of the water.
Outside the city Of Jerusalem there
was sanative watering place. the pop
ular resort for invalids. To this day
there IS dry basin OF rock which shows
that there may have been pool there
$50 feet long, l30 feet wide and - feet
deep. This pool was surrounded by
FIVE piazzas, or porches or bathing
houses, where the patients tarrleo until
the time when they were to step into the
water. So far as reinv:goratlDg was
concerned, it must have been Sarato-
ga aud Long Branch on small scale:
Leamington and Brighton combined
medical and therapeutic. Tradition
says that at certain season OF the Year
there was an officer of the government
who would 60 down to that water and
pour in it some healing quality, and
after that the people would come and
get the medication. But | prefer the
plain statement of Scripture, that at
certain season an angel came down and
stirred up or troubled the water, and
then the people came and got the heal
ing. That angel of God that stirred up
the J1daen watering place had his
counterpart in the angel Of healing who,
in our day, steps into the mineral water
of Congress or Sharon or Sulphur
Springs, or into the salt sea at Cape
May and Nahant. where multltudes
who are worn out with commercial and
Professional anxieties, as well as those
who arc aii.ctcd with rheumatic, neu-
ralgic and splenGtic diseases, go and are
cured by the thousands. These bless
ed Bethesdas are scattered ali up and
down our country.
We are at season Of the year when
rail trains are laden with passengers and
baggage on their way to the mountains
and the lakes and the seashore. Multi
tudes of our citizens are away for re-
storative absence. The city heats are
pursuing the people with torch and fear
Of sunstroke. The long, silent halls OF
sumptuous hotels are all abuzz with ex-
cited arrivals. The antlers Of Adiron-
dack deer rattle under the shot of city
sportsmen, the trout make fatal snap at
the hook of adroit sportsmen, who toss
their spotted brilliants into the game
basket; the baton of the orchestral lead
er taps the music stand on the hotel
green, and American life has put on fes-
tai array, and the rumbling Of the ten
pin alley, and the crack Of the ivory
balls on the green baized billiard tables,
and the jolting of the barroom goblets
and the explosive uncorking Of the
champagne bottles, and the whirl and
the rustic of the ballroom dance, and
the gathering hoofs of the race courses
and other signs Of social dissipation at
test that the season for the great Amer
ican watering places is in full play.
Music! Flute and drum and corret.a-
piston and clapping cymbals wake the
echoes of the mountains. Glad am |
thai tagged out American life for the
most part has an opportunity to rest
and that nerves racked and destroyed
will find Bethesda. I believe in wa
tering places. They recuperate for &C
tive service many who were worn out
with trouble or overwork. They are
national restoratiyes.
The first temptation that is apt to
hover in this direction is to leave your
piety at home. You will send the dog
and cat and canary bird to be well cared
for somewhere else, but the temptation
will be to leave your religion in the
room with the blinds down and the
doors bolted, and then you will come
back in the autumn to find that 1t IS
starved and sufocated, lying stretched
on the rug, stark dead. There is no
surplus of piety at the watering places.
I meyer knew any one to grow very rap
idly in grace at the Catskill Mountain
House or Sharon Springs or the Fails Of
Montmorency. Its generally the ca: e
that the Sabbath is more Of carousaI
than any other day, and there are Sun
day walks, and Sunday rides, and Sun
day excursions. Elders and deacons
and ministers Of religion who are en-
tirely consistent at home, sometimes
when the Sabbath dawns On them at
Niagara Falls or the White mountains
take day to themselves. If they go
to the church, it is apt to be sacred
parade, and the discourse, instead Of
being plain talk about the soul, is apt
to be what is called a crack sermon
that is, some discourse picked out Of
the illusions Of the year as the one
most adapted to excite admiration, and
in those churches, from the way the
ladies hold their fans, you know that
they are not so much impressed with
the heat as with the picturesqueness Of
half disclosed features. Four puny
souls stand in the organ loft and squall
tune that nobody knows, and worship
ers, with $1,000 worth Of diamonds on
the right hand, drop a cent into the
poer box, and then the benediction is
pronounced, and the farce is ended.
The toughest thing l ever tried 20 Go
was to be good ata watering place. The
air is bewitched with the world, the
flesh and the devil. There are Chris
tians who, in three or four weeks in
such place, have had such terrible
rents made in their Christian robe that
they had to keep darning it until
Christmas to get it mended.
Another temptation lowering around
nearly all our watering places is the
horse racing business. We all admire
the horse, but we do not think that its
beauty or speed ought to be cultured at
the expense Of human degradation.
The horse race is not of such importance
as the human race. The Bible init
mates that man is better than sheep,