St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-09-23
SUMMER VACATIONS.
DR.. Talmage Draws Some Lessons
from Our Annual Outings.
Dangers and Temptations That Ssr-
eeund Our Watering Piaccs-
NccessIty Of Period OF
InoccupatI0n.


Necessity Of n Period OF
Inoccupation.
copyright, 1899. by Louis klopsch.l
Washington.
At this season of the year, when all
who can get vacation are taking it,
this discourse of DIR. Talmage is sug-
gcstive and appropriate. The text IS
John So, ;: ~ pool. which is called
in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having
FIVE porches. In these lay great multi
tude Of impotent folk, of blind, halt
withercd, waiting for the moving OF the
| water"
Outside the city of Jerusalem there
was sanative watering place, the pop
Mar resort for inyalids. To this day
there is a dry basin of rock which shows
that there may have been pool there
$50 feet long. $50 feet wide and % feet
deep. This pool was surrounded by hve
piazzas, or porches, or bathing houses
where the patients tarried unui the
time when they were to step INTO tne
water. So far as reinyigoratlng was
concerned, it must have been Sara
toga and a Long Branch on 4 small
scale: a bennington and Brignton
| combined-medical and therapeutic.
| Tradition saws 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 quail
itys. and after that the people would
come and get the medication. But !
| prefer the plain statement OF Scripture.
that at a certain season an angel came
down and stirred up or troubled the wa
ter, and then the people came and got
the healing. That angel of God that
stirred up the JQdaean watering place
had his counterpart in the angel OF neal
ing who. in our day, steps into the min
eral waters of Congress or Sharon OF
Sulphur Springs, or into the salt sea at
Cane Nav and Nahant, where multitudes
who arc worn out with commercial and
professional anxieties, as well as those
who are afflicted with rheumatic, neu-
ralric and spIenetic diseases. 60 and are
curcd by the thousands. These blessed
Bethesdasare scattered all up and down
our country.
we are at a season of the year when
rail trains are laden with passengers
and baggage on their way to the noun
ta:ns and the lakes and the seashore.
Nultitudes of our citizens are away for
a restorative absence. The city heats
are pursuing the people with torch and
fear of sunstroi1e. The long. silent halls
of sumptuous hotels are all abuzz with
excited arrivals. The antlers of Adiron-
dack deer rattle under the shot Of city
sportsmen, the trout make fatal snap at
the hook OF alroit 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
festal array, and the rumbling ct the
tenpin alley, and the crack of the ivory
balls on the green-baized billiard tables,
and the iolting 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
lean watering places is in full play
Music! Flute and drum and cornet-a-
piston and clapping cymbals waks :he
echoes of the mountains. Glad am
that fagged-out American life for the
most part has an opportunity to rest
and that nerves racked and destroyed
4 xnr-
ing places. They recuperate for active
service many who were worn out with
trouble or overwork. They are nation
al restoratives.
Let not the commercial firm begrudge |
the clerk. or the employer the journey
man. or the patient the physician, or the |
church its pastor Il season of inoccupa-
ton. Luther used to sport with his |
Edmund Burke used to caress |
his farorite horse; Thomas Chalmers.
in the dark hour OF the church disrup-
ton, played kite for recreatioE-so / |
was told by his own daughter-and the |
busy Christ said to the busy apostles: |
''Come We apart awhile into the desert |
and rest yourselves" And j have OBJ |
served that they who do not know how |
to rest do not know how to work. But |
I have to declare this truth to-day-that |
some of our fashionable watering places |
are the temporal and eternal destruc-
ton of "a multitude that no man can
and amid the congratulations
of this season and the prospects of the
departure of many of you for the coun-
try / must utter warning. plain, ear
nest and unmistakable.
The 6rst-eess,IPtaiion mai * apt to
99ver 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, ard then you will come
starved and suffocated, lying stretched
on the rug. stark dead. There is no sur
plus of piety at the watering places. /
never knew anyone to grow very rapid
" in grace at the Catskill Mountain
house or Sharon Springs or the Falls of
Montmorency. 1t is generally the case
that the Sabbath is more of a carousa1
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 a day to themselves. If they 20
to the church. it is apt TO be sacred
parade, and the discourse. instead of be-
ing plain talk about The soul. is apt to
DC what is called 4 crack serIaon-that
is, some discourse picked out of the ef-
fusions of the year rs the one most
adaped 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 picturesaueness of half dis
closed features Four Puny souls stand
IN the organ loft and squall tune that
nobody knows. and worsiipers, with
$4,000 worth of diamonds on the right