Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1899-08-25

TO caress his favOrite horse; Thomas
| Chalmers. In the dark hour Of the
church's disruption, played kite for
recreation-so | was told by his own
daugbter-and the busy Christ said to
the busy apostles, Come ye apart
awhile into the desert and rest your
! selves" And | have observed that
they who do not know how to rest do
not know how to work. But have to
declare this truth today that some Of
our fashionable watering places are
the temporal and eternal destruction OF
"a multitude that no man can num-
ber." and amid the congratulations of
this season and the prospect of the de-
parture of many of you for the country
must utter a warning, plain, earnest
and unmistakable.
Take Pfety Along.
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 re-
ligion in the room with the blinds
down and the door bolted, and then
YOU will come back In the autumn to
ilnd that it is starved and suffocated,
lying stretched on the rug stark dead. |
There is no surplus of piety at the wa
tering places. | never knew any one
TO grow very rapidly in grace at the
Catskill Mountain House, or Sharon !
Springs, or the Falls of MOntmOrency. |
1t is generally the case that the Sab !
bath is more of n carousal than any |
other day. and there are Sunday walks
and Sunday rides and Sunday excur
sions. Elders and deacons and minis |
ters of religion who are entirely con-
sistent 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 a
plain ts TX about the soul. is apt to be I,
what is called a crack sermon-that Is, |
some discourse picked out Of the ef- !
fusicns 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 ana squall
tune that nobody knows. and wor-
shippers with $1,000 worth of diamonds |
on the right hand drop a cent into the |
Door box. and then the benediction is
pronounced. and the farce Is ended. |
The toughest thing | ever tried TO do !
was to be good at watering place
The air is bewtched with the world, !
the flesh and the devil" There are |
Christians 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 1t until
Christmas to get it mended.
The health of a great many people
makes an annual visit to some mineral
spring an absolute necessity, but take
your Bible along with you and take an
hour for secret prayer every day.
though you be surrounded by gu1aw
and saturnala. Keep holy the Sab
bath, though they deride you as
bigoted Puritan. Stand OF from gam
bling hells and those other institutions
which propose to initiate on this side
the water the iniquities of Baden
Baden. Let your moral and your i'm
Il
physical recuperatiOn and remember
that all the sulphur and chalybeate
springs cannot do you so much good as
the healing, perennial food that breaks
forth from the Rock of Ages" This
may be your last summer. If so. make
II fit vestibule Of heaven.
Turf Abomination.
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 us
beauty or speed ought to be cultured
at the expense Of human degradation
The horse race is not Of such impor-
tance as the human race. The Bible
intimates that man is better than
sheen. and suppose he is Letter than
a horse. though, like Jobs stallion his
neck be clothed with thunder. Horse
races in oden times were under the
han of Christian people, and in our
day the same institution has come up
under fictitious names. And 1t is call
ed a summer meeting almost sug-
gestiye of positive religious exercises.
And II Is called an agricultural fair.
suggestive of everything that Is i'm
nroving in the art Of farming. But
under these deceptive titles are the
same cheating, and the same betting
and tho same drunkenness, and the
same vagabondage, and the same
abomination that were to be found
under the old horse racing system.
never knew a man yet who could
give himself TO the pleasures OF the
turf for a long reach Of time ana not
no battered in morals. They hook up
their spanking team and put on their
sporting cap and light their cigar ana
take the reins and dash down on the
. ROAD 10 hC SANNN
Saratoga and Brighton Beach ana
Cane May and nearly all the other wa
tering places is the day of the races.
: The hotels are thronged, every KIND OF
} equipage is taken up at an almost rap
/. ulous price. and there are many re-
4 spectacle people mingling with jock
Q eys and gamblers and libertines ana
foul mouthed men and hashy women.
q The bartender stirs up the brandy
( smash. The bets run high. The
. greenhorns, suppOsing all Is fair, put
}. in their money soon enough to lose It.
5 Three weeks before the race takes
!. place the struggle is decided, and the
j nen in the secret know On which steed
TO bet their money. The men on the
y horses riding around long ago arrang
l. ed who shall win. Leaning from the
Il stand or from the carriage are men and
4 women so absorbed in the struggle oil
II bone and muscle and mettle that they
2, make a grand harvest for the pick