The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-05-24
ABOUT ADJUSTMENTS.
DR.. Talmage Lays Down Some
Guiding Principles.
How to Decide Whether Any Recre-
alton Is Right WrOnE-SpOrt
a Means, Not an End-Warn-
ms to Young n.
Copyright, 1901, by Louis 4 psch, n. Y.
Washington,


This discourse of DR.. Talmage is in
accord with all innocent hilarities,
while it reprehends amusements that
belittle or deprave; text ii, Samuel
ii, IA: Let the young men now arise
and play before u.s."
There are two armies encamped by
the pool of Gideon. The time hangs
heavily on their hands. One army
proposes game of sword fencing
Nothing could be more helpful and
innocent. The other army accepts
the challenge. Twelve men against
II men, the sport opens. But some
thing went adversely. Perhaps one
of the swordsmen got an unlucky
clip or in some way had his ire
aroused and that which opened in
sportfulness ended in violence, eatI
taking his contestant by the hair
and with the sword thrusting him in
the side, so that that which opened in
innocent fun ended in the massacre
of all the "a sportsmen. Was there
ever better illustration of what was
true then is true now-that which is
innocent may be made destructive?
What of a worldly nature is more
important and strengthening and in
nocent than amusement, and yet
what has counted more victims?
have no sympathy with a straitjacket
religion. This is a very bright world
to me, and l pro, ose to do all | can
to make it bright for others. l never
could keep step to a dead march. A
book years ago issued says that a
Chris has ri0ht fn
amusements. For instance, if he
comes home at night weary from his
work and feeling the need or recrea-
tion, puts on hls slippers and goes
into his garret and walks lively
around the floor several times there
can be no harm in it. / believe the
church of God made a great mistake
in trying to suppress the sportful-
ness of youth and drive out from
men their love of amusement. If God
ever implanted anything in us, he i'm
planted this desire. But instead of
providing for this demand of our ma
ture the church of God has for the
main part ignored it. AS in a riot the
mayor plants battery at the end of
the street and has it fired off, so that
everything is cut down that happens
to stand in the range, the good as
well as the bad, so there are men in
the church who plant thei- batteries
of condemnation and fire away indis-
criminately. Everything is con-
demned. But Paul the apostle COM
mends those who use the world with
out abusing it, and in the natural
world God has done everything to
firr-
ures we sometimes speak of natural
objects as being in pain, but it is
mere fancy. Poets say the clouds
weep, but they never yet shed tear,
and that the winds sigh, but they
never did have any trouble, and that
the storm howls, but it never lost its
temper. The world is a rose and the
universe a garland.
And | am glad to know that in all
our cities there are plenty of places
where we may find elevated moral en-
tertainment. But all honest men and
good women will agree with me in
the statement that one of the worst
things in these cities is corrupt
amusement. Multitudes have gone
down under the blasting influence
never to rise. If we may judge of
what is is going on in many places of
amusement by the pictures on board
fences and in many of the show win
dows there is not a much lower
depth of profigacy to reach. At
Naples, Italy, they keep such pictures
locked up from indiscriminate inspec
ton. Those pictures were eXhumed
from Pompeii and are not fit for pub
lie gaze. If the effrontery of bad
places of amusement in hanging out
improper advertisements of what
they are doing night by night grows
worse in the same proportion, in so
wears some of our modern cities will
beat Pompeii.
1 Iproiect certain principles by which
you may judge in regard to any amuse-
ment or recreation, finding out for
yourself whether it is right or wrong.
1 remark in the first place, that you
can Judge of the moral character of
any amusement by its healthful result
or by its baleful reaction. There are
people who seem made up of hard
facts. They are a combination of
multiplication tables and statistics. If
you show them an exquisite picture
they will begin to discuss the pig
ments involved in the coloring. If you
show them beautiful rose they will
submit it to a botanical analysis, which
is only the post-mortem examination
of a flower. They have no rebound
in their nature. They never do any
thing more than smile. There are no
great tides of feeling surging up from
the depths of their soul in billow after
billow of reverberating laughter.
They seem as if nature had built them
by contract and made bungling job
out of it. But, blessed be God, there
are people in the world who have
bright faces and whose life is song,
an anthem, a paean 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 perpetual
carnival. They are the people you like
to have come to your house; they are
people 1 like to have come to my house.
If you but touch the hem of their gar
ments you are healed.
Now, it is these exhilarant and sym
pathetic and warm-hearted people
that are most tempted to pernicious
amusements. In proportion as a ship