The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-06-20

uduSedteu, ana tney are wrong xmas
of amusement. They are entertain
ments that give man disgust with the
drudgery of life, with tools because
they are not swords, with working
aprons because they are not robes,
with cattle because they are not in
furiated bulls of the arena. If any
amusement sends you home longing
for life of romance and thrilling ad-
venture, love that takes poison and
shoots itself, moonlight adventures
and hair-breadth escapes, you may de-
pend upon it that you are the sacri-
feed victim of unsanctified pleasure.
Our recreations are intended to build
us up, and if they pull US down as to
our moral or as to our physical
strength you may come to the con-
clusion that they are obnoxious.
Still further, these amusements are
wrong which lead you into expendi-
lures beyond your means. Money
spent in 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 it have made an
investment worth more than the
transaction that yielded you hun
dreds of thousands of dollars. But
how many properties have been rid
died by costly amusements.
The first time | ever saw the city
it was the city of Philadelphia was
mere lad. stopped at hotel, and
l remember in the eventide one of
these men piled me with his Internal
art. He saw was green. He wanted
to show me the sights of the town.
He painted the path of sin until it
looked like emerald, but / was afraid
of him. | showed back from the bas-
silisk-I made up my mind he was a
basilisk. | remember how he wheeled
his chair round in front of me, and,
with a concentered and diabolical eff
fort, attempted to destroy my soul,
but there were good angels in the air
that night. 1t was no good resolution
on my part, but it was the all en-
comprising grace of good God that
delivered me. Beware, beware, o
young man! "There is a way that
seemeth right unto a man, but the
end thereof is DEATH"
The table has been robbed to pay
the club. The champagne has cheat
ed the children's wardrobe. The ca
rousing party has burned up the
boys primer. The tablecloth of the
.o lol> IN -
faded dress. Excursions that in a
day make a tour around whole
months wages, ladies, whose lifetime
business it is to go shopping, large
bets on horses, have their counter
parts in uneducated children, bank
ruptcies that shock the money mar
ket and appall the church and that
send drunkenness staggering across
the richly figured carpet of the man
sion 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.
Merchant, is there disarrange-
ment in your accounts? Is there
leakage in your money drawer? Did
not the cash account come out right
last night? l will tell you. There is
young man in your store wandering off
into bad amusements. The salary
YOU give him may meet lawful expend
itures, but not the sinful indulgences
in which he has entered, and he takes
by theft that which you do not give
him in lawful salary.
1 go further and say those are un-
Christian amusements which become
the chief business of a mans life. Life
is an earnest thing. Whether we are
born in a palace or hovel, whether we
are affluent or pinched, we have to
work. If you do not sweat with toll,
YOU will sweat with disease. You have
a soul that is to be transfgured amid
the pomp of a judgment day, and after
the sea has sung it's last chant and
the mountain shall have come down
in an avalanche of rock you will live
and think and act, high on throne
where seraphs sing or deep. in dun
geon where demons howl. In world
where there is SO much to do for
yourselves and so much to do for
others God pity that man who has
nothing to do.
I GO further and say that all those
amusements are wrong which lead into
bad company. If you go to any place
where you have to associate with the
intemperate, with the unclean, with
the abandoned, however well they may
be dressed, in the name of God quit it.
They will despoil your nature. They
will undermine your moral character.
They will drop you when you are de-
stroyed. They will not give one cent
to support your children when you
are dead. They will weep not one tear
at your burial.
l had a friend in the west-a rare
friend. He was one of the first to wei
come me to my new home. To fine per-
sonal appearance he added generos-
ity, frankness and ardor of nature that
made me love him like a brother. But
I saw evil people gathering around
him. They came up from the saloons,
from the gambling hells. They piled
him with thousand arts. They seized
,Inon his social nature and he could