The Penn's Grove record., 1905-07-14
THE PULPIT.
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
DR.. M. E. HARLAN.
Subject: Moral Amusement.

Morally Healthful Amusements.' In
February he offered prizes for best re-
plies to questions covering the several
problems to be discussed. He sent a
printed list of these questions to sew
eraI hundred people over the country.
The sermon was based largely on the
replies he received. The text was from
Ecclesiastes iii:4: "There is a time TO
laugh and a time to weep" Among
other things he said:
A few years ago, when a certain SUD-
posed ornament o. to French society
was asked what he did, he replied:
My business is to amuse myself"
The history of the church is but a his
tory of the struggle between men and
women like this Frenchman, on the
one hand, and, on the other hand. those
who have had no place for a smile in
their religion. The world has never
lacked the stole and the sensualist. To
the stole the church has seemed very
lax. To the ~sensualist she has seemed
too strict. The church always has
stood and always will stand against
the purposeless lives of both of these
extremes. If to the mere pleasure
seeker the church has seemed dogmatic
and damnatOry, We must remember
that pleasure has been tyrannical and
brazen and absurd. To him who wor-
ships the god of pleasure, even other
wise harmless pleasures become dissi-
patton till the world is full of the in
sipid in heart and the vile in character
and the purposeless in life. God did
not make the world for mere Il
ment, neither did He design that it
should be run by the mere rollickers.
Yet desire for food and clothes is no
more an indication of the physically
robust and normal man than are the
demands for laughter and amusement
induces of the normal, mental and spir-
itual a The question is not, there
fore, one of amusements, but what
kind and how much.
No doubt that the church has often
been too closely allied with the stole
in exercising damnatory power respect
ing all forms of amusements. But be-
fore we censure too severely let US take
into account the conditions of her early
history. The church began her mighty
march of conquest in cities where all
sorts of lewd and obscene amusements
were the ~rule-Rome. Corinth, Ephe-
sus, etc. In these cities the god of
pleasure held such high carnival that
industry was throttled and domestic
life was weakened. Rome's great am
phitheatre, seating 49,, 900 people, could
easily be filed with the morbid crowd
that measured the worth of the amuse-
ments by the fury of the entertain
ment and by the number of men and
horses slain merely for their amuse-
ment. The Emperor Trajan gave a
three months show in which 10000
men and 11,O00 beasts were slain to
amuse the very best people of Rome.
Men would appear on the stage dressed
gorgeously, when suddenly flames
would burst forth all over their bodies
and they would die writing in agony
of flames to the delight of the god of
pleasure. Often Christians were forced
spectators and often unwilling partici-
pants in these brutalities. Food and
fun was the hilarious cry of these
amusement loving people that haunted
with its awful hiss the ears of the
dying gladiators. The popularity of
the ruler was measured by his willing
ness and ability to satisfy this cry for
food and fun" An unwilling wit
ness to these debaucheries in the name
VI oIAuSSDiGnlJ Cdn We hOuuCI ludl
coming from such q birthplace the
church has at times been extreme?
Gibbon tells us that in the days of
Rome's worst famines she dismissed
her senator's and patrons of art, but to
satisfy her god e. pleasure she kept
her vile vestal virgins and her 6000
dancers and singers of the lewd sort
to muse her as she staggered down to
death or lay in the last commissions of
her dying hour. He will not criticise
too harshly the church who has come
with her down her Historic way and
has witnessed her death struggle with
the professional dispensers of amuse-
ment, who, as vile in purpose as the
vestal virgins and who for financial
gain will pander to the selfish and
sensual moods of men till they leave
those who otherwise would be noble
men and women, mere derelicts on
life's sea to the menace of the innocent
voyagers.
Even to-day under the spell of this
pleasure good men will pay an uncom-
planning tribute to her and do not
hesitate to keep an open account with
the dispensers of hilarious and Sensu-
Gus amusements about dance halls and
theatres, while at the same time they
will become exceedingly poor and saw
ing if approached for charity or philan-
thrOpy or justice. The mere vagabOnd
ON the streets with his hand organ and
monkey, or the grevsome and discord-
ant "curb stone band" take in the rev.
enue that belongs to laundryman or
grocer, as though these m~ountebank
dispensers of amusement were more
deserving than they.
Seeing how Rome amused herself to
death and how Spain amused herself
with her bull fights out of one of the
first rank powers into the imbecile
skeleton she now represents, no Won
der our Puritan fathers were fearful
of this pleasure god. He is blind who
sees no inconSistence in the Puritan
zeal bans on all forms of amusement
till a man must be or at least appear
miserable before he can be happy. But
he to-day is worse than blind who
does not see, and especially in city life,
that the god of pleasure has become
daringly despotic and that she tyran-
nically invades every shrine of her
d~evotees, and that no day is too sacred
for her ribaldry and coarse jest. BY
pandering to the ruinous passion that
would rather laugh than to think she
would leave III fair land %tenantlesS of
the serious and the wise and i'll. it
with a rae of grinning pigmies. Any
amusement that binders me from doing
my duty in my business during the
week or makes me careless of my du-
ties in the house of God or that would
make serious thoughts a bore is TO be
avoided. Foster nor harbor no amuse-
ment that cannot grow consistently on
the same stem with the Christian re-
ligion. The goddess Coney Island craze
creates a morbid desire for Sunday
amusement that as a vampire feeds fat
on the vitals of our holy religion.
/ know there is danger of being mis-
understood when l speak in detail. The
man with a grabbed religion will think
me too lax, while the man without
conviction will think me too strict.
With 4 zeal worthy of a better cause
the church i'll the past has picked out
q few amusements upon whicG it has
placed the ban and left others with