Our Amusements
“Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood Our greatest evil, or our greatest
Pope.
“If therefore the light that ts in
thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness /” Matthew 6: 2j.
One of the most joyful facts in all the Bible is that God can make light shine out of darkness, that Christ transmutes sorrow into joy. And one of the saddest facts is that expressed by the Scripture, that light may become darkness, and, when it does, the darkness is very great.
Laughter is light. It cheers the heart, refreshes the mind, and gives health to the body. I thank God that I am a laughing animal. But the light of laughter, under certain conditions, may become darkness. It is a trick of the devil to sugar-coat the poison of sin with fun and frolic. We need, therefore, to be as careful about our amusements as about our duties. Laughter is, indeed, an index to character. Tell me what a man laughs at, and I will tell you what he is. If he laughs at purity, he is impure. If he laughs at virtue, he is vicious.
If he laughs at goodness, he is bad.
The things that amuse the people do much toward molding their character for good or evil. The theater, the card-table, and the dance are national and international in their influence, and it is our purpose to discuss each one of these in the light of Scripture, common sense, and fact. Being most popular they comprise to a large extent the Lights and Shadows of Amusement in our American Life.
I invite your attention to seven facts which will test the character of these amusements, and all others.
L Amusements cast a shadow when they injure the body. This body of ours is God’s temple and should be sacredly preserved. Whatever weakens, cripples, or pollutes it should be avoided. Excess in any amusement gives physical injury. The bicycle is the best instrument of recreation in the world, and yet there are not a few invalids to-day, the result of excessive wheeling. A glance into a ball-room often shows that the dressing is white and light and slight and tight. Every law of health is disregarded. Going from the heated room into the cold atmosphere has made many physical wrecks. The ball-room is the mother of consumption and rheumatism. Football has well-nigh ceased to be a game. It is a rough struggle for life. A broken arm, or leg, or nose is a mere incident. It should be ended or mended. The Georgia Legislature did right in passing a law forbidding the brutal sport in the state until it is reformed. In its rough coarse brutality it seems to be a game fit only for Comanche Indians.
II. Amusements cast a shadow when they injure the mind. The theater has the advantage of dancing and card-playing as a mental exercise. Cards were invented for the entertainment of an idiotic king, and it does not take much brains to amuse oneself with cards. “It is very wonderful,” says Addison, “to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?” Has a man or a woman a right to waste time in such a childish way? The young man who has worked hard all day in the store or shop, might spend his evening reading a book that would give him entertainment as well as knowledge, but instead of that he sits down to a game of cards, and wastes the evening. This repeated year after year leaves him little wiser than when he began. Neither does dancing call into exercise the mental qualities. A dog, a cat, a monkey, or a horse can be taught to dance. Pliny tells us that in his day elephants were good dancers. Whatever leaves us no time for mental improvement casts the shadow of ignorance upon our lives. It is said that thirty million packs of playing cards are manufactured every year in America, and they are sold by book stores, grocery stores, saloons, and almost every business. These thirty million packs of cards are an index to a desert waste of precious time, which greatly retards the mental advancement of the young.
in. Amusements cast a shadow when they injure the morals. It ought to go without saying that round dancing is immoral in its tendency. I do not say that all who dance the round dance are immoral, but I do say that, if they retain their moral purity, it is in spite of the dance, and not by means of it. It had its origin in the low dance houses of Paris, and ought to be sent back to its own place. Several years ago a police commissioner of New York made a report, in which he gave it as his opinion that three-fourths of the lost characters in this great city could trace their fall to dancing. The theater gives a few moral plays, and, when such a play is before the footlights, all the preachers in the community will receive free tickets. Then, for the next two months, look out for vileness on the bulletin boards!
Dr. Buckley took the pains to examine about 200 plays that had been produced in the theaters of New York, and it was a very small per cent, of them that a decent man would be willing to have read in his parlor. Most of them were full of spectacular obscenity, and the display of woman’s shame. A friend urged another to go with him to a certain popular play. He agreed on condition that they should both leave as soon as something should be said or done that they would not like their sisters to hear or see. They remained not more than ten minutes until they felt that, according to their agreement, they must get up and go out. When cards are used for gambling in any form, card-playing casts a shadow of dishonesty. Gambling is an attempt to get something for nothing, and bears the relation to burglary or theft that dueling bears to murder. A man meets another on the highway, and shoots him down. That is murder. Two men agree to go out early in the morning, and shoot at each other until one is killed. That is murder. The difference is that in the first case there is one murderer, in the second case there are two. A highwayman meets you on the street, and compels you to surrender your purse. He wants something for nothing, and that is robbery. Two men sit by a table, and mutually agree by the shuffling of cards, to get something for nothing. That is robbery. The difference is, in the first case there is one robber, in the second case there are two, and the fact that they agreed to rob each other does not change the moral quality of the act. Respectable people meet in a parlor for the shuffling and playing of cards during the evening. A prize is offered to the one who has the best luck, another prize to the one who has the worst luck. The excitement becomes intense, because there is a desire to win, and to get something for nothing. There still remains the moral quality of robbery. A mother in Boston remonstrated with her wayward son for gambling. He replied, “Mother, where did you get that vase in the parlor?” “I won it at a game of progressive euchre.” “Then please do not ask me to quit gambling while you indulge in the same thing.” Anthony Comstock asserts that many of the black-leg gamblers of New York belong to the first families, and were taught to gamble by their mothers and sisters at home. As you prize chastity, shun the round dance, as you prize honesty, shun gambling, whether in the parlor of respectability, or in the low dive of the city, and as you prize a clean mind and a pure character, shun the vile play in the theater.
IV. Amusements cast a shadow when they endanger our joys. The German proverb says, “The good is enemy of the best.” Amusement, fun and pleasure may be good; but joy is better. Amusement is the dash of the spray, the sparkle on the surface; joy is the flow of the deep current in the soul. We should not sacrifice the current for the spray or the sparkle. The joys of many a home have been destroyed by its amusements, and the joys of many a Christian have been laid waste by his amusements. Whenever you find that amusement is intrenching upon your joy, sacrifice amusement that the joy may be saved.
The Bible magnifies joy; it believes in laughter, and there are ripples of it all through its pages. But there is a soul experience too deep to be expressed by laughter; it sometimes flows in tears, and no one can afford to sacrifice this experience for a mere pastime.
V. Amusements cast a shadow when they are associated with some great evil institution. The people of Israel played before the golden calf. There may have been no harm in their play, but it was associated with the evil institution of idolatry. Paul said that he could eat meat offered to idols, for he regarded an idol as nothing, and he would not be injured by it. He had a right to eat, but he had a higher right, which was the right to give up this personal privilege for the good of the weaker brother. He determined, therefore, to surren- “jG Lights and Shadows of American Life
der this right, and never to eat meat while the world stands. Two men were in a boat above Niagara Falls. When they saw that the current was taking them down, by a bold stroke they reached the bank, and there on a tree was the placard: “No trespassing on these grounds.” A farmer appeared with a fierce bulldog at his side, and one of these men was cruelly torn. The magistrate at Niagara used these words, which are worthy of a place on the fly leaf of your Bible, “You had a right, sir, to placard your land, but in this case there was involved the higher right to surrender your right for the good of humanity, and, because you failed to do so, I send you to jail for 30 days.” We may contend for the Christian privilege of indulging certain things, while we forget the higher privilege of self-denial, that we may have a larger influence for good.
My rule of life is never to indulge in any amusement that links me with a great evil institution. Let us try the card-table, the dance, and the theater by this test. The card-table is a world-wide evil institution which you find in all countries. Christian and pagan. It is the gambler’s instrument. It has been blackened by dishonesty, stained by murder, and disgraced by innumerable wrecks of character.
A pack of cards is suggestive, not of an innocent game, but of a great foul institution
which has been a curse to mankind. Shall I indulge, and thus link myself with this institution? Or shall I deny myself that I may not be suggestive of the evil? The square dance is in itself an innocent pastime, if indulged moderately, but the dance has become a world-wide institution of evil. The dance-house I cannot describe in polite society. The dance is linked with vice. It is not only worldly, but in many of its forms it is desperately wicked. Its associations are malodorous. There may be pleasure in the physical response to music, shall I yield to it and thus associate myself with a bad institution?
The theater as an institution is also bad. There are some moral plays as well as some moral actors and actresses, but, so far as I can find, there is not a moral theater in the world. Edwin Booth would not allow his children to go to the theater unless he knew the character of the play to be presented. His action proves that he considered the theater as bad, though some of the plays might be good. He determined, however, to establish a moral theater, before whose footlights there should not be a display of woman’s shame in spectacular obscenity. The result was Booth’s theater failed, and paid five cents on the dollar. Henry Irving determined that the Lyceum Theater should be moral, but the management had to change its quality to keep it from bankruptcy. Mary Anderson has left the stage, and has declared that on moral grounds she does not wish her children to attend the theater. I have seen the statement that McCready would not allow his children to go to the theater. Edwin Forrest, after hearing Dr. Brantley in Augusta, Georgia, preach a sermon denouncing the theater for its immorality, lingered after the service long enough to take the preacher by the hand, and say to him, “Sir, what you have said to-night is true; only you have not painted the picture as dark as it is.”
Every theater in this great city admits to its footlights plays that are immoral in their tendency, and as an institution the theater is utterly bad. If some Christian man or woman with millions of dollars would establish a moral theater, where the Christian virtues of humility, and patience, and purity are taught without revenge for insult, which is the heart of tragedy, I would go to it, but such a theater would have to be supported as churches are supported, by the offerings of the lovers of truth and purity.
VL Amusements cast a shadow when they produce in us a pleasure-loving spirit. There is a difference between pleasure in the midst of business and making a business of pleasure. The pleasure-seeking spirit is a living death, for God’s Word says, “She that llveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” When one determines to live the life of a butterfly, flitting from one flower of indulgence to another, he ceases to be a man; he has become a thing. If you will turn to Job 21: 12, you will find some of the results of this pleasure-seeking spirit: “They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit should we have if we pray unto him?” When the pleasure-seeking spirit fills a man’s life, he ceases to desire God. He says to him, “Depart from us.” He sees no profit in prayer, or in the service of the Almighty. Pleasure is his god, and he becomes vain and empty like the god he worships.
The picture of a pleasure-seeking life which is given us in the 2d chapter of Ecclesiastes, is enough to startle one who desires to be something or do something in the world. Solomon was rich enough to have everything that he desired, and he set himself to seeking pleasure. The result was that he hated life and declared that “all is vanity and striving after wind.” Some one has described the palace of pleasure as a building “which has a gorgeous street entrance adorned with statuary and brilliant with variegated lights, and the passer is lured in by strains of music. The exit is a dark, narrow, concealed rear way which leads into the fields where swine are kept.” As a gentleman entered a theater several years ago the usher beckoned to him with the words: “This way to the pit.” The word “pit” was so suggestive that the man turned and left the theater in haste. However beautiful the entrance to the pleasure-seeking life, and however entrancing the music, the exit is into the swine field, and near the swine field is the precipice over which sooner or later we fall into the pit.
VIL Amusements cast a shadow when, through this pleasure-seeking spirit, they displace the serious work of life. In the parable of the sower the seed was choked by the pleasures of the world, and when one makes up his mind that the end of life is simply to have a good time, duty is neglected, sacred obligations are ignored, business lags, the prospects of life wither, and the end is despair. Here is a good place to hold the red flag of danger. The Duke of Orleans said when he was in this country he happened to be in a small village when a circus was there. He could not obtain dinner or any sort of service. The keeper of
the hotel informed him that no one would work that day, for everybody was going to the show. Such a holiday once in a while might produce little harm, but suppose that village should decide to quit work and attend the show every day, the result would be stagnation and death. Just so with the life of the man who allows pleasure to displace business, who lets fun and frolic swallow up the serious duties of life. The Romans became so greedy for amusement that they demanded great outlay in purchasing wild animals and gladiators for their enjoyment in the arena. This pleasure-seeking spirit so enervated the people of Rome that they became easy prey to the serious Northmen who came down upon them.
As with the nation, so with the individual. Pleasure-seeking weakens character and makes it easy for us to be captured and destroyed by evil habits. I have read of some cavalrymen who, during iive or six weeks of rest, taught their horses to dance to the music of the band. It was great sport, but, when they were riding into battle, and the band began to play, hoping to inspirit the soldiers, the horses stopped in the charge and began to dance. The result was the enemy swept down upon them and conquered them. Many a man has lost the battle of life for the same reason. He is so possessed by the pleasure-seeking spirit that 6 when he ought to be serious and dutiful, he Is dancing, or gambhng, or in some other way frittering away his time.
After Napoleon Bonaparte had killed the Duke D’Enghien, the indignation of the French people was so intense that there was danger of a revolution. The wily emperor quieted their consciences by producing for them the most magnificent ballet that Paris had ever seen. They rushed to the theater and forgot their grievances. It is hard for conscience to assert itself when the pleasure-seeking spirit is master.
Everything that any one ought to enjoy the Christian may enjoy. What is sinful, or hurtful to body, mind or soul, should not be indulged by any one, and such indulgence displaces a purer enjoyment. If you will take Jesus Christ as your Saviour from sin, and as the Umpire of your life, submitting to him your pleasures as well as your duties, your life will be full of light, and the shadows that come will only refresh. He said, “I am the Light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in dark ness but shall have the light of life.” And this light never becomes darkness. It grows brighter and brighter till the perfect day.