CHAPTER XVII. Be Cautious of Baneful Amusements

BE CAUTIOUS OF BANEFUL AMUSEMENTS

It is related that during the reign of the bluff King Hal, there lived a knight named Sir John Giffard, of Chillington, who possessed a beautiful leopard. One day the animal escaped from its cage, and Sir John and his son at once gave chase, for they knew that the leopard would spare no human being it might meet. At the top of a hill, a mile from his house, the worthy knight saw the animal about to attack a woman and child. Sir John was armed with a bow and arrow, and rather breathless through running; his son, fearing his shot might be too weak, shouted, “Take aim, draw strong!” Never was surer aim taken, for Sir John pierced the leopard’s heart, and saved the woman and her babe. In consideration of this brave and skilful deed, the Giffards of Chillington adopted as their crest a leopard’s head and an archer with a bent bow, with the motto, “Take aim, draw strong.”

This is what many good and great men have done in regard to some amusements, the influences of which have proved destructive to character. To enjoy oneself is a divine right, provided such enjoyment does not injure health, weaken morals or lead others to place a false estimate on living.

AMUSEMENTS RIGHT AND WRONG.

Amusement is not an end, but a means of refreshing the mind and replenishing the strength of the body, that the work of life may be easier and better done. When it begins to be the principal thing for which one lives, or when in pursuing it, the mental powers are enfeebled, and health impaired, it then falls under just condemnation.

Amusements that consume the hours of the night which were intended for rest and sleep, thus making one nervous, besides increasing one’s love for romance and adventure, are wrong. Amusements which call one away from study or duty are pernicious, just to the extent they cause negligence or unfaithfulness. Amusements that rouse or stimulate morbid appetites, suggest wrong things, cause one to be discontented, lead into bad company or expenditure beyond one’s means, should always be avoided, for their tendency is downward rather than upward.

Care must be taken in choosing amusements. Those should be chosen which have some advantage beyond merely supplying a pleasant pastime, and those avoided which lead to bad company, drinking, horse racing, gambling or any place where so many are allured to destruction. Multitudes of boys have gone down morally, socially, financially and spiritually under their blasting influences, never to rise again. There are few amusements so harmless, but what they may be carried into low association and made an instrument of evil, hence every boy should look to himself that no dishonesty, betting or over-exertion be allowed.

CARD PLAYING.

Don’t play cards. “Is it possible there is harm in cards?” you ask. “Is it wrong to shuffle a few pieces of pictured and spotted papers in the parlor?” No, my boy. But it is the harm which comes from them, with no known excuse to palliate its pernicious consequences. Card playing has a fascination connected with it. It seems as innocent a game as swinging the mallet on a croquet lawn, but it is as dangerous as a revolver in the hands of a child. It has dealt out death and destruction by the wholesale. “It has made,” as Dr. Withrow said, “so many noble lives base, upright people dishonest, rich people poor, poor people painfully impoverished, and altogether it has a dark indictment against it in the court of heaven.”

“THEY COST ME MY SON.”

On one of the railroads leading out of Chicago, four men, high in position, one of them a judge, another a lawyer, sat passing the time away with a game of euchre. An old lady across the aisle grew restless and at last, standing and breaking in upon their somewhat selfish hilarity, said: “Excuse me, but is not this Judge ——?” “Yes, ma’am,” the man of the bench replied, a little startled and ashamed to acknowledge it under the circumstances. The old lady continued, “I thought so, and, Judge, it was you who sentenced my boy at Oshkosh, to State’s prison for ten years, and it was that other man there that pleaded against him, and he died last year, Judge, in the penitentiary, and it was cards that led him to it. He was a good boy until he took to playing cards and going down to the village grocery, and at last I could do nothing with him. I know I ought not to be talking this way to you, but, Judge, if such as you only knew how much the young people are influenced by what they see you do, I don’t think you would be handling those cards as you and these gentlemen are doing. They cost me my son.” So they have cost thousands of parents their boys, and boys their manliness. They have been the turnkey which has opened the prison gate, the trap-door of the gallows, the instrument of many a suicide, and the decoy which has led many to eternal ruin. Therefore don’t play cards.

THE THEATRE.

Don’t go to the theatre. “What? Is there anything wrong in going to a theatre, and will it injure me?” Yes. It is a pleasure so dangerous in its tendencies, that good men for ages have denounced it. Long ago, Aristotle the philosopher opposed it, saying, “The seeing of comedians ought to be forbidden to young people, until age and discipline have made them proof against debauchery.” Theodore L. Cuyler said, “It fascinates as the wine-cup fascinates, to draw young men into impure associations, and to destroy everything like healthy spiritual life.” Edwin Booth, who was one of the greatest tragedians, remarked, “I would not be willing for my wife and daughter to attend a play unless I knew beforehand the character of the play and the actors.” And, where a lady cannot go, is it fit for a young gentleman? General Grant believed this, for he said, “I never go where I cannot take ladies. I don’t care to go where ladies cannot go.”

“OH! THAT THEATRE!”

“Oh! that theatre!” said an agonized mother of a felon son, “he was a virtuous, kind youth till the theatre proved his ruin.” Professor Knowles states that at a juvenile prison, it was ascertained that a large proportion of the boys began their careers in vice by stealing money to buy theatre tickets. A keeper of another juvenile prison in Boston gave testimony that of twenty young men confined for crime, seventeen confessed that they were first tempted to steal by a desire to purchase tickets to visit the theatre. Of fifteen young men from the country, employed in a publishing house in New York, thirteen within a few years were led to destruction by the play-houses.

O, my boy, do as Bishop Vincent said when asked by a friend if he should go to such a place of amusement, “Better not. Better not, because of its fascination which hinders rather than helps; better not, because vice is often made to look like virtue; better not, because of its many degraded actors and patrons, whose company one cannot afford to keep; better not, because of the hours it consumes which could be more profitably utilized; better not, because of vulgar expressions frequently used; better not, better not.”

THE DANCE.

Don’t go to the dance. “Why, the Bible itself defends this amusement,” is frequently said. “Did not the Hebrews dance when they emerged from the Red Sea? Did not David dance before the ark? Was not Socrates taught it by Aspasia, and was it not held in veneration by Plato and other philosophers?” Yes, but dancing, my boy, was much different in Bible times than it is to-day. It was because of deliverances from or a victory over an enemy. No case but one is found in the Bible where promiscuous dancing was indulged in, and that is called “the wicked dance.” Ever since the daughter of Herodias danced off the head of John the Baptist, it has degenerated; and as Cicero addressed a grave reproach to consul Gabinus for having danced, so would the writer sound the danger trumpet with the words: “Beware! Beware!”

When Moscow was burning, the historian tells us, a party was dancing in the palace right over a gunpowder magazine of which they were ignorant. The flames came on, and Carnot said, “Let us have one dance more,” and they shouted all through the palace, “One dance more!” The music played, the feet bounded, the laughter rang. But suddenly, through the smoke and fire and thunder of the explosion, death and eternity broke in. “One dance more” has been the ruin of many a young man, the deathblow of many a good reputation, the cause of many a jealousy which ended in crime and the murderer of many a virtue which bid fair to distinguish the noble youth.

BE CAREFUL.

O, my boy, be careful of your amusements. If there is a tendency to injure the morals, shun them as a plague. Orange trees cannot live and bear fruit in Labrador, neither can piety thrive amidst frivolities and liberties which attack modesty of person and honesty of purpose. Shun amusements if they are indulged in for mere killing of time.

“Time is eternity, Pregnant with all eternity can give, Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders time, he crushes in the birth A power ethereal, only not adorned!”

Murillo, a Spanish painter, left a wonderful painting which represents a monk in his cell writing. He had been engaged in writing his life, but before he had completed it, death summoned him to the eternal world. He pleaded to return, and the legend says that he was permitted a certain period to complete his autobiography. The famous Spanish artist seized the moment when the monk, seated at the table, resumes his toil. The intensity of feeling thrown into the wan, ghastly face, and into the lips which had talked with death, and into the eyes that had looked in on eternity, and the tremendous energy with which he writes, all portray to us the knowledge and the value of time: time limited by the all-powerful command. And, as Schiller truthfully puts it:

“The moments we forego Eternity itself cannot retrieve.”

Shun amusements if they have a tendency to injure health. Health is the greatest fortune one can possess. Without it, all joy, all comfort, all pomp is but mockery. “Riches are useless, honor and attendants are cumbersome, and crowns themselves are a burden,” “for life is not to live, but to be well.” To take care of one’s health is one of the first requirements of nature. This cannot be accomplished by staying up late at night, by intemperate eating and drinking, by being out in all kinds of weather, by wilful neglect of proper clothing, which various amusements incur.

ENJOY YOURSELF.

Enjoy yourself, my boy. “To dry up the fountains of mirth that are within, to crush out the spontaneous impulses of merriment which are a part of our complete life, is a crime against nature. Life will have sorrows enough without making ourselves chronically cheerless. The right of enjoyment is a divine right, and should be lawfully used and enjoyed. Not only that, but it is invigorating.” “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Running is good exercise, the bat and ball strengthen the arm and gauge the eye, the oar and boat broaden the chest and make the liberated lungs beat with life, and not a few others, if not too greatly indulged, prove helpful rather than detrimental.

Counsel yourself when invited to join in some pleasure: “What will this amusement do for my physical development? Is there any gymnastic exercise connected with it? What will it do for my intellectual enlightenment? What will it do for the improvement of my morals? Will it make me purer, nobler, better? Will it increase piety, make me more useful to society, increase my happiness and benefit my associates?” If it will, then indulge in it, if not, discard it.

A story is told of two men who were mowing in company. The one in advance thought he saw a hornet’s nest just ahead, and he cautiously paused. The other pooh-poohed his fears and mowed right on exclaiming, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” But pretty soon he struck the nest and was fighting the hornets that assailed him, whereupon the first, who also had a knack of quoting proverbs, exclaimed, “The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.” The prudent man had the best of it as he always does. Other gifts and attainments, however ample and varied, are negatived and neutralized without it, therefore in all pleasures be discreet.

“It is sad To think how few our pleasures really are; And for the which we risk eternal good.”

And, as Pope wrote,

“Pleasures, wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.”