{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2603/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2603","id":"gutenberg_2603","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2603","summary":null,"tags":["Amusements -- Religious aspects -- Methodist Church","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian ethics"],"text":"Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer\n\n\n\n\n\nQUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS AND WORTHY SUBSTITUTES\n\nBy J. M. Judy\n\n\n\n  Introduction by George H. Trever, Ph.D., D.D.  The manuscript of\n  This book was not submitted to any publisher, but was put in its\n  present form by JENNINGS & PYE, for a friend of the author.\n  Address.  Chicago: Western Methodist Book Concern, 1904.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nBy George H. Trever, PH.D., D.D.\n\nAuthor of Comparative Theology, etc.\n\n\nA BOOK on \"Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes\" is timely\nto-day. Such a grouping of subject matter is in itself a commendation.\nPossibly we have been saying \"Don't\" quite enough without offering the\npositive substitute. The \"expulsive power of a new affection\" is, after\nall, the mightiest agency in reform. \"Thou shalt not\" is quite easy to\nsay; but though the house be emptied, swept, and garnished, unless pure\nangels hasten to occupy the vacated chambers, other spirits worse than\nthe first will soon rush in to befoul them again.\n\nThe author of these papers, the Rev. J.M. Judy, writes out of a full,\nwarm heart. We know him to be a correct, able preacher of the gospel,\nand an efficient fisher of men. Having thoroughly prepared himself for\nhis work by courses in Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical\nInstitute, by travel in the South and West of our own country, and by a\nvisitation of the Old World, he has served on the rugged frontier of his\nConference, and among foreign populations grappling successfully with\nsome of the most difficult problems in modern Church work.\n\nThe following articles aroused much interest when delivered to his own\npeople, and must do good wherever read. In style they are clear and\nvivid; in logical arrangement excellent; glow with sacred fervor, and\npulse with honest, eager conviction. We bespeak for them a wide reading,\nand would especially commend them to the young people of our Epworth\nLeagues.\n\nWHITEWATER, WIS., March 2, 1904.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\"QUESTIONABLE Amusements and Worthy Substitutes\" is a consideration of\nthe \"so-called questionable amusements,\" and an outlook for those forms\nof social, domestic, and personal practices which charm the life, secure\nthe present, and build for the future. To take away the bad is good; to\ngive the good is better; but to take away the bad and to give the good\nin its stead is best of all. This we have tried to do, not in our own\nstrength, but with the conscious presence of the Spirit of God.\n\nThe spiritual indifference of Christendom to-day as one meets with it\nin all forms of Christian work has led us to send out this message.\n\"Questionable Amusements,\" form both a cause and a result of this\nwidespread indifference. An underlying cause of this indifference among\nthose who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, is lack of conviction\nfor sin, want of positive faith in the fundamental truths of the\nScriptures, too little and superficial prayer, and lack of personal,\nsoul-saving work. Is the class-meeting becoming extinct? Is the\nprayer-meeting lifeless? Is the revival spirit decaying? Is family\nworship formal, or has it ceased? However some may answer these\nquestions, still we believe that the Church has a warm heart, and that\nsigns of her vigorous life are expressed in her tenacious hold for high\nmoral standards, and in her generous GIVING of money and of men.\n\nOur point of view has been that of the person, old or young, regardless\nof sect, race, party, occupation, or circumstances, who has a life to\nlive, and who wants to make the most out of it for himself and for his\nfellow-men, and who believes that he will find this life disclosed in\nnature, in history, and in the Word of God. J.M.J.\n\nORFORDVILLE, WIS., March, 1904.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    PART I.\n    QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS\n\n    CHAPTER\n    I    TOBACCO\n    II   DRUNKENNESS\n    III  GAMBLING, CARDS\n    IV   DANCING\n    V    THEATER-GOING\n\n    PART II\n    WORTHY SUBSTITUTES\n\n    VI   BOOKS AND READING\n    VII  SOCIAL RECREATION\n    VIII FRIENDSHIP\n    IX   TRAVEL\n    X    HOME AND THE HOME-MAKER\n\n\n\n\nPART I. QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS.\n\n     \"The excesses of our youth are drafts on our old age,\n     payable about one hundred years after date without\n     interest.\"--JOHN RUSKIN.\n\n\n\n\nI. TOBACCO.\n\nTobacco wastes the body. It is used for the nicotine that is in it. This\npeculiar ingredient is a poisonous, oily, colorless liquid, and gives to\ntobacco its odor. This odor and the flavor of tobacco are developed by\nfermentation in the process of preparation for use. \"Poison\" is commonly\ndefined as \"any substance that when taken into the system acts in\nan injurious manner, tending to cause death or serious detriment\nto health.\" And different poisons are defined as those which act\ndifferently upon the human organism. For example, one class, such as\nnicotine in tobacco, is defined as that which acts as a stimulant or\nan irritant; while another class, such as opium, acts with a quieting,\nsoothing influence. But the fact is that poison does not act at all\nupon the human system, but the human system acts upon the poison. In\none class of poisons, such as opium, the reason why the system does not\narouse itself and try to cast off the poison, is that the nerves become\nparalyzed so that it can not. And in the case of nicotine in tobacco the\nnerves are not thus paralyzed, so that they try in every way to cast off\nthe poison. Let the human body represent the house, and the sensitive\nnerves and the delicate blood vessels the sleeping inmates of that\nhouse. Let the Foe Opium come to invade that house and to destroy the\ninmates, for every poison is a deadly Foe. At the first appearance of\nthis subtle Foe terror is struck into the heart of the inmates, so that\nthey fall back helpless, paralyzed with fear. When the Intruder Tobacco\ncomes, he comes boisterously, rattling the windows and jostling the\nfurniture, so that the inmates of the house set up a life-and-death\nconflict against him.\n\nThis is just what happens when tobacco is taken into the human system.\nEvery nerve cries out against it, and every effort is made to resist it.\nYou ask, Will one's body be healthier and live longer without tobacco\nthan with it? We answer, by asking, Will one's home be happier and more\nprosperous without some deadly Foe continually invading it, or with such\na Foe? When the membranes and tissues of the body, with their host of\nnerves and blood vessels, have to be fighting against some deadly poison\nin connection with their ordinary work, will they not wear out sooner\nthan if they could be left to do their ordinary work quietly? To\nillustrate: A particle of tobacco dust no sooner comes into contact with\nthe lining membrane of the nose, than violent sneezing is produced.\nThis is the effort of the besieged nerves and blood vessels to protect\nthemselves. A bit of tobacco taken into the mouth causes salivation\nbecause the salivary glands recognize the enemy and yield an increased\nflow of their precious fluid to wash him away. Taken into the stomach\nunaccustomed to its presence, and it produces violent vomiting. The\nwhole lining membrane of that much-abused organ rebels against such an\nIntruder, and tries to eject him. Tobacco dust and smoke taken into\nthe lungs at once excretes a mucous-like fluid in the mouth, throat,\nwindpipe, bronchial tubes, and in the lungs themselves. Excretions such\nas this mean a violent wasting away of vitality and power. Taken in\nlarge quantities into the stomach, tobacco not only causes an excretion\nof mucus from the mouth, throat, and breathing organs, but it produces\nan overtaxing of the liver; that is, this organ overworks in order to\ncounteract the presence of the poison. But one asks, If tobacco is so\ninjurious, why is it used with such apparent pleasure? A small quantity\nof tobacco received into the system by smoking, chewing, or snuffing is\ncarried through the circulation to the skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and\nto all the organs of the body, by which it is moderately resisted. The\nresult is a gentle excitement of all these organs. They are in a state\nof morbid activity. And as sensibility depends upon vital action of\nthe bodily organisms, there is necessarily produced a degree of\nsense gratification or pleasure. The reason why these sensations are\npleasurable instead of painful is, in this state of moderate excitement\nthe circulation is materially increased without being materially\nunbalanced. But as with every sense indulgence, when the craving for\nincreased doses becomes satisfied, when larger doses are taken the\ncirculation becomes unbalanced, vital resistance centers in one point,\ncongestion occurs, then the sensation becomes one of pain instead of one\nof pleasure. This disturbance or excitement caused by tobacco is nothing\nmore nor less than disease. For it is abnormal action, and abnormal\naction is fever, and fever is disease. It is state on good authority,\n\"that no one who smokes tobacco before the bodily powers are developed\never makes a strong, vigorous man.\" Dr. H. Gibbons says: \"Tobacco\nimpairs digestion, poisons the blood, depresses the vital powers, causes\nthe limbs to tremble, and weakens and otherwise disorders the heart.\" It\nis conceded by the medical profession that tobacco causes cancer of the\ntongue and lips, dimness of vision, deafness, dyspepsia, bronchitis,\nconsumption, heart palpitation, spinal weakness, chronic tonsillitis,\nparalysis, impotency, apoplexy, and insanity. It is held by some men\nthat tobacco aids digestion. Dr. McAllister, of Utica, New York, says\nthat it \"weakens the organs of Digestion and assimilation, and at length\nplunges one into all the horrors of dyspepsia.\"\n\n*Tobacco dulls the mind.* It does this not only by wasting the body,\nthe physical basis of the mind, but it does it through habits of\nintellectual idleness, which the user of tobacco naturally forms.\nWhoever heard of a first-class loafer who did not e-a-t the weed or burn\nit, or both? On the rail train recently we were compelled to ride for\nan hour in the smoking-car, which Dr. Talmage has called \"the nastiest\nplace in Christendom.\" In front of me sat a young man, drawing and\npuffing away at a cigar, polluting the entire region about him. In the\nshort hour enough time was lost by that young man to have carefully read\nten pages of the best standard literature. All this we observed by\nan occasional glance from the delightful volume in our own hands. The\nordinary user of tobacco has little taste for reading, little passion\nfor knowledge, and superficial habits of continued reasoning. His\nleisure moments are absorbed in the sense-gratification of the weed. But\nif as much attention had been given in acquiring the habit of reading as\nhad been given in learning the use of tobacco, the most valuable of all\nhabits would take the place of one of the most useless of all habits.\nWhen we see a person trying to read with a cigar or a pipe in his mouth,\nKnowing that nine-tenths of his real consciousness is given to his\nsmoking, and one-tenth to what he is reading, we are reminded of the\ncommercial traveler who \"wanted to make the show of a library at home,\nso he wrote to a book merchant in London, saying: 'Send me six feet of\ntheology, and about as much metaphysics, and near a yard of civil law in\nold folio.'\" Not a sentimentalist, a reformer, nor a crank, but Dr. James\nCopeland says: \"Tobacco weakens the nervous powers, favors a dreamy,\nimaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces indolence and\nincapacity for manly or continuous exertion, and sinks its votary into\na state of careless inactivity and selfish enjoyment of vice.\" Professor\nL. H. Gause writes: \"The intellect becomes duller and duller, until at\nlast it is painful to make any intellectual effort, and we sink into a\nsensuous or sensual animal. Any one who would retain a clear mind, sound\nlungs, undisturbed heart, or healthy stomach, must not smoke or chew the\npoisonous plant.\" It is commonly known that in a number of American and\nforeign colleges, by actual testing, the non-user of tobacco is superior\nin mental vigor and scholarship to the user of it. In view of this fact,\nour Government will not allow the use of tobacco at West Point or\nat Annapolis. And in the examinations in the naval academy a large\npercentage of those who fail to pass, fail because of the evil effects\nof smoking.\n\nTobacco drains the pocketbook. \"Will you please look through my mouth\nand nose?\" asked a young man once of a New York physician. The man of\nmedicine did so, and reported nothing there. \"Strange! Look again. Why,\nsir, I have blown ten thousand dollars--a great tobacco plantation and a\nscore of slaves--through that nose.\" The Partido cigar regularly retails\nat from twenty-five to thirty cents each. An ordinary smoker will smoke\nfour cigars a day. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars a year, besides\nhis treating. A small fortune every ten years! A neighbor of ours on the\nfarm used to go to town in the spring and buy enough chewing tobacco\nto last him until after harvest, and flour to last the family for two\nweeks. Among all classes of people this useless drain of the pocketbook\nis increasing. In our country last year more money was spent for tobacco\nthan was spent for foreign missions, for the Churches, and for public\neducation, all combined. Our tobacco bill in one year costs our Nation\nmore than our furniture and our boots and shoes; more than our flour and\nour silk goods; one hundred and forty-five million dollars more than all\nour printing and publishing; one hundred and thirty-five million dollars\nmore than the sawed lumber of the Nation. Each year France buys of us\ntwenty-nine million pounds of tobacco, Great Britain fifty millions,\nand Germany sixty-nine million pounds, to say nothing of how much these\nnations import from other countries. Never before has the use of tobacco\nbeen so widespread as to-day. \"The Turks and Persians are the greatest\nsmokers in the world. In India all classes and both sexes smoke; in\nChina the practice--perhaps there more ancient--is universal, and girls\nfrom the age of eight or nine wear as an appendage to their dress a\nsmall silken pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe.\" Nor can the expense and\nwidespread use of tobacco be defended on the ground that it is a luxury,\nfor the abstainer from tobacco counts it the greater luxury not to use\nit. The only explanation for its use is, that it is a habit which binds\none hand and foot, and from which no person with ordinary will power in\nhis own strength can free himself.\n\nTobacco blunts the moral nature. It is not certain how long tobacco\nhas been used as a narcotic. Some authorities hold that the smoking of\ntobacco was an ancient custom among the Chinese. But if this is true, we\nknow that it did not spread among the neighboring nations. When Columbus\ncame to America he found the natives of the West Indies and the American\nIndian smoking the weed. With the Indian its use has always had a\nreligious and legal significance. Early in the sixteenth century tobacco\nwas introduced into England, later into Spain, and still later, in 1560,\ninto Italy. Used for its medicinal properties at first, soon it came\nto be used as a luxury. The popes of Italy saw its harm and thundered\nagainst it. The priests and sultans of Turkey declared smoking a crime.\nOne sultan made it punishable with death. The pipes of smokers were\nthrust through their noses in Turkey, and in Russia the noses of smokers\nwere cut off in the earlier part of the seventeenth century. \"King James\nI of England issued a counterblast to tobacco, in which he described its\nuse as a 'custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful\nto the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes\nthereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is\nbottomless.'\" As one contrasts this sentiment with the practice of the\npresent sovereign of England, his breath is almost taken away in his\ngreat fall from the sublime to the ridiculous!\n\nWhile we do not believe a moderate use of tobacco for a mature person is\nnecessarily a sin, yet we do believe that it does blunt the moral sense,\nand soon leads to spiritual weakness and indifference, which are sins.\nTo love God with all one's heart, mind, soul, and strength, and\none's neighbor as himself, means not only a denial of that which is\nquestionable in morals, but a practice of that which is positively good.\nHowever noble or worthy in character may be some who use tobacco, yet by\ncommon consent it is a \"tool of the devil.\" Every den of gamblers,\nevery low-down grogshop, every smoking-car, every public resort and\nwaiting-room departments for men, every rendezvous of rogues, loafers,\nvillains, and tramps is thoroughly saturated with the vile stench of the\ncuspidor and the poisonous odors of the pipe and cigar. \"Rev. Dr. Cox\nabandoned tobacco after a drunken loafer asked him for a light.\" Not\nuntil then had he seen and felt the disreputable fraternity that existed\nbetween the users of tobacco.\n\nOwen Meredith gives us a standard of strength and freedom, which is an\ninspiration to every lover of rounded, perfected manhood and womanhood:\n\n    \"Strong is that man, he only strong,\n     To whose well-ordered will belong,\n      For service and delight,\n    All powers that in the face of wrong\n      Establish right.\n\n    And free is he, and only he,\n    Who, from his tyrant passions free,\n      By fortune undismayed,\n    Has power within himself to be,\n      By self obeyed.\n\n    If such a man there be, where'er\n    Beneath the sun and moon he fare,\n      He can not fare amiss;\n    Great nature hath him in her care.\n      Her cause is his.\"\n\nOnly let the \"will,\" the \"powers,\" the \"freedom,\" and the \"self\" of\nwhich the writer speaks become the \"Christ will,\" the \"Christ powers,\"\nthe \"Christ freedom,\" and the \"Christ self.\" Then the strongest chains\nof bondage must fly into flinters. For \"if the Son make you free, ye are\nfree indeed.\" (John viii, 36.)\n\n\n\n\nII. DRUNKENNESS.\n\n\nI. A TEMPERANCE PLATFORM.\n\n\nWE bring to you three words of counsel with respect to this subject.\nFirst, Beware of the Social Glass; second, Study the Drink Evil; third,\nOpenly oppose it. This is a Temperance Platform upon which every sober,\ninformed, and conscientious person may stand. Would it be narrow or\nuncharitable to assert that not to stand upon this platform argues that\none is not sober, or not informed, or not conscientious? The crying\nneed of to-day is, that men and women shall be urged into positions of\nconviction and activity against this most colossal evil of our time.\nIn our country the responsibility for drunkenness rests not with the\nilliterate, blasphemous, ex-prison convicts who operate the 250,000\nsaloons of our Nation, nor yet with the 250,000 finished products of\nthe saloon who go down into drunkards' graves every year, but with the\nsober, respectable, hard-working, voting citizens of our country.\nNor does this exempt women, whose opportunity to shape the moral and\npolitical convictions of the home is far greater than that of the men.\nWhen the women of America say to the saloon, You go! the saloon will\nhave to go. The moral and political measures of any people are easily\ntraceable to the sisters and wives and mothers of that people. You and I\nand every ordinary citizen of our country had as well try to escape our\nown shadow, as to try to escape the responsibility that rests upon us\nfor the drunkenness of our people. To help us to do our whole duty in\nour day and generation in this matter is the purpose of our message.\n\nII. BEWARE OF THE SOCIAL GLASS.\n\nThe first and least thing that one can do to destroy drunkenness, is\nto be a total abstainer. Beware of the social glass! But quickly one\nreplies, \"Why should there be any social glass?\" \"Why allow sparkling,\nattractive springs of refreshing poison to issue forth in all of our\nsocial centers, and then cry to our sons and daughters, to our brothers\nand sisters, Beware?\" My friend, we must deal with facts as they are.\nThere should not be a social glass; but what has that to do with\nthe fact that the social glass is here? You answer, \"Why allow these\nfountains of death to exist?\" while we cry to our loved ones, \"Beware!\"\nWe do not advocate the presence of these fountains; but while we seek\nto destroy them beseechingly we cry, \"Beware!\" The social factor in the\nliquor traffic is its Gibraltar of defense. Rare is the young man who\nhas the intellectual stamina and moral courage to resist the invitations\nto take a social drink. And in our frontier and foreign towns many of\nour bright and respected girls use the social glass. But in its use is\nthe beginning of a fateful end. The subtlest thing in this world is sin.\nListen!\n\n    \"Sin is a monster of so frightful mien;\n      To be hated needs but to be seen;\n      But seen too oft, familiar with the face,\n      We first endure, then pity, then embrace.\"\n\nThe subtle thing about it is, that the first embracing of any sin seems\nto be but a trifling, an occasional affair. For one who lives in an\nordinary city of a thousand inhabitants or upwards, unless he is an\n\"out-and-out\" Christian and selects only associates like himself, it\nbecomes a real Embarrassment not to indulge in a social drink. It seems\npolite, clever, the kindly thing to do. And the sad fact is, that the\nmajority of unchristian young people and many older ones do not decline.\nTo prove this we have but to look at the human wrecks along the shore.\nTwo young men lived near our home. Their parents were well-to-do. The\nfamily grew tired of the farm and moved to town. The boys fell in with\nbad company. They did not decline the social glass. Soon they furnished\nother young men with drink from their own pocket. This was fifteen years\nago. To-day one of them is a hardened sinner, violent in his passions\nand blasphemous against God. The other one, having spent a term in our\nIllinois State University at Champaign, married a beautiful neighbor\ngirl and moved to Missouri. Here he lived off the money of his father's\nestate, practicing his early-learned habits of drinking, gambling, and\nloafing. He moved from State to State until, finally left in poverty,\nhe tended bar in a saloon. While visiting with relatives in his old\nneighborhood a few years ago he stole a watch and some money from\nhis own nephew, and was tried in the courts, and sentenced to the\npenitentiary for one year. His wife, having carried the burden of\ndisgrace and want through all these years, with the seven unfortunate\nchildren were released from him to struggle alone. All this we have seen\nwith our own eyes as the years have come and gone. The downfall and ruin\nof this young man, and the unsaved fate of his brother, easily may be\ntraceable to the \"social glass\" and the boon companions of the social\nglass--tobacco and playing-cards. Last year I met a man who had prided\nhimself in the fact that he could drink or let it alone, and thought\nthat it was all right to take a \"social glass\" occasionally. Election\ntime came around; he fell in with his friends, and, as one always will\ndo sooner or later who tampers with it at all, went too far. Before he\nknew it he was as low in the gutter as a beast. It was three days before\nhe was a sober man again. He work had ceased, he had disgusted his\nfellow-workmen, disgraced his Christian family, and had humiliated\nhimself so that he was ashamed to look any man in the face until he had\nrepented of his sins before God, and had promised Him, by His help, that\nhe would never drink another glass. What a pleasure it was to hear that\nold man, as he is close to sixty years of age, to hear him tell in a\nspirited religious service of how he had strayed from his path and had\ngot lost in the woods, but thanked God that he was out of the woods, and\nby His help would remain out. When we become undone in Christ He lifts\nus up and starts us on our new way rejoicing in His love. If Christ\nHimself were here in body, do you know what He would advise on this\npoint? He would say: \"As it is written;\" \"Look not thou upon the wine\nwhen it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth down\nsmoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an\nadder.\" Beware of the social glass, my friend, for though it promises\npleasure, it gives but pain; it promises joy, it gives but sorrow; it\npromises deliverance, it gives but eternal death!\n\nIII. STUDY THE DRINK EVIL.\n\nWe hear it said, \"No use to picture the horrors of the drink evil; every\none knows them already.\" In part, this is true. All of us know more than\nwe wish it were possible to be true; and yet no one can ever realize\nits horrors until caught, and torn, and mangled in its pinching, jagged,\ngriping meshes. It is one thing to know by a distant glance, it is\nanother thing to know by the pangs of a broken heart and of a wrecked\nlife. For those who are not thus caught in its meshes to realize its\nhorrors so as to seek its destruction but one course is possible;\nnamely, To study the evil. Let the teacher tell of its ravages; let the\nminister proclaim its curses; let the poet sing it; the painter paint\nit; the editor report it; the novelist portray it; the scientist\ndescribe it; the philosopher decry it; the sisters and wives and mothers\ndenounce it--until all shall unite in smiting it to its death!\n\nWe should study the drink evil in its relation to disease. That strong\ndrink tends to produce disease is no longer questioned. \"During the\ncholera in New York City in 1832, of two hundred and four cases in the\nPark Hospital only six were temperate, and all of these recovered; while\none hundred and twenty-two of the others died. In Great Britain in the\nsame year five-sixths of all who perished were intemperate. In one\nor two villages every drunkard died, while not a single member of a\ntemperance society lost his life.\" \"In Paisley, England, in 1848, there\nwere three hundred and thirty-seven cases of cholera, and every case\nexcept one was a dram-drinker. The cases of cholera were one for every\none hundred and eighty-one inhabitants; but among the temperate portion\nthere was only one case to each two thousand.\" \"Of three hundred and\neighty-six persons connected with the total abstinence societies only\none died, and he was a reformed drunkard\" of three months' standing. \"In\nNew Orleans during the last epidemic the order of the Sons of Temperance\nappointed a committee to ascertain the number of deaths from cholera\namong their members. It was found that there were twelve hundred and\nforty-three members in the city and suburbs, and among these only three\ndeaths had occurred, being only one-sixth the average death-rate.\" \"In\nNew York, in 1832, only two out of five thousand members of temperance\nsocieties died.\" The Northwestern Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee,\nWisconsin, one of the oldest and most successful Companies in the\nNorthwest, has lived for nearly forty years next neighbor to lager beer\ninterests. The shrewd men of this company have studied the influence of\nthe beer industry upon those who engage in it. The result is, that they\nwill no longer grant an insurance policy to a beer-brewer, nor to any\none in any way engaged in the business. In their own words their reason\nis this: \"Our statistics show that our business has been injured by the\nshort lives of those men who drink lager beer.\"\n\nThen, we need to study the drink evil in its relation to society. \"A\nrecent report of the chaplain of the Madalen Society of New York shows\nthat of eight-nine fallen women in the asylum at one time, all but\ntwo ascribed their fall to the effect of the drink habit.\" \"A lady\nmissionary makes the statement that of two thousand sinful women known\npersonally to her, there were only ten cases in which intoxicating\nliquors were not largely responsible for their fall.\" \"A leading worker\nfor reform in New York says that the suppression of the curse of strong\ndrink would include the destruction of ninety-nine of every one hundred\nof the houses of ill-fame.\" \"A missionary on going at the written\nrequest of one of these lost women to rescue her from a den of infamy\nremonstrated with her for being even then slightly under the influence\nof drink.\" \"Why,\" was her indignant reply as tears filled her eyes,\n\"do you suppose we girls are so dead that we have lost our memories of\nmother, home, and everything good? No, indeed; and if it were not for\nliquor and opium, we would all have to run away from our present life or\ngo mad by pleadings of our own hearts and home memories.\"\n\nOnly by a study of the drink evil shall we know its ravages in the home.\nThose of us who have lived in the pure air of free, country home-life\ncan not easily realize the moral plague of drunkenness as it blights the\nhome in the crowded districts of city slum life. Nor is the home of the\ncity alone cursed by the drink evil. Three years ago this last holiday\nseason we were doing some evangelistic work in a neighboring town, a\nmere village of a couple hundred inhabitants. I shall never forget\nhow the mother of a dejected home cried and pleaded for help from the\nravages of her drunken husband. She said that he had spent all of his\nwages, and had made no provision for the home, in furniture, in books\nfor the children, nor in clothing for them nor for her. She had come\nalmost to despair, and was blaming God for allowing her little ones to\nsuffer because of a worthless man. O, the world is full of this sort of\nthing to-day, if we only knew the sighs and heartaches and blasted hopes\nof those who suffer! In a smoking-car one day a commercial traveler\nrefused to drink with his old comrades, by saying: \"No, I won't drink\nwith you to-day, boys. The fact is, boys, I have sworn off.\" He was\ntaunted and laughed at, and urged to tell what had happened to him. They\nsaid: \"If you've quit drinking, something's up; tell us what it is.\"\n\"Well, boys,\" he said, \"I will, though I know you will laugh at me; but\nI will tell you all the same. I have been a drinking man all my life,\nand have kept it up since I was married, as you all know. I love whisky;\nit's as sweet in my mouth as sugar, and God only knows how I'll quit it.\nFor seven years not a day has passed over my head that I didn't have\nat least one drink. But I am done. Yesterday I was in Chicago. Down on\nSouth Clark Street a customer of mine keeps a pawnshop in connection\nwith his business. I called on him, and while I was there a young man of\nnot more than twenty-five, wearing thread-bare clothes, and looking\nas hard as if he had not seen a sober day for a month, came in with a\nlittle package in his hand. Tremblingly he unwrapped it, and handed the\narticles to the pawnbroker, saying, 'Give me ten cents.' And, boys, what\ndo you suppose that package was? A pair of baby's shoes; little things\nwith the buttons only a trifle soiled, as if they had been worn once\nor twice. 'Where did you get them?' asked the pawnbroker. 'Got 'em at\nhome,' replied the man, who had an intelligent face and the manner of a\ngentleman, despite his sad condition. 'My wife bought 'em for our baby.\nGive me ten cents for 'em. I want a drink.' 'You had better take those\nback to your wife; the baby will need them,' said the pawnbroker. 'No,\nshe won't..She's lying at home now; she died last night.' As he said\nthis the poor fellow broke down, bowed his head on the showcase, and\ncried like a child. 'Boys,' said the drummer, 'you can laugh if you want\nto, but I have a baby of my own at home, and by the help of God I'll\nnever drink another drop.'\" The man went into another car, the bottle\nhad disappeared, and the boys pretended to read some papers that lay\nscattered about the car. Ah, this is only one out of hundreds of such\nscenes that are being enacted every day in our saloon-cursed cities.\n\nWe should study the drink evil to see how it makes people poor and keeps\nthem poor. A story is told of a drinking man who related to his family\na dream that he had had the night before. He dreamed that he saw three\ncats, a fat one, a lean one, and a blind one; and he was anxious to\nknow what it meant that he should have such a strange dream. Quickly\nhis little boy answered, \"I can tell what it means. The fat cat is the\nsaloon-keeper who sells you drink, the lean cat is mother and me, and\nthe blind cat is yourself.\" \"In one of our large cities,\" one day, \"a\nlaboring man, leaving a saloon, saw a costly carriage and pair of horses\nstanding in front, occupied by two ladies elegantly dressed, conversing\nwith the proprietor. 'Whose establishment is that?' he said to the\nsaloon-keeper, as the carriage rolled away. 'It is mine,' replied the\ndealer, proudly. 'It cost thirty-five hundred dollars. My wife and\ndaughter couldn't do without that.' The mechanic bowed his head a\nmoment in deep thought; then, looking up, said with the energy of a man\nsuddenly aroused by some startling flash, 'I see it!' 'I see it!' 'See\nwhat?' asked the saloonkeeper. 'See where for years my wages have gone.\nI helped to pay for that carriage, for those horses and gold-mounted\nharnesses, and for the silks and laces for your family. The money I have\nearned, that should have given my wife and children a home of their own\nand good clothing, I have spent at your bar. By the help of God I will\nnever spend another dime for drink.'\" South Milwaukee has five thousand\ninhabitants. Three large mills operate there. A reliable business man,\nforeman in one of the mills, told me that the laboring people of South\nMilwaukee put $25,000 each month into the tills of the saloons. Dr. J.O.\nPeck, one of the most successful pastor evangelists of recent years,\ntells of a man who crossed Chelsea Ferry to Boston one morning, and\nturned into Commercial Street for his usual glass. As he poured out the\npoison, the saloonkeeper's wife came in, and confidently asked for $500\nto purchase an elegant shawl she had seen at the store of Jordan, March\n& Co.. He drew from his pocket a well-filled pocketbook, and counted out\nthe money. The man outside the counter pushed aside his glass untouched,\nand laying down ten cents departed in silence. That very morning his\ndevoted Christian wife had asked him for ten dollars to buy a cloak, so\nthat she might look presentable at church. He had crossly told her he\nhad not the money. As he left the saloon he thought, 'Here I am helping\nto pay for five-hundred-dollar cashmeres for that man's wife, but my\nwife asks in vain for a ten-dollar cloak. I can't stand this. I have\nspent my last dime for drink.' When the next pay-day came that meek,\nloving wife was surprised with a beautiful cloak from her reformed\nhusband. She could scarcely believe her own eyes as he laid it on the\ntable. 'There, Emma, is a present for you. I have been a fool long\nenough; forgive me for the past, and I will never touch liquor again.'\nShe threw her arms around his neck, and the hot tears told her heartfelt\njoy as she sobbed out: 'Charley, I thank you a thousand times. I never\nexpected so nice a cloak. This seems like other days. You are so good,\nand I am so happy.'\" The drink bill of our Nation for last year was over\na billion of dollars, more money than was spent for missions--home and\nforeign--for all of our Churches, for public education, for all the\noperations of courts of justice and of public officers, and at least for\ntwo of the staple products of use in our country, such as furniture and\nflour. More than for all these was the money that our Nation paid for\ndrink last year. When the people of our country get their eyes open to\nthe cost and degradation of the drink evil, something definite will be\ndone by every one against it.\n\nThe drink evil in its relation to lawlessness and crime, and to\npolitical corruption, reveal still more ghastly aspects of it than we\nhave yet mentioned. The saloon strikes at the very heart, not only of\nlaw and order, but at personal liberty and justice in securing law and\norder. It was in a police court in Cincinnati on Monday morning. Before\nthe judge stood two stalwart policeman and a woman. She was charged\nwith disorderly conduct on the street and with disturbing the peace.\nThe policemen were sworn, and one of them told this story, to which the\nother one agreed. He said: \"I arrested the woman in front of a saloon\non Broadway on Saturday night. She had raised a great disturbance, was\nfighting and brawling with men in the saloon, and the saloonkeeper put\nher out. She used the foulest language, and with an awful threat struck\nat the saloonkeeper with all her force. I then arrested her, took her to\nthe detention house, and locked her up.\" The saloonkeeper was called to\nthe witness stand, and said: \"I know dis voman's vas making disturbance\nby my saloon. She comes and she makes troubles, und she fights mit me,\nund I put her de door oud. I know her all along. She vas pad vomans.\"\nThe judge turned to the trembling woman and said: \"This is a pretty\nclear case, madam; have you anything to say in your defense?\" \"Yes,\nJudge,\" she answered, in a strangely calm, though trembling, voice:\n\"I am not guilty of the charge, and these men standing before you have\nperjured their souls to prevent me from telling the truth. It was they,\nnot I, who violated the law. I was in the saloon last Saturday night,\nand I will tell you how it happened. My husband did not come home from\nwork that evening, and I feared he had gone to the saloon. I knew he\nmust have drawn his week's wages, and we needed it all so badly. I put\nthe little ones to bed, and then waited all alone through the weary\nhours until after the city clock struck twelve. Then I thought the\nsaloons will be closed, and he will be put out on to the street.\nProbably he will not be able to get home, and the police will arrest him\nand lock him up. I must go and find him, and bring him home. I wrapped\na shawl about me and started out, leaving the little ones asleep in bed.\nAnd, Judge, I have not seen them since.\" She did not give way to tears,\nfor the worst grief can not weep. She continued: \"I went to the saloon,\nwhere I thought most like he would be. It was about twenty minutes\nafter twelve; but the saloon, that man's saloon\"--pointing to the\nsaloonkeeper, who now wanted to crouch out of sight--\"was still open,\nand my husband and these two policemen were standing at the bar drinking\ntogether. I stepped up to my husband and asked him to go home with me;\nbut the men laughed at him, and the saloonkeeper ordered me out. I said,\n'No, I want my husband to go home with me.' Then I tried to tell him\nhow badly we were needing the money that he was spending; and then the\nsaloon-keeper cursed me, and told me to leave. Then I confess I could\nstand no more, and said, 'You ought to be prosecuted for violating the\nmidnight closing law.' At this the saloonkeeper and policemen rushed\nupon me and put me into the street; and one of the policemen, grasping\nmy arm like a vice, hissed in my ear, 'I'll get you a thirty days'\nsentence in the workhouse, and then we'll see what you think about suing\npeople.' He called a patrol wagon, pushed me in, and drove to jail; and,\nJudge, you know the rest. All day yesterday I was locked up, my children\nat home alone, with no fire, no food, no mother.\" The judge dismissed\nthe woman; but the saloonkeeper, the perjured policemen, nor the corrupt\njudge were ever prosecuted for their unlawfulness. The whole affair was\ndropped because the saloon power in Cincinnati reigns supreme.\n\"This case is a matter of record in the Cincinnati courts.\" It is a\ndisgraceful fact that the liquor-traffic rules in politics to-day. A\nsaloonkeeper in Richmond, Virginia, overheard some one talking of\nreform in municipal politics, when he scornfully said: \"Any bar-room in\nRichmond is a bigger man in politics than all the Churches in Richmond\nput together.\"\n\nIV. THE PRACTICAL QUESTION FOR US HERE AND NOW IS, How may we openly\noppose this drink evil?\n\nThe Churches need not expect a widespread revival of religion until\nprofessing Christians do their duty with respect to the saloon. Mothers\nand fathers need not expect their sons to remain sober while the saloon\nopens to them day and night. Wives need not expect their husbands to\nremain devoted and loyal until the saloon is abolished. What is our\nduty? How shall we oppose the evil? How do the American people deal with\nevils when they deal with them at all? When Great Britain went a little\ntoo far in \"taxation without representation,\" what course did the\nAmerican Colonies adopt in remedying the evil? Their chief men said,\n\"These Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent\nStates.\" The popular voice of the people decided it. When the British\nGovernment unduly impressed American seamen, how was the difficulty\nsettled? The representatives of the people, their lawmakers, declared\nwar against the opposing nation, and forced her to cease her oppression.\nThe popular vote decided it. When Negro slavery darkened the entire sky\nof our country, and caused our leading men to realize that we could not\nlong exist half-slave and half-free, how was the dark cloud dispelled?\nThe representatives of our people, the lawmakers of the land, in\nletters of blood wrote the immortal Thirteenth Amendment to the American\nConstitution: \"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a\npunishment for crime, whereof the person shall have been duly convicted,\nshall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their\njurisdiction.\" When we wanted to increase our territory in 1803, and in\n1845, and in 1867, how did we go about it? The representatives of the\npeople, the lawmakers of the land, voted to make the purchases, and\nthey were made. When a Territory is organized, or a State comes into the\nUnion, what is done? The representatives of the people, the lawmakers\nof the land, vote upon it, and it is done. When treaties are to be\nmade with foreign countries; when immigration of foreigners is to be\nregulated; when money is to be borrowed or coined; when post-offices and\npost-roads are to be established; when counterfeiting is to be punished,\nand public abuses are to be reformed, whose business is it? The\nConstitution of the United States says the representatives of the\npeople, the lawmakers of the land, have this power. When will the drink\nevil cease in our country? When our representatives in Congress, or\nlawmakers, stand for the abolition of the American saloon, and vote it\nout of existence; then, and not until then, will drunkenness cease. When\nwill we have representatives in Congress, lawmakers who will stand for\nthe abolition of the saloon, and who will vote it out of existence? Not\nuntil you and I have select them, and place them there with our vote.\nTo expect Christian temperance in our country from any other source is\nabsolute folly.\n\nThe abolition of drunkenness by local option is selfish, unpractical,\nand unscriptural. You vote the liquor-traffic out of your town; we vote\nit in ours. Remember every saloon exists only by vote of the people.\nYour young people come over to our town for drink. We have the curse of\nGod upon us. \"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink.\" (Hab. Ii,\n15.) It is unpractical, for so long as intoxicants are made they will\nbe sold. It is selfish, for to vote against the saloon in your town\nelection, and to vote for it in your State or National election, is to\ndrive the mad-dog on past your door to the door of your neighbor, when\nyou might have killed him.\n\nThe abolition of drunkenness by regulating the traffic through license\nis the most gigantic delusion that Satan ever worked upon an intelligent\npeople. It is a well-known truth that \"limitation is the secret of\npower.\" The best way to provoke an early marriage between devoted lovers\nis bitterly to oppose them. The stream whose water spreads over its low\nbanks is without depth and current and power. But confine the waters\nbetween high, narrow banks, the bed of the stream is deepened, and its\nmighty current supports animal life and turns the wheels of mill and\nfactory. The regulation of the liquor-traffic by license makes it a\nfinancial and political power second to none in America to-day. To vote\nfor any party or man who advocates liquor license, is to give a loyal\nsupport to the American saloon.\n\nTo expect the abolition of drunkenness solely through processes of\neducation is to preach one thing and to practice another. It is to\nperpetuate an evil that costs two hundred and fifty thousand precious\nlives every year. It is to leave to the next generation a work that God\nexpects us to do here and now. Dr. Banks relates an incident witnessed\nby Major Hilton on the coast of Scotland. \"Just at the break of day the\npeople of a little hamlet on the coast were awakened by the boom of a\ncannon over the stormy waves. They knew what it meant, for frequently\nthey had heard before the same signal of distress. Some poor souls were\nout beyond the breakers perishing on a wrecked vessel, and in their last\nextremity calling wildly for help. The people hastened from their houses\nto the shore. Out there in the distance was a dismantled vessel pounding\nitself to pieces. Perishing fellow-beings were clinging to the rigging,\nand every now and then some one was swept off into the sea by the\nfurious waves. The life-saving crew was soon gathered. 'Man the\nlife-boat!' cried the man. \"Where is Hardy?\" But the foreman of the crew\nwas not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate,\nor all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat,\nfollowed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope\nof saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved\nones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They\nreached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they filled their craft\nwith almost dying men--men lost but for them. Back again they toiled,\npulling for the shore, bearing their precious freight. The first man\nto help them land was Hardy, whose words rang above the roar of the\nbreakers: \"Are you all here? Did you save them all?\" With saddened faces\nthe reply came: \"All but one. He couldn't help himself at all. We had\nall we could carry. We couldn't save the last one.\" \"Man the life-boat\nagain!\" shouted Hardy. \"I will go. What! leave one there to die alone?\nA fellow-creature there, and we on shore? Man the life-boat now!\nWe'll save him yet.\" But who is this aged woman with worn garments and\ndisheveled hair, with agonized entreaty falling upon her knees beside\nthis brave, strong man? It is his mother! \"O, my son! your father was\ndrowned in a storm like this. Your brother Will left me eight years ago,\nand I have never seen his face since the day he sailed. No doubt he,\ntoo, has found a watery grave. And now you will be lost, and I am old\nand poor. O, stay with me!\" \"Mother,\" cried the man, \"where one is in\nperil, there is my place. If I am lost, God surely will care for you.\"\nThe plea of earnest faith prevailed. With a \"God bless you, my boy!\"\nshe released him, and speeded him on his way. Once more they watched and\nprayed and waited--those on the shore--while every muscle was strained\ntoward the fast-sinking ship by those in the life-saving boat. At last\nit reached the vessel. The clinging figure was lifted and helped to\nits place. Back came the boat. How eagerly they looked and called in\nencouragement, and cheered as it came nearer! \"Did you get him?\" was the\ncry from the shore. Lifting his hands to his mouth to trumpet the words\non in advance of their landing, Hardy called back above the roar of the\nstorm, \"Tell mother it is brother Will!\"\n\nMy friend, simply talking and praying will not save our loved ones from\ndrunkards' graves. We must man the life-boat of municipal, State, and\nNational reform, and vote for principle and Christian temperance until\nwe save the last man. He may be \"brother Will.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII. GAMBLING, CARD-PLAYING\n\nGAMBLING has become a moral plague of modern society. In one form or\nanother it has entered the rank and file of every department of life--in\nprivate parlor over cards; in hotel drawing-room over election reports;\nin college athletic grounds over brains and brawn; in the counting-room\nover the price of stocks; in the racing tournament over jockeying and\nspeed; in the Board of Trade hall over future prices of the necessaries\nof life; in the den of iniquity at dice; in the drinking saloon at\nthe slot-machine; in the people's fair at the wheel of fortune; in the\ngambling den itself at every conceivable form of swindling trick and\ngame. Gambling has come to be almost an omnipresent evil. In treating\nthis subject, it is our purpose to point out something of the nature\nof its evil, not only that we may be kept from it but that we may save\nothers whom it threatens to destroy.\n\nGambling grows out of a misuse of the natural tendency to take risks. A\nsocial vice is some social right misused. Men have the social right to\ncongregate to talk over measures of social and economic welfare. But if\nthey discuss measures which oppose the principles of free Government,\ntheir meeting together becomes a crime against the State. A personal\nvice is some personal right misused. As some one has put it, \"Vice is\nvirtue gone mad.\" It is a personal right and a personal virtue to be\ncharitable, even beneficent. But since justice comes before mercy, if\none uses for charity that which should be used in payment of debt, his\nvirtue of beneficence becomes a vice of theft. So it is with gambling.\nIt is giving the natural tendency to chance, to risk an illegitimate\nplay. The person who is afraid to risk anything accomplishes but little\nin any way, is seldom a speculator, and never a gambler. Usually the\ngambler is the man who is naturally full of hazard, who loves to run\nrisks, to take chances. Nor will one find a more practical and useful\ntendency in one's make-up than this. See the discoverer of America and\nhis brave crew for days and days sailing across an unknown sea toward an\nunknown land. But that was the price of a New World. Note the hazard\nand risk of our Pilgrim Fathers. But they gave to the world a new\ncolonization. See the Second greatest American on his knees before\nAlmighty God, promising him that he would free four million of slaves,\nproviding General Lee should be driven back out of Maryland. General\nLee was driven back, and that immortal though most hazardous of all\ndocuments, from man's point of view, was read to his Cabinet and signed\nby Abraham Lincoln. All great men have taken great risks. Not a section\nof the United States has been settled without some risk. No business\nenterprise is launched without some risk. To secure an education, to\nlearn a trade, to marry a wife, all involve some risk, much risk. The\ntendency to risk, to hazard, to chance it is a practical and useful\ntendency. Only let this tendency be governed always by wisdom\nand justice. No person ever became a gambler until consciously or\nunconsciously he forfeited wisdom and justice in his chances and risks.\n\nGambling takes a variety of forms. First of all is the professional\ngambler. He has no other business. His investment is a \"pack of cards\"\nand a box of \"dice. See him with his long, slender fingers; with his\nshaggy, unkempt hair; with keen eyes, and a sordid countenance. He is\nprepared to \"rake in\" a thousand dollars a night, and would not hesitate\nto strip any man of his fortune. The professional is found at county\nfairs, on railway trains, in gilded dens, and at public resorts. Being a\nprofessional outlaw, and subject at any time to arrest and imprisonment,\nusually he has an accomplice. Sometimes a gang work together, so that\nit is with perfect ease they may relieve any unwary novice of his money.\nThey know human nature on its low, mercenary side, and soon can find\ntheir man in a crowd. But few persons have started out in life having\nit for their aim to get something for nothing who, sooner or later, have\nnot been \"taken in\" by this gang of swindlers. They know their kind.\nThe end of the professional gambler is final loss and ruin. He will make\n$100, he will make $500, he will make $1,000, he will make $2,000; then\nhe will lose all. Then he will borrow some money and start anew. And\nagain he will make $200, he will make $600, he will make $1,200, and he\nwill lose all. Like the winebibber and the professional murderer, the\nprofessional gambler has his den. Not a large city in the world is\nwithout these haunts of vice. Who is it that feeds and supports them?\nThe novice at cards and dice, husbands and sons of respectable families,\njust as the occasional dram-taker supports the saloon. As one has asked:\n\n    \"Could fools to keep their own contrive,\n  On whom, on what could gamesters thrive?\"\n                                     --GAY.\n\nThe penny novice seeks the penny gambling den. The aristocratic\nspeculator seeks the gilded gambling den. The expert trickster of large\nluck and large fortune makes his way to Monte Carlo, the gambling Mecca\nof the world. Monte Carlo is a famous resort situated in the northwest\npart of Italy. It is notorious for its gambling saloon. This city of\nnearly four thousand inhabitants is located in Monaco, the smallest\nindependent country in the world. Monaco is about eight miles square,\nand lies on a \"barren, rocky ridge between the sea and lofty, almost\ninaccessible rocks.\" The soil is barren, except in small tracts\nwhich are used for fruit-gardens. For centuries the inhabitants, the\nMonagasques, lived by marauding expeditions, both by sea and land, and\nby slight commerce with Genoa, Marseilles, and Nice. But in the\nlast century the people have converted their country and city into\na world-wide resort. In 1860, M. Blanc, a famous gambler and saloon\nproprietor of two German cities, went to Monaco, and for an immense\nsum of money received sole privilege to convert their province into a\ngambler's paradise. Soon immense marble buildings arose in the midst\nof such beauty as to make it a modern rival of the gardens of ancient\nBabylon. Costly statues, gorgeous vases, graceful fountains, elegant\nbasins, and beautiful terraces, all of which are made alluring by\nblooming plants, by light illuminations, and by free concerts of music\nday and night,--these are the attractions in this gambler's paradise.\nHere fortunes are won and lost in a night. For, as has been sung,\n\n    \"Dice will run the contrary way,\n      As well is known to all who play,\n        And cards will conspire as in treason.\"\n                    --HOOD.\n\nThen we have the speculator in commerce. He is the denizen of the Board\nof Trade hall. He speculates on the prices of next week's, of next\nmonth's meat and breadstuffs. And still this sort of gambler may be a\nbook-keeper in a bank, a farm hand, or a clerk in a grocery store. It\nha become so simple and so common a practice for persons to speculate on\nthe markets that any person with ten dollars, or twenty-five dollars,\nor a hundred dollars may take his chances. Tens of thousands of dollars\nto-day are being swept into this silent whirlpool, the gambler's\ncommerce.\n\nAlso we have the pool gambler. He is actuated by love of excitement. He\nis found at the race course, at the baseball diamond, and at all sorts\nof contests, where he may find opportunity to be on the outcome. It is\na common thing for young men to steal their employers' money, for young\ngirls to take their hard-earned wages to stake on games and races.\nRecently $175,000 were paid for the exclusive gambling right for one\nyear at the Washington Park races in Chicago.\n\nLast of all, we have the society gambler. He is growing numerous to-day.\nHe is the same person, whether clad in full dress in the drawing-room of\nthe worldling, or in common dress around the fireside of the unchristian\nChurch member. Like the professional gambler his instrument is \"cards,\"\nand he can shake the \"dice.\" His games are whist, progressive euchre,\nand sometimes poker. The stakes now are not money, but the gratification\nof excitement and the indulgence of passion. One, two, four hours go by\nalmost unnoticed. Prizes are offered for the best player. As a Catholic\npriest told me after he had won a small sum with cards. Said he: \"We\njust put up a few dollars, you know, to lend devotions to the game.\"\nSo prizes are offered in the social gambling \"to lend devotions to the\ngame.\" It is under such circumstances as these that young men and\nyoung women receive their first lessons in card-playing. A passion for\ncard-playing is called forth, developed, and must be satisfied, even\nthough it takes one in low places among vile associates. \"A Christian\ngentleman came from England to this country. He brought with him $70,000\nin money. He proposed to invest the money. Part of it was his own; part\nof it was his mother's. He went into a Christian Church; was coldly\nreceived, and said to himself: 'Well, if that is the kind of Christian\npeople they have in America, I don't want to associate with them much.'\nSo he joined a card-playing party. He went with them from time to\ntime. He went a little further on, and after a while he was in games of\nchance, and lost all of the $70,000. Worse than that, he lost all of his\ngood morals; and on the night that he blew his brains out he wrote to\nthe lady to whom he was affianced an apology for the crime he was about\nto commit, and saying in so many words, 'My first step to ruin was the\njoining of that card party.'\"\n\nIn all of its forms gambling is loaded down with evil. In the first\nplace it destroys the incentive to honest work. Let the average young\nman win a hundred dollars at the races, it will so turn his head against\nslow and honorable ways of getting money that he will watch for every\nopportunity to get it easily and abundantly. The young girl who risks\nfifty cents and gets back fifty dollars will no longer be of service as\na quiet, contented worker. The spirit of speculation, the passion to get\nsomething for nothing, is calculated to destroy the incentive to honest\ntoil and to honorable methods of gain. As one values his character,\nas he values his peace of mind, so should he zealously guard himself\nagainst overfascinating games of chance. Once we had a family in our\nChurch who played cards, and who taught their children to play cards. Of\ncourse these families had no time for prayer-meeting, nor for Christian\nwork. Card-playing for amusement or for money will create a passion\nthat must be satisfied, although one must give up home and business\nand pleasure. In a town where we once lived a young man and his wife\nattended our Church. In every way the husband was kind, and attentive\nto business. But he had fallen a victim to playing cards for money.\nWhen that passion would seize him he would leave his business, his hired\nhelp, his home and wife and little one, and would lose himself for days\nat a time seeking to satisfy that passion. An enviable husband, father,\ncitizen, and neighbor but for that evil; but how wretchedly that ruined\nall! Dr. Holland, of Springfield, Massachusetts, says: \"I have all my\ndays had a card-playing community open to my observation, and yet I am\nunable to believe that that which is the universal resort of starved\nsoul and intellect, which has never in any way linked to itself tender,\nelevating, or beautiful associations, but, the tendency of which is to\nunduly absorb the attention from more weighty matters, can recommend\nitself to the favor of Christ's disciples. I have this moment,\" says he,\n\"ringing in my ears the dying injunction of my father's early friend:\n'Keep your son from cards. Over them I have murdered time and lost\nheaven.'\"\n\nGambling is dishonest. It seeks something for nothing. Man possesses no\nmoney, that he might risk giving it to some rogue to waste in sin. All\nthe property one possesses, he possesses it by stewardship to be used\nwisely and honestly for good. Every age has needed a revival of the\nGolden Rule in business. Much of the business of to-day is attended to\non the dishonest principle that characterizes gambling, \"Get as much as\npossible for as little as possible.\" This spirit is first cousin to the\nspirit of gambling. The only difference is, one is called wrong and is\nwrong; the other is wrong and is called right. Tell the gambler he is a\nthief; he will acknowledge it, and will beat you, if he can, while he is\ntalking to you. Tell the other man he is a thief, and he will sue you at\ncourt and win his case, although it is just as wrong to steal $100 from\nan unbalanced mind, as it is to steal $100 from an unlocked safe or\noff of an untrained football team. It will be an easy matter to produce\nprofessional gamblers so long as society upholds dishonest dealers\nby another name. What men need in this matter is moral and spiritual\nvision, spiritual discernment. Some persons live by taking advantage of\nthose who are down.\n\nIn all of its forms gambling leads to a long train of crimes. In\naddition to his crime of theft the professional gambler, through passion\nor drink, becomes a murderer. I knew a professional gambler who killed\na man, with whom he had been playing cards for money, for fifty cents.\nAfter it was all over the man was sorry he had done it, for he had\ncommitted the crime in a passion while he was intoxicated. The one who\nspeculates on the markets is not counted dishonest by the world, but how\noften and how quickly it leads one into crime! In our neighboring town\nin Illinois a man of a good family and of good standing in the community\nbegan to speculate on the Chicago Board of Trade. He was as honest a\nperson, perhaps, as you or I. He thought he was. For years he had been\na trusted, Christian worker, and treasurer of the Sunday-school. But he\nmade just one venture too many. He had lost all; could not even replace\nthe Sunday-school fund that he had simply used, no doubt expecting to\nreplace it with usury; but the loss and disgrace were too much for him\nto face, so he deserted home and friends and honor and all, and secretly\nran away. The speculating gambler became a deserting embezzler. The\nperson who has acquired a passion for betting on races and games is on a\nfair way to professional gambling and to speculating on the markets. And\nrarely does one ever escape these, if once he gets a start in them.\n\nThe evil of society gambling is most dangerous of all, because it is\nmost subtle of all. Ah first no one would suspect an innocent game of\ncards, played just for fun. You may be the fourth one to make up a game;\nyou may not know how to play, but you are told you can quickly learn.\nYou brave it, and go in for a game. The next time a similar circumstance\narises, you can not easily decline, for you must confess you have\nplayed, and so you go in as an old player. This may be as far as the\nmatter ever goes with you. But here is one who is more impulsive than\nyou; his surroundings are entirely different. He learns to play, and\ncomes to revel in it. A passion is created for the game. He is shrewd;\nsoon learns the tricks, and one evening--purely by chance, as it seems\nto him--he wins his first five dollars. Strange possibilities with\ncards lay hold upon him. He is consumed by that passion. He plays for\nbusiness, for keeps; he has become a professional gambler. Ah! this is\nno finespun tale; it is being worked out every year in our country, all\nover the world. Among many things for which I have to thank my father\nand mother not the least is, that they would allow no gamblers, nor\ngambling, nor the instruments of gambling about our home. Better keep\na pet rattlesnake for your child than a deck of cards; for if he\ngets poisoned by the snake he may be cured; but if the passion for\ncard-playing should happen to seize him, there is little chance of a\ncure. The inmates of our penitentiaries to-day, almost to a man, testify\nthat \"card-playing threw them into bad company, led them into sin, and\nwas one of the causes of their downfall.\" Dr. Talmage was asked if there\ncould be any harm in a pack of cards. He Said: \"Instead of directly\nanswering your question, I will give you as My opinion that there are\nthousands of men with as strong a brain as you have, who have gone\nthrough card-playing into games of chance, and have dropped down into\nthe gambler's life and into the gambler's hell.\" A prisoner in a jail\nin Michigan wrote a letter to a temperance paper, in which he gives this\nadvice for young men: \"Let cards and liquor alone, and you will never\nbe behind the gates.\" Friends, not every one who touches liquor is a\ndrunkard, but every drunkard touches liquor; so not every one who plays\ncards is a professional gambler, but every professional gambler plays\ncards. Is there nothing significant about these facts. \"A word to the\nwise is sufficient.\" \"In a railway train sat four men playing cards. One\nwas a judge, and two of the others were lawyers. Near them sat a poor\nmother, a widow in black. The sight of the men at their game made her\nnervous. She kept quiet as long as she could; but finally rising came to\nthem, and addressing the judge, asked: 'Do you know me?' 'No, madam,\nI do not,' said he. 'Well, said the mother, 'you sentenced my son to\nState's prison for life.' Turning to one of the lawyers, she said: 'And\nyou, sir, pleaded against him. He was all I had. He worked hard on the\nfarm, was a good boy, and took care of me until he began to play cards,\nwhen he took to gambling and was lost.'\" Dr. Guthrie writes: \"In regard\nto the lawfulness of certain pursuits, pleasures, and amusements, it\nis impossible to lay down any fixed and general rule; but we may\nconfidently say that whatever is found to unfit you for religious\nduties, or to interfere with the performance of them; whatever\ndissipates your mind or cools the fervor of your devotions; whatever\nindisposes you to read your Bibles or to engage in prayer, wherever\nthe thought of a bleeding Savior, or of a holy God, or of the day of\njudgment falls like a cold shadow on your enjoyment, the pleasures you\ncan not thank God for, on which you can not ask His blessing, whose\nrecollections will haunt a dying bed and plant sharp thorns in its\nuneasy pillow,--these are not for you..Never go where you can not ask\nGod to go with you; never be found where you would not like death to\nfind you. Never indulge in any pleasure that will not bear the morning's\nreflection. Keep yourselves unspotted from the world, not from its spots\nonly, but even from its suspicions.\"\n\n\n\nIV. DANCING.\n\n\nDANCING is the expression of inward feelings by means of rhythmical\nmovements of the body. Usually these movements are in measured step, and\nare accompanied by music.\n\nIn some form or another dancing is as old as the world, and has been\npracticed by rude as well as by civilized peoples. The passion for\namateur dancing always has been strongest among savage nations, who have\nmade equal use of it in religious rites and in war. With the savages\nthe dancers work themselves into a perfect frenzy, into a kind of mental\nintoxication. But as civilization has advanced dancing has modified its\nform, becoming more orderly and rhythmical. The early Greeks made the\nart of dancing into a system, expressive of all the different passions.\nFor example, the dance of the Furies, so represented, would create\ncomplete terror among those who witnessed them. The Greek philosopher,\nAristotle, ranked dancing with poetry, and said that certain dancers,\nwith rhythm applied to gesture, could express manners, passions, and\nactions. The most eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the\ndancers for their art of imitating the passions. In a classical Greek\nsong, Apollo, one of the twelve greater gods, the son of Zeus the chief\ngod, and the god of medicine, music, and poetry, was called The Dancer.\nIn a Greek line Zeus himself is represented as dancing. In Sparta, a\nprovince of ancient Greece, the law compelled parents to exercise their\nchildren in dancing from the age of five years. They were led by grown\nmen, and sang hymns and songs as they danced. In very early times a\nGreek chorus, consisting of the whole population of the city, would meet\nin the market-place to offer up thanksgivings to the god of the country.\nTheir jubilees were always attended with hymn-singing and dancing.\nThe Jewish records make frequent mention of dancing, but always \"as a\nreligious ceremony, or as an expression of gratitude and praise.\" As\na means of entertainment in private society, dancing was practiced\nin ancient times, but by professional dancers, and not by the company\nthemselves. It is true that the Bible has sanctioned dancing, but let\nus remember, first, that it was always a religious rite; second, that\nit was practiced only on joyful occasions, at national feasts, and after\ngreat victories; third, that usually it was \"performed by maidens in\nthe daytime, in open air, in highways, fields, or groves;\" fourth, that\n\"there are no instances of dancing sanctioned in the Bible, in which\nboth sexes united in the exercise, either as an act of worship or as an\namusement;\" fifth, that any who perverted the dance from a sacred use\nto purposes of amusement were called infamous. The only records in\nScripture of dancing as a social amusement were those of the ungodly\nfamilies described by Job xxi, 11-13, who spent their time in luxury\nand gayety, and who came to a sudden destruction; and the dancing of\nHerodias, Matt. Xiv, 6, which led to the rash vow of King Herod and to\nthe murder of John the Baptist. So much for the history of dancing.\n\nThe modern dance in which both sexes freely mingle, irrespective of\ncharacter, purely for amusement, at late hours, at which intoxicants, in\nsome form, are generally used, is, essentially, an institution of vice.\nThe modern dance is as different from the dancing of ancient times, and\nfrom the dancing sanctioned in the Bible, as daylight is from dark,\nas good is from bad. The modern dance imperils health, it poisons the\nsocial nature; it destroys intellectual growth; and it robs men and\nwomen of their virtue. Let us understand one another. To attend one\ndance may not accomplish all of this in any person. One may attend many\ndances, and he himself not see these results marked in his character,\nbut some one else will see them. For in the nature of the institution\nthe modern dance affects in all these particulars those whom it reaches.\nThe tendencies in a single dance are in these directions. In a way\npeculiar to itself the modern dance imperils health. Though detestable\nand out of date, as are the modern kissing games, yet no one ever heard\nof one of those performances continuing until three and five o'clock in\nthe morning. Young people do not stay up all night, ride five, ten, and\ntwenty miles to play authors, or to snap caroms, or to play charades,\nas interesting in a social way as these innocent amusements may be. The\nfact that one will go to this extreme in keeping late hours to attend\nthe dance, and will not keep such late hours for any other form of\namusement, proves that the dance, as an institution, is at fault in\nproducing such irregularities. And then who ever heard of one having to\ndress in a certain way to attend a purely social gathering. But let a\nyoung lady attend a fashionable ball or a regular round dance of any\nnote, whatever, and if she wears the civil gown she will be thought tame\nand snubbed. She must dress for this occasion, and thus, from a health\npoint of view, so expose her body that after the excitement and heat of\na prolonged round she takes her place in a slight draught of air, and a\nsevere cold is contracted. And this exposure is further increased by\nthe sudden change from a close, hot room to the damp, chilly air of the\nearly morning, on her journey home. It is possible to guard against all\nof this, but are those persons who attend such exercises likely to be\ncautious in such practical matters. At least, this risk of exposure for\nmen and women is peculiar to the dance, and it is certain that many\nare physically injured in this way. The modern dance poisons the social\nnature. The chief exercise at the modern dance is dancing. Those who\nhave attended dances, as a social recreation, have complained that they\nnever have an opportunity to get acquainted with one another. Such a\nluxury as a complete conversation on any theme is out of the question.\nIt is a form of amusement that stultifies the communicative faculties,\nand fosters social seclusion. Some one might say this may be a good\nthing, since every grade in moral and social standing are represented.\nYes, but this only acknowledges the lack of opportunity for social\nfellowship. It is not true that the dance, as an institution, is not\npatronized by the most capable in conversation and companionship?\nCertainly this is true in the so-called higher society, among those\nwhose sole ambition is to excel in formal manners and in personal\nappearance at the gay function, and at the social ball. To be\ncommunicative one must have something to communicate, and this means a\ncultivation of the mind and heart. True social fellowship is one of the\nsweetest pleasures of life and always has its source in the culture of\nthe soul. Whatever may be said for or against the modern dance, it is\ntrue that because of the mixed characters of its attendants, and for\nwant of opportunity to communicate, the social nature becomes neglected\nand abused, and may be fatally poisoned.\n\nThe modern dance destroys intellectual growth. The person who has the\ndance-craze cares no more for mental improvement and growth than a\nstarving man cares for splendid recipes for fine cooking. The thought of\na problem to be solved, of a book to be read, of an organ exercise to\nbe practiced, of all things, are most tame to the one who is filled with\ndreams of the last dance, and with visions of the one that is to come.\nTo grow, the mind must be free from excitement. The fault with the dance\nin this respect is that it has in it a fascination that does not exist\nin the ordinary social amusement. Some persons complain that they can\nnot get an evening to go off well without dancing. But this is only an\nopen confession to mental vacuity, to intellectual poverty. For one need\nknow but little to flourish at the dance. And always, where little is\nrequired, intellectually, little is given. It is the rule that those who\nare in the greatest need of mental cultivation and growth are those\nwho make up the dancing crowd. And the fact that the dance, as an\ninstitution, in no way stimulates intellectual thought, destines those\nwho dance to remain on the lower intellectual plane.\n\nLast, and worst of all, the dance robs men and women of their virtue,\nand this often at the first unconsciously. If it is not for health and\nphysical vigor that one follows up dancing; if it is not the peculiar\nsocial tie that binds dancers together; if it is not the incentive to\nintellectual growth and equipment, what is it? A secret lies hid away\nsomewhere in the institution of the modern dance, that makes it the\nchiefest attraction of worldly-minded and often of base-hearted people.\nWhat is that secret? Ah, my friend, it is the appeal to the most sacred\ninstincts and passions of a man and of a woman! This appeal is peculiar\nto the modern dance by the accident of physical contact that men and\nwomen assume in dancing, and also by the circumstances that attend\nit, namely, mixed society, late hours, and the customary use of strong\ndrink. No honest, normally passionate person, who has made it a practice\nof attending dances, will deny the truth of this charge. One may never\nhave thought of it in this way, but when he stops to think he knows that\nit is true. It is through ignorance of these circumstances, and of their\nbad effects, that many a well-meaning person, presumably to have a good\ntime, or to acquire heel-grace, goes into the dance, secures a passion\nfor dancing, and through its seductive influences are led into sin and\nshame. The following is an incident out of his own experience related\nby Professor T. A. Faulkner, an ex-dancing master. Professor Faulkner is\nthe author of the little book entitled \"From the Ball Room to Hell.\" A\nbook which every person who sees no harm in dancing should read.\n\n\"Here is a girl. The one remaining child of wealthy parents, their idol\nand joy. A dancing-school having opened near their home, the daughter,\nfor accomplishment, was sent to it. She came from her home, modest, and\nher innate spirit of purity rebelled against the liberties taken by the\ndancing-master, and the men he introduced to her. She became indignant\nat the indecent attitudes she was called upon to assume, but noticing a\nscore of young women, many of them from the best homes in the town, all\nyielding to the vulgar embrace, she cast aside that spirit of modesty\nwhich had been the development of years of home-training, and setting\nher face against nature's protective warnings, gave herself, as did the\nothers, to this prolonged embrace set to music. Having learned to dance,\nits fascinations led her an enthusiastic captive. Modesty was crucified,\ndecency outraged, virtue lost its power over her soul, and she spent\nher days dreaming of the delights of the sensual whirl of the evening.\nHardly conscious of the change she had now become as bold as any of the\nwomen, and loved the embrace of the charmer. The graduation of the class\nwas, of course, the occasion of a waltzing reception. To that reception\nshe went, attended by her father, who looked with a proud heart on\nthe fulsome greeting his dear one received. After a little the father\nretired, leaving his daughter to the care of the many handsome gallants\nwho danced attendance upon her. The reception did not close until\nthe small hours of the morning. Each waltz became more voluptuous;\nintoxicated by sensuality, the dancers became more bold, and lust was\naroused in every breast. How many sins that reception occasioned, I\ndo not know; this, at least, is sure, that this girl who entered\nthat dancing-hall three months before, as pure as an angel, was that\nnight.robbed of her honor and returned to her home deprived forever of\nthat most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue. Her first impulse the\nnext morning was self-destruction; then she deluded herself with the\nthought of marriage with her dancing companion, but he still further\ninsulted her by declaring that he wanted a pure woman for his wife. What\nwas her end? Shunned by the very society which egged her on to ruin, her\nself-respect was gone with her lost purity, she went to her own kind,\nand in shame is closing her days.\" \"Of two hundred brothel inmates to\nwhom Professor Faulkner talked, and who were frank enough to answer his\nquestion as to the direct cause of their shame, seven said poverty and\nabuse; ten, willful choice; twenty, drink given them by their parents;\nand one hundred and sixty-three, dancing and the ball-room.\" \"A\nformer chief of police of New York City says that three-fourths of the\nabandoned girls of this city were ruined by dancing.\" Of the dance, one\nsays: \"It lays its lecherous hand upon the fair character of innocence,\nand converts it into a putrid corrupting thing. It enters the domain\nof virtue, and with silent, steady blows takes the foundation from\nunderneath the pedestal on which it sits enthroned. It lists the gate\nand lets in a flood of vice and impurity that sweeps away modesty,\nchastity, and all sense of shame. It keeps company with the low, the\ndegraded, and the vile. It feeds upon the passion it inflames, and\nfattens on the holiest sentiments, turned by its touch to filth and\nrottenness. It loves the haunts of vice, and is at home in the company\nof harlots and debauchees.\" George T. Lemon says: \"No Church in\nChristendom commends or even excuses the dance. All unite to condemn\nit.\" The late Episcopal bishop of Vermont, writes: \"Dancing is\nchargeable with waste of time, interruption of useful study, the\nindulgence of personal vanity and display, and the premature incitement\nof the passions. At the age of maturity it adds to these no small\ndanger to health by late hours, flimsy dress, heated rooms, and exposed\npersons.\" Episcopal Bishop Meade, of Virginia, declares: \"Social dancing\nis not among the neutral things which, within certain limits, we may do\nat pleasure, and it is not among the things lawful, but not expedient,\nbut it is in itself wrong, improper, and of bad effect.\" Episcopal\nBishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, putting the dance and the theater together,\nwrites: \"The only line that I would draw in regard to these is that of\nentire exclusion..The question is not what we can imagine them to be,\nbut what they always have been, will be, and must be, in such a world as\nthis, to render them pleasurable to those who patronize them. Strip them\nbare until they stand in the simple innocence to which their defenders'\narguments would reduce them and the world would not have them.\" A Roman\nCatholic priest testifies that \"the confessional revealed the fact that\nnineteen out of every twenty women who fall can trace the beginning of\ntheir state to the modern dance.\"\n\n\n\n\nV. THEATER-GOING.\n\nWITH drunkenness, gambling, and dancing, theater-going dates from the\nbeginning of history, and with these it is not only questionable in\nmorals, but it is positively bad. Every one who knows any thing about\nthe institution of the theater, as such, knows that it always has been\ncorrupting in its influence. Not only those who attend the theater\npronounce it bad, as a whole, but it is frowned upon by play-writers,\nand by actors and actresses themselves. Five hundred years before\nChrist, Jew, Pagan, and Christian spoke against the theater. It is\nstated on good authority that the dissipations of the theater were the\nchief cause of the decadence of ancient Greece. At one time, Augustus,\nthe emperor of Rome, was asked as a means of public safety, to suppress\nthe theater. The early Christians held the theater in such bad repute as\nto rank it with the heathen temple. And to these two places they would\nnot go, even to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. Nor has the\nmoral tone and character of the theater improved, even in our day. Dr.\nTheodore Cuyler, for many years an experienced pastor in Brooklyn,\nSays: \"The American theater is a concrete institution, to be judged as\na totality. It is responsible for what it tolerates and shelters. We,\ntherefore, hold it responsible for whatever of sensual impurity and\nwhatever of irreligion, as well as for whatever of occasional and\nsporadic benefit there may be bound up in its organic life. Instead\nof helping Christ's kingdom, it hinders; instead of saving souls, it\ncorrupts and destroys.\" Dr. Buckley gives this testimony: \"Being aware\nof the fact that the drama, like every thing else which caters to the\ntaste, has its fashions--rising and falling and undergoing various\nchanges--now improving, and then degenerating, I have thought it\ndesirable to institute a careful inquiry into the plays which have been\nperformed in the principal theaters of New York during the past three\nyears. Accordingly, I procured the copies used by the performers in\npreparing for their parts, and took pains to ascertain wherein, in\nactual use, the actors diverged from the printed copies. They number\nover sixty, and, with the exception of a few unprinted plays, include\nall that have been produced in the prominent theaters of New York during\nthe three years now about closing..It is a singular fact, that, with\nthree or four exceptions, those dramatic compositions, among the sixty\nor more under discussion, which are morally objectionable, are of a\ncomparatively low order of literary execution. But if language and\nsentiments, which would not be tolerated among respectable people,\nand would excite indignation if addressed to the most uncultivated and\ncoarse servant girl, not openly vicious, by an ordinary young man, and\nprofaneness which would brand him who uttered it as irreligious, are\nimproper amusements for the young and for Christians of every age, then\nat least fifty of these plays are to be condemned.\"\n\nIn the first place the theater leads one into bad company. As a class,\nthe performers are licentious. How can one be in their company, be moved\nto laughter and to tears and not be contaminated by them? One who has\nstudied the theater tells us that the \"fruits of the Spirit and\nthe fruits of the stage exhibit as pointed a contrast as the human\nimagination can conceive.\" The famous Macready, as he retired from the\nstage, wrote: \"None of my children, with my consent under any pretense,\nshall ever enter the theater, nor shall they have any visiting\nconnection with play actors or actresses.\" Dr. Johnson asks the\nquestion: \"How can they mingle together as they do, men and women, and\nmake public exhibitions of themselves as they do, in such circumstances,\nwith such surroundings, with such speech as much often be on their\nlips to play the plays that are written, in such positions as they must\nsometimes take, affecting such sentiment and passions--how can they do\nthis without moral contamination?\" And we would ask, how can persons\nlive enrapt with this sort of thing for hours and hours each week, the\nyear around, and not become equally contaminated, for to the onlooker\nall this comes as a reality, while to those who are performing, it is\nhired shamming? Therefore, as the pupil becomes the teacher, so the\nattendant at the theater becomes like the one who performs. So that to\ngo to the theater is to \"sit in the seat of the scornful or to stand in\nthe way of sinners.\" \"There you find the man,\" says one, \"who has lost\nall love for his home, the careless, the profane, the spendthrift, the\ndrunkard, and the lowest prostitute of the street. They are found in all\nparts of the house; they crowd the gallery, and together should aloud\nthe applause, greeting that which caricatures religion, sneers at\nvirtue, or hints at indecency.\" Not only the actors and the onlookers of\nthe average theater are vile, but all of the immediate associations of\nthe playhouse must correspond with it. If not in the same building with\nthe theater, in adjoining ones, at least, are found the wine-parlor and\nthe brothel. It is generally conceded that no theater can be prosperous\nif it is wholly separated from these adjuncts of evil.\n\nThe theater, therefore, kills spiritually and degrades the moral life\nof the one who attends it. The theater deals with the spectacular.\nThis appeals to the eye, to the ear, and to all of the outer senses.\nSpirituality depends upon a cultivation of the spiritual senses that\nGrace has opened up within the soul. Hence, the spectacular is directly\nopposed to the spiritual. The deep, contemplative, spiritual soul could\nfind little or no food in the false, clap-trap representations of the\nmodern stage. And to find an increased interest here is evidence that\none lacks spiritual life, at least deep-seated spiritual life. This is\nwhy so many professing Christians are so eager to go to the card-party,\nto the dancing-party, and to the theater. The inner-sense life of the\nsoul is dead, and one must have something upon which to feed, hence he\nfeeds upon the husks of \"imprudent and un-Christian amusements.\" And let\none who has a measure of spiritual life, instead of increasing it,\nseek to satisfy his soul-longing by means of the spectacular, of false\nrepresentations in any form, soon he will lose the spiritual life that\nhe has. And this loss will be marked by an increased demand for the\nspectacular. The surest proof to-day that the spiritual life of\nthe Church is waning in certain sections, is not so much that her\nmembership-roll is not on the increase, but that professing Christian\npeople are running wild after cards and dancing and the theater.\nEvangelist Sayles declares: \"The people of our so-called best society,\nand Christian people, many that have been looked upon as active workers,\nsit now and gaze upon scenes in our theaters, without a blush, that\ntwenty-five years ago would not have been countenanced..The moral and\nspiritual life of many a Christian has been weakened by the eyes gazing\nupon the scenes of the theater.\" Says he, \"The Christian, through\nattendance upon the playhouse, creates a relish for worldly things, and\nso spiritual things become distasteful.\"\n\nThen, to go to one theater, sanctions all. To have heard and to have\nseen Joe Jefferson in \"Rip Van Winkle,\" Richard Mansfield in \"The\nMerchant of Venice,\" or Edwin Booth or Sir Henry Irving, or Maude Adams,\nor Julia Marlowe in their best plays, is to have received a deeper\ninsight into human nature, and a stronger purpose to become sympathetic\nand true, but who can afford to sanction all that is base and villainous\nis the institution of the modern theater for the sake of learning\nsympathy and truth and human nature from a few worthy actors, when he\nmay find all of this as truthfully, if not as artistically, set forth\nby the orator, by the musician, by the painter, and by the author? It is\nnot cant, it is not pharisaism, it is not a weak claim of Christianity,\nbut it is common honesty, mighty truth, a cardinal and beautiful\nteaching of Jesus Christ to deny one's self for the welfare of the\nweaker brother. Let one go to hear Mansfield in Shakespeare, and his\nneighbor boy will take his friend and go to the vaudeville, and his only\nexcuse to his parents and to his half-taught mind and heart will be,\n\"Well, Mr. So-and-So goes to the theater, he is a member of the Church\nand superintendent of the Sunday-school; surely there is no harm for\nme to go.\" To the immature mind what seems right for one person seems\nlawful for another. This is because such a person has not learned to\ndiscriminate between what is bad and what is good. Therefore, if the\ntheater as an institution has more in it that is bad than It has in\nit that is good, rather if the general tendency of the theater, as an\ninstitution, is bad, the safe thing for one's self and for those who\nread one's life as an example, is to discard it entirely.\n\nIn view of these facts, no person can attend the theater at all without\nhurting his influence. The ideal life is that one which gives offense\nof stumbling to no one. A successful preacher who had an aversion toward\nspeaking on the subject of questionable amusements, when asked what he\nbelieved concerning a certain form of amusement, replied: \"See what I\ndo, and know what I believe.\" It is a glorious life whose actions are an\nopen epistle of righteousness and peace, read and believed and honored\nby all men.\n\n\"Some time ago a gentleman teaching a large class of young men in a\nChicago Sunday-school, desired to attend a theater for the purpose of\nseeing a celebrated actor. He was not a theater-goer, and thought that\nno harm could come from it. He had no sooner taken his seat, however,\nthan he saw in the opposite gallery some of the members of his class.\nThey also saw him and began commenting on the fact that their teacher\nwas at the theater. They thought it inconsistent in him, lost their\ninterest in the class, and he lost his influence over the young men.\nThat teacher tied his hands by this one act, so that he could not speak\nout against the gross sins of the theater.\"\n\nThose who defend theater-going say that if Christian people would\npatronize the theater that it would be made more respectable. But over\na thousand years of history proves that this principle fails here as it\ndoes elsewhere. A Christian woman marries an unchristian man with the\nhope that he will become a Christian; a steady, sensible woman in all\nother matters marries a man who drinks, with the thought of reforming\nhim; one associates with worldly and sensual companions, expecting to\nmake them better; but, alas, what blasted hopes, what wretched failures\nin all of these instances, at least in the most of them! You can not\nreform vice; you may whitewash a sin, but it will be sin, still. To\npurify a character or an institution one must not become a part of it\nby sympathy, nor by association. This is what the psalmist meant when\nhe said, \"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsels of the\nungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of\nthe scornful.\" And so it is, that every effort at reforming the theater,\nthus far has failed. The Rev. C.W. Winchester says concerning the\nreforming of the theater: \"The facts are, (1) that the theater in this\ncity and country never had the support and encouragement of moral and\nreligious people it has now; (2) that the theater here was never so\nbad. Clearly, if Christian patronage is going to reform the theater, the\nreform ought to begin. But the grade is downward. The theater is growing\nworse and worse.\" Dr. Wilkinson makes this statement on the question\nof reforming the theater: \"Now the Protestant Christians of New York\nnumber, by recent computation, less than seventy-five thousand souls, in\na population of a million. Supposing a general agreement among them all\nthat a regular attendance at the theater was at this juncture the most\npressing and most promising method of evangelical effort, they would\nnot then constitute even one-tenth of the numerical patronage which the\nmanagement would study to please.\" Dr. Herrick Johnson says: \"The ideal\nstage is out of the question. It is out of the question just as pure,\nchaste, human nudity is out of the question..The nature of theatrical\nperformances, the essential demands of the stage, the character of the\nplays, and the constitution of human nature, make it impossible that\nthe theater should exist, save under a law of degeneracy. Its trend is\ndownward; its centuries of history tell just this one story. The actual\nstage of to-day..is a moral abomination. In Chicago, at least, it is\ntrampling on the Sabbath with defiant scoff. It is defiling our youth.\nIt is making crowds familiar with the play of criminal passions. It is\nexhibiting women with such approaches to nakedness as can have no other\ndesign than to breed lust behind the onlooking eyes. It is furnishing\ncandidates for the brothel. It is getting us used to scenes that rival\nthe voluptuousness and licentious ages of the past.\" As never before\nto-day, has the theater asked for the support of Church members. And the\nideal stage, with virtuous performers, and with pure dramas, are held up\nas a sample of what Christian people are invited to attend. Dr. Cuyler\nsays: \"Every person of common sense knows that the actual average\ntheater is no more an ideal playhouse than the average pope is like St.\nPeter, or the average politician is like Abraham Lincoln. A Puritanic\ntheater would become bankrupt in a twelvemonth. The great mass of\nthose who frequent the playhouse go there for strong, passionate\nexcitements..I do not affirm,\" says Dr. Cuyler, \"that every popular play\nis immoral, and every attendant is on a scent for sensualities. But the\ntheater is a concrete institution, it must be judged in the gross and to\na tremendous extent it is only a gilded nastiness. It unsexes womanhood\nby putting her publicly in male attire--too often in no attire at all.\"\n\n\"So competent an authority as the famous actress, Olga Nethersole,\nrecently declared that the only kind of play which may hope for success\nwith English-speaking audiences at the present day is the play which is\nsufficiently indicated by calling it immoral. There is no doubt about\nit that the theater, as at present conducted, is pulling the stones from\nthe foundations of public morality, and weakening, and in many quarters\nendangering, the whole structure of society. The atmosphere of the\nmodern theater is lustful and irreverent. It is a good place for\nChristians to keep away from. It is a good opportunity for the strong\nman to deny himself for the sake of his younger or weaker brother.\"\n\n\n\n\nPART II. WORTHY SUBSTITUTES.\n\n     \"Get the spindle and thy distaff ready, and God will send\n     thee flax.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI. BOOKS AND READING.\n\nMANY BOOKS, MUCH READING.\n\n\nTO-DAY every one reads. Go where you may, you will find the paper, the\nmagazine, the journal; printed letters, official reports, exhaustive\ncyclopedias, universal histories; the ingenuous advertisement, the\nvoluminous calendar, the decorated symphony; printed ideals, elaborate\ngaming rules, flaming bulletins; and latest of all, we have begun to\npublish our communications on the waves of the air. In this hurly-burly\nof many books and much reading, it is no mean problem to know why one\nshould read; and what, and how, and when. Especially does this problem\nof general reading confront the student, the lover of books, and\nthose of the professions. Essays are to be read, the historical, the\nphilosophical, and the scientific; novels, the historical and the\nreligious; books of devotion, books of biography, of travel, of\ncriticism, and of art. What principles are to guide one in his choice of\nreading, that he may select only the wisest, purest, and helpfulest from\nall these classes of books?\n\n\nWHY READ.\n\nRead to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is the perception of truth. One\narrives at knowledge by the assimilation of facts and principles, or\nby the assimilation of truth itself. Three sources of knowledge are\nexperience, conversation, and reading. Experience leads one slowly to\nknowledge, is limited entirely to the path over which one has passed,\nand is a \"dear teacher.\" To acquire knowledge by conversation is to put\none at the mercy of his associates, making him dependent upon their\ngood favor, truthfulness, and learning. But reading places one in direct\ncommunication with the wisest and best persons of all time. To\nacquire knowledge by reading is to defy time and space, persons and\ncircumstances, at least, in our day of many and inexpensive books.\nThrough books facts live, principles operate, justice acts, the light of\nphilosophy gleams, wit flashes, God speaks. Every book-lover agrees with\nChanning: \"No matter how poor I am..if the sacred writers will enter and\ntake up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold\nto sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the words of\nimagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich\nme with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual\ncompanionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from\nwhat is called the best society in the place where I live.\" Kingsley\nsays: \"Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful Than a\nbook!--a message to us from the dead,--from human souls whom we never\nsaw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, in\nthose little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach\nus, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers..If they are good\nand true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade,\nor medicine, they are the message of Christ, the Maker of all things,\nthe Teacher of all truth.\" The wide range of truth secured through\nreading acts in two ways upon the reader. It spiritualizes his\ncharacter, and it makes him mighty in action. Knowledge on almost any\nsubject has a marked tendency to sharpen one's wits, to refine his\ntastes, to ennoble his spirit, to improve his judgement, to strengthen\nhis will, to subdue his baser passions, and to fill his soul with the\nbreath of life. It is only upon truth that the soul feeds, and by means\nof knowledge that the character grows. \"It cannot be that people should\ngrow in grace,\" writes John Wesley, \"unless they give themselves to\nreading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.\" Reading\nmakes one mighty in action when it gives one knowledge, since \"knowledge\nis power,\" and since power has but one way of showing itself, and that\nis, in action. Knowledge takes no note of hardships, ignores fatigue,\nlaughs at disappointment, and frowns upon despair. It delves into the\nearth, rides upon the air, defies the cold of the north, the heat of the\nsouth; it stands upon the brink of the spitting volcano, circumnavigates\nthe globe, examines the heavens, and tries to understand God. With but\nfew exceptions, master-minds and men of affairs have been incessant\nreaders. Cicero, chief of Roman orators, whether at home or abroad, in\ntown or in the country, by day or by night, in youth or in old age, in\nsorrow or in joy, was not without his books. \"Petrarch, when his friend\nthe bishop, thinking that he was overworked, took away the key of his\nlibrary, was restless and miserable the first day, had a bad headache\nthe second, and was so ill by the third day that the bishop, in alarm,\nreturned the key and let his friend read as much as he liked.\" Writes\nFrederick the Great, \"My latest passion will be for literature.\" The\npoet, Milton, while a child, read and studied until midnight. John\nRuskin read at four years of age, was a book-worm at five, and wrote\nnumerous poems and dramas before he was ten. Lord Macaulay read at three\nand began a compendium of universal history at seven. Although not a\nlover of books, George Washington early read Matthew Hale and became\na master in thought. Benjamin Franklin would sit up all night at his\nbooks. Thomas Jefferson read fifteen hour a day. Patrick Henry read for\nemployment, and kept store for pastime. Daniel Webster was a devouring\nreader, and retained all that he read. At the age of fourteen he could\nrepeat from memory all of Watt's Hymns and Pope's \"Essay on Man.\" When\nbut a youth, Henry Clay read books of history and science and practiced\ngiving their contents before the trees, birds, and horses. Says a\nbiographer of Lincoln, \"A book was almost always his inseparable\ncompanion.\"\n\nThen, read for enjoyment. Fortunately, a habit so valuable as reading\nmay grow to become a pleasure. So that as one is gathering useful\ninformation and increasing in knowledge, he may have the keenest\nenjoyment. Such an one sings as he works. He has learned to convert\ndrudgery into joy; duty has become delight. But even for such an one a\nportion of his reading should be purely for rest and recreation. If\none has taught school all day, or set type, or managed a home, or read\nhistory, or labored in the field, or been shopping, heavy, solid reading\nmay be out of the question, while under such circumstances one would\nreally enjoy a striking allegory or a well-written novel. Or, if one is\nlimited in knowledge, or deficient in literary taste so that he may find\nno interest in history, science, philosophy, or religion, still he may\nenjoy thrilling books of travel, of biography, or of entertaining story.\nIn this way all may enjoy reading. \"Of all the amusements which can\npossibly be imagined for a hard-working man, after his daily toil, or\nin its intervals, there is nothing,\" says Herschel, \"like reading an\ninteresting book. It calls for no bodily exercise, of which he has had\nenough or too much. It relieves his home of its dullness and sameness,\nwhich, in nine cases out of ten, is what drives him out to the alehouse,\nto his own ruin and his family's. It accompanies him to his next day's\nwork, and, if the book he has been reading be any thing above the very\nidlest and lightest, gives him something to think of besides the mere\nmechanical drudgery of his every-day occupation, something he can enjoy\nwhile absent, and look forward with pleasure to return to.\"\n\n\nWHAT TO READ.\n\nFirst of all read something. \"Southey tells us that, in his walk one\nstormy day, he met an old woman, to whom, by way of greeting, he made\nthe rather obvious remark that it was dreadful weather. She answered,\nphilosophically, that in her opinion, 'any weather was better than\nnone.'\" And so we would say, excluding corrupt literature, any reading\nis better than none! In this day of multiplicity of books who who never\nreads may not be an ignoramus nor a fool, but certainly he robs the\nworld of much that is useful in character, and deprives himself of much\nthat enriches his own soul. Then one should select his books, as he does\nhis associates, and not attempt to read everything that comes in his\nway. No longer may one know even a little about every thing. It might be\na mark of credit rather than an embarrassment for one to answer, \"No,\"\nto the question, \"Have you read the latest book?\" when the fact is\nrecalled that 30,000 novels have been published within the past eighty\nyears, and that five new ones are added to the list daily.\n\n\nREAD HISTORY.\n\nOne has characterized history as both the background and the key to\nall knowledge. No other class of reading so much as this helps one to\nappreciate his own country, his own age, his own surroundings. Extensive\nreading of history is a sure remedy for pessimism, prejudice, and\nfanaticism. In so far as history is an accurate account of the past, it\nis a true prophecy of the future for the nation and for the individual.\nWho reads history knows that men always have displayed folly, Weakness,\nand cruelty, and that they always will, even to their own obvious ruin.\nAlso he knows that every time and place have had their few good men and\nwomen who have honored God, and whom God has honored. Nothing so teaches\na person his own insignificance and the small part that he plays in the\nworld as does the reading of history. Nor is history to be found only in\nthe book called history. If you want to know the life of the ancients,\nas you know the life of your own community, read Josephus. Do you want a\nglimpse of early apostolic times, read \"The Life and Times of Jesus,\" by\nEdersheim. Do you want to see the battlefield of Waterloo, visit Paris\nin the beginning of the nineteenth century, stop over night with Louis\nPhilippe, see the English through French spectacles, and the Frenchman\nthrough his own; do you want a glimpse of the political despotism, court\nintrigue, and ecclesiastical tyranny in France a hundred years ago; do\nyou want to hear the crash of the bastile, and see Notre Dame converted\ninto a horse-stable; do you want a picture of the \"bread riots\" and mob\nviolence that terminated in the French revolution of 1848; in short\ndo you want a tale of French life and character in its brightest,\ngloomiest, and intensest period, read \"Les Miserables,\" by Victor Hugo.\nTo-day one must read current history. It is not enough to plan, work,\nand economize, one must make and seize opportunities. And this he can\ndo only as he is alive to passing events. In a few years one may outgrow\nhis usefulness through losing touch with advancing ideas and methods of\nwork. To keep abreast of the times one must read the newspaper and the\nmagazine. The newspaper is the history of the hour, the magazine is the\nhistory of the day. The magazine corrects the newspaper, and \"sums up in\nclear and noble phrase those fundamental facts which are only dimly seen\nin the newspaper.\" A serious and growing tendency is that the newspaper\nand magazine shall take the place of the best books. A few minutes a day\nis enough for any newspaper, and a few hours a month is enough for any\nmagazine. The greatest part of one's reading should be that of books.\nWho gormandizes on current events will pay the price with a morbid mind\nand with false conclusions in his reasoning.\n\n\nREAD BIOGRAPHY.\n\nThe life of a great man is a continual inspiration. No other exercise so\nfires a soul with noble ambition as the study of a great life. Real\nlife is not only stranger than fiction, but it is more interesting than\nfiction. No boy should be without the life of Washington, of Lincoln, of\nWebster, of Franklin. Every girl should know by heart brave Pocahontas,\nsympathetic Mrs. Stowe, queenly Frances Willard, and kind-hearted\nVictoria. No private library is complete without Plutarch's \"Lives,\" the\n\"Life of Alfred the Great,\" of Napoleon, Grant, and Gladstone.\n\n\nREAD SCIENCE.\n\nThe fourteen-year-old child may master the practical principles of\nnatural philosophy, and yet how many intelligent persons remain ignorant\nof the most commonplace truths in this branch of learning! With a little\nattention to the natural and mechanical sciences, a new world of beauty\nand truth opens up before one. He sees objects that once were hid to\nhim; he hears sounds that once were silent; he enjoys odors that once\nretained their fragrance. His whole being becomes a part of the living\nmusical world about him, when he has his senses opened to appreciate it\nand to become attuned to it. One should read some science throughout his\nlife, in order to remain at the source of all true knowledge. Here he\nlearns to appreciate the language of nature. When expressed by man, this\nis poetry.\n\n\nTHEREFORE, READ POETRY.\n\nTen minutes a day with Tennyson, Browning, Emerson, or Lowell, will\nteach one a new language, by which he may converse with the wind, talk\nwith the birds, chat with the brook, speak with the flowers, and hold\ndiscourse with the sun, moon, and stars. The deepest and mightiest\nthoughts of all ages have been expressed in poetry, the language of\nnature. \"Poetry,\" says Coleridge, \"is the blossom and fragrance of all\nhuman knowledge, human thoughts, passions, emotions, languages.\"\n\n\nREAD BOOKS OF RELIGION.\n\n\"Religion,\" says Lyman Abbott, \"is the life of God in the soul.\" Every\ntruly religious book treats of this life. The only purely religious book\nis the Bible. It is the source and inspiration of every other religious\nbook. The Bible is a \"letter from God to man, handed down from heaven\nand written by inspired men.\" Its message is free salvation for all\nmen through Jesus Christ; its spirit is divine love. No wise person is\nwithout this letter, and every thoughtful and devout person reads it\ndaily. One may never find time to follow a course of study, nor to\npursue a plan of daily reading; he may never know the wealth of Dante,\nthe grandeur of Milton, nor the genius of Shakespeare, but every one may\nmake the Bible his daily companion and guide.\n\n\nHOW TO READ.\n\nEnter into what you read. No book can thrill and move one unless he\ngives himself up to it. Lack of fixed attention is the cause of the\nhalf-informed mind, the faulty reason, and the ever-failing memory. The\ncause of this lack of attention may be an historical allusion of which\none is ignorant, or a new word that he fails to look up, or an overtaxed\nmind, or unfavorable surroundings. Whatever may be this hindrance it\nmust be removed or overcome before one can enter into what he reads. A\nthought is of no value until it registers itself and takes a room in the\nmind. This is why we are told on every hand, that a few books well\nread are worth more than many books poorly read. The secret of Abraham\nLincoln's power as a public speaker lay in his clear reasoning, simple\nstatement, and apt illustration. This secret was secured by Lincoln\nthrough his habit of mastering whatever he heard in conversation or\nreading. \"When a mere child,\" says Lincoln, \"I used to get irritated\nwhen anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I don't think\nI ever got angry at anything else in my life. But that always disturbed\nmy temper, and has ever since. I can remember going to my little\nbedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father,\nand spending no small part of the night walking up and down, trying\nto make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark\nsayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such\na hunt after an idea, until I had caught it, and when I thought I had\ngot it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over; until\nI had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew\nto comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by\nme; for I am never easy now when I am handling a thought until I have\nbounded it north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded\nit west.\" And so to enter into what one reads, means that he will master\nthe thought. The most that a university can do for one is to teach him\nto read. Who has learned how to read has secured a liberal education,\nhowever or wherever he may have learned it.\n\nThen, one should learn to scan an author. This means to take a rapid\nobservation of his thoughts. Much of one's common reading matter should\nbe scanned. All local news, much magazine literature, and many books\nshould be used in this way. It is mental sloth and waste of time to pore\nover a newspaper or a book of light fiction, as one would a philosophy\nof history or a work of science. As Bacon aptly puts it, \"Some books\nare to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and\ndigested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to\nbe read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with\ndiligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and\nextracts made of them by others.\" One's mind is like a horse, it soon\nlearns its master. Feed it well, groom it well, treat it gently, you may\nexpect much from it. It is reported of Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis that he\nhas read a book a day for over twenty years. He has learned to squeeze\nthe thought out of a book at a grasp, as one of us would squeeze the\njuice from an orange. Take a glimpse into his library. Five hundred\nvolumes of sociological literature, four hundred volumes of history,\ntwo hundred of cyclopedias, gazetteers, books of reference; four hundred\nvolumes of pure science, one hundred volumes of travels, two hundred and\nfifty volumes of biography; one hundred volumes of art and art history;\na section on psychology, ethics, philosophy, and the relation between\nscience and religion, and a thousand volumes of literature, pure and\nsimple.\n\n\nWHEN TO READ.\n\nFirst, read at regular hours. This is for those who follow literary\npursuits. No professional person should respect himself in his work\nwho has no special time for reading and study, and who does not\nconscientiously adhere to it. The pulpit, the law-office, the doctor's\noffice, the teacher, and the editor's desk, each clamors for the man,\nthe woman, who can think. To appreciate God and to sympathize with the\nhuman heart; to know law and the intricate special case; to understand\ndisease and relief for the suffering patient; to have something to teach\nand to know how to teach it even to the dullest pupil; to know human\ncharacter and to be able to enlighten the public mind and the public\nconscience; all this requires in the one who serves a deep and growing\nknowledge and experience which may be realized only in the grasp of\ntruth contained in the up-to-date and best authorized books. The use\nof books with this class of persons is not optional. They must buy and\nmaster them, or a few years at longest will relegate them with their old\nbooks and ideas to the dusty garret where they belong.\n\nThen, many must read on economized time. The farmer, the mechanic, the\nmerchant, the shopkeeper, each may find a little time for daily reading.\nTen minutes saved in the morning, ten minutes in the afternoon, and ten\nminutes in the evening, this is half hour a day. In a week this gives\none three hours and a half, in a month fourteen hours of solid reading,\nand in a year one will have read seven days of twenty-four hours each.\nThink of what may be accomplished in an average lifetime in common\nreading by the busiest person, who really wants to read. \"Schliemann,\"\nthe noted German scholar and author, \"as a boy, standing in line at the\npost-office waiting his turn for the mail, utilized the time by studying\nGreek from a little pocket grammar.\" \"Mary Somerfield, the astronomer,\nwhile busy with her children in the nursery, wrote her 'Mechanism of the\nHeavens,' without neglecting her duties as a mother.\" \"Julius Caesar,\nwhile a military officer and politician found time to write his\nCommentaries known throughout the world.\" William Cobbett says: \"I\nlearned grammar when I was a private soldier on a six-pence a day.\nThe edge of my guard-bed was my seat to study in, my knapsack was my\nbookcase, and a board lying on my lap was my desk. I had no moment at\nthat time that I could call my own; and I had to read and write among\nthe talking, singing, whistling, and bawling of at least half a score\nof the most thoughtless of men.\" Among those whom we all know who have\nrisen out of obscurity to eminence through a wise economy of time which\nthey have used in reading and study, are, Patrick Henry, Benjamin\nWest, Eli Whitney, James Watt, Richard Baxter, Roger Sherman, Sir Isaac\nNewton, and Benjamin Franklin.\n\n\n\n\nVII. SOCIAL RECREATION.\n\nDEFINED.\n\n\nThe normal young person who does not dissipate is bursting with life.\nThe natural child is activity embodied. The healthful old person craves\nexercise. Life, activity, exercise, each must have some method of\nspending itself. Some normal method, some right method, some attractive\nmethod must be chosen. By normal method we mean that which calls into\nuse the varied faculties and powers of the entire being, body, mind, and\nheart. By right method we mean that which does not crush out a part of\none's being, while another part is being developed. By attractive method\nin the use of life, activity, exercise, we mean that which appeals to\none's peculiar desires, tastes, and circumstances, so long as these are\nnormal and right. Some chosen profession, trade, or work is the rightful\nheritage of every person. Each man, woman, and child should know when\nhe gets up of a morning, what his work is for that day. Consciously, or\nunconsciously, he should have some outline of work, some end in view,\nsome goal toward which he is stretching himself. Dr. J. M. Buckley asks:\n\"Have you a purpose and a plan?\" And answers, \"Life is worth nothing\ntill then.\" The child is in the hands of his parent, his teacher, his\nguardian. These must answer to Destiny for his beginning and growth.\n\"Satan finds something for idle hands to do.\" Hence the necessity of\nvigilance on the part of those who hold the young. But \"all work and no\nplay, makes Jack a dull boy.\" This rule is good whether \"Jack\" be a\npuny girl, a feeble grandfather, a hustling, responsible father, a busy\nmother, or even a mischievous lad. Every person who rises each morning,\ndresses himself and goes about his work as if he knew what he were\nabout; who has some useful work to do, and does it, sooner or later,\nneeds rest. True, night comes and one may rest. And sweet is the rest of\nsleep; a third of one's life is passed in this way. Sancho Panza has it\nright when he says:\n\n\"Now blessing light on him that first invented sleep! It covers a man\nall over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry,\ndrink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot.\" But\none craves a recreation, a rest which work nor sleep can give. Man has\na social nature, a longing to mingle with his acquaintances and friends.\nLet one be shut in with work, or sickness, or weather, for whole days\nat a time, and see how hungry he gets to see some one. A recreation at\na social gathering literally makes a new being out of him. He is\nrecreated. It is this form of recreation that we consider here, social\nrecreation.\n\n\nA NECESSITY.\n\nSocial recreation is a necessity in a well-ordered life. As with many\nother common blessings we forget its benefits. Nor are these benefits\nso evident until we see the blighting result in the life of the one who,\nfor any reason whatsoever, has become a social recluse. We have known\na few persons who have once been in society, but who have allowed\nthemselves to remain away from all sorts of gatherings, for a number of\nyears. In every case, the result has been openly noticeable. They have\nbecome boorish in manners, unsympathetic in nature, and suspicious in\nspirit. Thus they have grown out of harmony with the ideas and ways of\nthose about them, have come to take distorted and erroneous views of\naffairs and of men. Man is a composite being. Many factors enter into\nhis make-up. He lives not only in the physical and intellectual, in the\nreligious and social, in a local and limited sense, but his life expands\nuntil it touches and molds many other characters and communities besides\nhis own. In all of these spheres of his influence and work on needs to\nbe sobered down, corrected, stimulated. In no other way is this better\naccomplished than through one's very contact with his fellows in the\nreligious gathering, among his workmen, in the political meeting, at the\nassembly, in the social gathering whenever and wherever persons may see\none another and talk over common interests.\n\nA SPECIFIC SENSE.\n\nIn a specific sense, by social recreation, we mean those pastimes and\npleasures which all persons, except the social recluse, enjoy as they\nmeet to spend an afternoon or an evening together. Now, how may we\nget the largest amount of pleasure, of rest, of recreation from such\ngatherings? How may we best benefit ourselves, inspire one another, and\nin it all, honor God? It is no small task to accomplish these three ends\nin all things, in one's life. We have agreed that some social practices\nare positively bad. And we have tried to show why the \"tobacco club,\"\nthe \"social glass,\" the \"card-party,\" the \"dancing-party,\" and the\nplay-house reveries should be avoided. We have left these forms of\nso-called \"questionable amusements\" out of our practice and let our of\nour lives. To what may we turn? Where may we go? We turn to the social\ngathering.\n\n\nBUT IT MUST BE PLANNED.\n\nNo social gathering can successfully run itself. See what forethought\nand expenditure are given to make successful the \"smoking-club,\" the\n\"wine-social,\" the \"card and dancing parties,\" and the \"theater.\" Not\none of these institutions thrive without thought and cost in their\nmanagement. Put the same thought and expense into the gathering\nfor social recreation, and you will find all of the merits of the\nquestionable institution and none of its demerits. No company has larger\ncapabilities than the mixed company at the social gathering. Nor may\nany purpose be more perfectly served than the purpose of true social\nrecreation. Here we find those skilled in music, versed in literature,\nadept at conversation; we find the practical joker, the proficient\nat games, and last, but not least, those \"born to serve\" tables. This\nvariety of genius, of wit, of skill, of willingness to serve, is laid\nat the altar of pleasure for the worthy purpose of making new again\nthe weary body, the languishing spirit, the lonely heart. Let the right\nmanagement and stimulus be given to this resourceful company, and the\nhours will pass as moments, the surest sign of a good time.\n\n\nSOME ESSENTIALS.\n\nDINING, SOCIAL HOUR, GAMES.\n\nNo social recreation is complete without dining. And yet the least\nimportant part of this meal should be the taking of food. It is a\nserious fault with the modern social that too much attention is given to\nthe variety and quantity of food, and not enough to merriment in taking\nit. To be successful, the social company should gather as early as\npossible; the first hour-and-a-half should be given to greetings and to\nsocial levity of the brightest and wittiest sort. If one has an ache or\na pain, a care or a loss, let it be forgotten now. It is weakness and\nfolly continually to be under any burden. Here every one should take\na genuine release from seriousness and earnestness in weighty and\nresponsible affairs. Let all, except the serving committee for this\nevening, take part in this strictly social hour-and-a-half. When the\nlate-comers have arrived and have been introduced, and the people have\nmoved about and met one another, almost before the company are aware of\nit they are invited by the serving committee to dine. Usually all may\nnot be served at once. Now that the company has been thinned out, the\nolder persons having gone to the tables, short, spirited games should\nbe introduced in which every person not at luncheon, should be given\na place and a part. At this juncture it is not best to introduce\nsitting-games, such as checkers, authors, caroms, or flinch, for the\ncontestants might be called to take refreshments at a critical moment\nin the contest. With a little attention to it, appropriate games may\nbe introduced here that need not interfere with luncheon. Fully half an\nhour should be spent at each set of tables, where at the close of\nthe meal, some humorous subject or subjects should be introduced and\nresponded to be those best fitted for such a task. Almost any person\ncan say something bright as well as sensible, if he will give a little\nattention to it beforehand. While the second and third tables are being\nserved, let those retiring contest at games of skill, converse, or take\nup other appropriate entertainment directed by the everywhere present\nentertainment committee. By this time half-past ten or eleven o'clock,\nsome who are old, or who have pressing duties on the next day may want\nto retire. If the serving committee have been skillful in adjusting\nthe time spent at each table to the number of tables, etc., by eleven\no'clock the serving shall have been completed. Now, the young in spirit,\nwhether old or young, expect, and should have an hour at the\nnewest, liveliest, and most recreative games. No part of the evening\nentertainment should be allowed to drag. To insure this a frequent\nchange of social games is needed.\n\n\nAVOID LATE HOURS.\n\nAs late hours tend to produce irregularity in sleep, in meals, and in\nwork; and since the object of the social is recreation, the company\nshould retire about midnight. Oftentimes people stay and stay at such a\ngathering, until the hostess, the entertaining committee, and the people\nthemselves are worn out. And yet, who is at fault? This is a critical\npoint in the modern popular social. How shall the company disband in due\nseason? In his \"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,\" Oliver Wendell Holmes\ngives a suggestion on this point for the private visitor, who does not\nknow how to go. Says Holmes: \"Do n't you know how hard it is for some\npeople to get out of a room when their visit is really over? They want\nto be off, and you want to have them off, but they do n't know how to\nmanage it. One would think they had been built in your parlor or study\nand were waiting to be launched. I have contrived a sort of ceremonial\ninclined plane for such visitors, which being lubricated with\ncertain smooth phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speaking,\nstern-foremost, into their 'native element,' the great ocean of\noutdoors.\" There are social companies as hard to get rid of as this.\nThey want to go, and every one wants them to go, but just how to make\nthe start, no one seems to know. Dr. Holmes and his \"inclined plane\"\nmay have been successful with the private caller, but who will be the\n\"contriver of a ceremonial,\" one sufficient to land the social company\ninto its \"native element, the great ocean of outdoors?\" No, this most\ndelicate of the problems involved in a successful modern social must be\nleft to a tactful hint from the entertainment committee, and to the wise\nchoice of a few recognized leaders in the company.\n\n\nNEW COMMITTEES.\n\nSpecial committees should have charge of the serving and of the\nentertainment. As far as possible these should vary with each successive\nsocial. It is an erroneous notion, prevalent in nearly every community,\nthat only \"certain ones\" can do this or that; the consequence is that\nthese \"certain ones\" do all the work, are deprived of the true rest and\nrelief which the social is meant to give, while others who should\ntake their turn, grow unappreciative, and weak in their serving and\nentertaining ability.\n\n\nTHE AVERAGE SOCIAL A FAILURE.\n\nAs it is conducted to-day, the average social is a failure. Late at\narriving, want of introductions, lack of arranged entertainment, late\nhours,--all go to weaken and to dull the average young person in place\nof to cultivate his wits, his special genius at music, reading, and\nconversation, and to recreate him in body, mind, and spirit. To make a\nsuccess of the social gathering some one must keep in mind the personal\nconvenience and happiness of every person present. When this is done\nand the social gathering becomes notable for the real pleasure that it\ngives, then we shall be able to drive out the \"questionable amusements,\"\nbecause we have taken nothing from the person, and have given him new\nlife and interest.\n\n\n\n\nVIII. FRIENDSHIP.\n\nBONDS OF ATTACHMENT.\n\n\nEach person is connected with every other person by some bond of\nattachment. It may be by the steel bond of brotherhood, by the silvern\nchain of religious fellowship, by the golden band of conjugal affection,\nby the flaxen cord of parental or filial love, or by the silken tie of\nfriendship. One or more of these bonds of attachment may encircle\neach person, and each bond has its varying strength, and is capable of\nendless lengthening and contracting. Brotherhood is a general term, and\nas it is used here, comprises the fellow-feeling that one human being\nhas for another, this is universal brotherhood. Brotherhood comprises\nthe fellow-feeling that attracts persons of the same race, nation, or\ncommunity, this is racial, national, or community brotherhood; also,\nit comprises the fellow-feeling that exists between persons of the same\navocation, calling, or work, this is the brotherhood of profession; it\ncomprises the fellow-feeling that joins persons of the same order or\nparty, this is the brotherhood of order; it comprises the fellow-feeling\nthat joins brothers and sisters of the same home, this is the\nbrotherhood of family. Religious fellowship includes that spiritual\nintercourse which is held between persons of the same religious faith\nand practice. Conjugal affection comprises that feeling of mind and\nheart which unites husband and wife. Filial and parental love exists\nbetween parent and child. While friendship comprises that soul union\nwhich exists between persons because of similar desires, tastes, and\nsentiments. Each of these bonds of attachment has its characteristic\nmark, its essential feature. The essential feature of universal\nbrotherhood is common origin, present struggle, and future hope; the\nessential feature of racial, national, or community brotherhood is\npatriotism; the essential feature of brotherhood of the order is mutual\nhelpfulness; the essential feature in brotherhood of the profession\nis common pursuit; in brotherhood of the family, common parentage; in\nconjugal affection, attraction for opposite sex; in parental and filial\nlove, love of offspring and love of parent; while in friendship the\nessential feature is harmony of natures.\n\n\nWHAT IS FRIENDSHIP?\n\nNo human relationship can be more beautiful, nor more abiding than true\nfriendship. It is a spiritual thing, a communion of souls, virtuously\nexercised. How one is impressed and pleased to see another horse just\nlike his own, to see another dog exactly resembling his own, to meet a\nperson who speaks, looks, and acts like some one he has known. It is\na surprise, mingled with mystery and delight. But with what increased\nsurprise and delight does one meet with a \"person after his own heart.\"\nAll men have recognized the strength and beauty of right self-love.\nThe second great law of Christ's kingdom is declared in terms of true\nself-love. \"Love thy neighbor as thyself.\" Every one loves himself,\nbecause one's self is the truest and best of other lives filtered\nthrough his own soul. When one finds in another that which perfectly\nanswers to his own soul-likings and longings, he has found another\nself, he has found a friend. Friendship is the communion of such souls,\nalthough they may be absent from one another. The highest friendship may\ngrow more perfectly when friends are separated, then it is unmixed with\nthe alloy of imperfect thought and action. Then it is nourished by\nthe past, for only the past buries all faults; it is encouraged by the\nfuture, for only the future veils the awkwardness and shortcomings of\nthe present. The character of friendship is determined by the character\nof friends. Negative personalities wanting in taste, conviction, and\nvirtue produce only a negative friendship. Intense personalities\nproduce intense friendships; noble personalities, noble friendships, and\nspiritual personalities, spiritual friendship. In the true, spiritual\nsense, before one can become a friend, he must become an individual. He\nmust stand for something in thought and purpose. If this is not true,\nfriendship becomes a flimsy affair. For souls to commune with one\nanother there must be harmony; unity, agreement of desires, sentiments,\nand tastes. Not the harmony of indifference, nor a forced agreement,\nbut a beautiful and natural response of soul to soul. Such equipment for\nfriendship finds its basis only in individual character. Character is\nconduct become habitual. If one spurns reason, and follows his impulse\nand passion, he becomes unreliable, and does not know the issues of his\nown heart and life. Who knows what such an one will do next? To make it\nsoar well or sail well, friendship must have ballast. This ballast is\nworthy, individual character. It would be more exact to say there can be\nno true friendship without individual character. Although many elements\nconstitute the character of the true friend, yet two elements are\nessential--sincerity and tenderness. Sincerity is the soul of every\nvirtue, while true words, simple manners, and right actions make up the\nbody. If the soul of virtue is present one does not always demand the\npresence of the body, but if the body of virtue is absent, one had\nbetter take a search after the soul. If sincerity is unquestioned,\nwords, manners, actions have great liberty; but if words, manners and\nactions are lacking in straight-forwardness, it is time to question\nsincerity. This is true in all human affairs involving motive and\nconduct. Especially is it true in friendship. Sincerity knows its own.\nBy a glance it penetrates the very heart of its true friend, and leaves\ntranslucent and transparent its own. Sincerity gives steadfastness and\nconstancy to friendship. Insincerity mars and breaks friendship. Who\nhas not seen a soul spring into life through the love of a radiant\nfriendship; and then following a series of hollow pretenses,\ninsincerities, that friendship fails, and the beautiful creature\nstifles and dies. As one tells us, \"such a death is frightful, it is the\nasphyxia of the soul!\" Then, tenderness is an essential element in\nthe character of a friend. Says Emerson: \"Notwithstanding all the\nselfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human\nfamily is bathed with an element of love, like a fine ether.\" With\nEmerson, we believe that every person carries about with him a certain\ncircle of sympathy within which he, and at least one friend, may temper\nand sweeten life. Much of the kindness of the world is simply breathed,\nand yet what an aroma of good cheer it sheds in grateful lives.\nTenderness possesses a sensitiveness of sympathy to an extreme\ndegree. It shrinks from the sight of suffering. It treats others\nwith \"gentleness, delicacy, thought-fulness, and care. It enters into\nfeelings, anticipates wants, supplies the smallest pleasure, and studies\nevery comfort.\" Says one: \"It belongs to natures, refined as well as\nloving, and possesses that consideration of which finer dispositions\nonly are capable.\" Tenderness is a heart quality. It is the luxury of a\npure and intense friendship. It tempers one's entire nature, making\nhis whole being sympathetic with grace and favor. It is manifest in the\nrelaxing feature, in the penetrating glance, in the mellowing voice,\nin the engracing manners, and in the complete obliteration of time and\ndistance, while with one's friend. We recall the friendly visits spend\nwith our friend, Lawrence W. Rowell, during his medical course in\nRush College, Chicago, while we were in attendance at the Northwestern\nUniversity, in Evanston, Illinois. Rowell was intellectual, spirited,\ngifted in conversation, highly sympathetic, informed, critical, yet\ncharitable, a close student of human nature, a love of philosophy, of\nmusical temperament, of noble heart, of exalted purpose. Our visits were\nkept up bimonthly throughout one year. We would spent Saturday evening\nand Sunday together. Those visits revealed to me the magnetism,\nintensity, and tenderness of a friend. Truly, with us time and distance\nwere almost completely obliterated from our consciousness. I say\ndistance, for we would walk together. Tenderness suits the amiable\nand gentle in disposition, but it comes with a peculiar charm from\nthe austere nature. It is one of the stalwart virtues, and is often\nconcealed behind a crusty exterior. Severity and tenderness adorn the\ngreatest lives.\n\n\nTHE TEST OF FRIENDSHIP.\n\nWhat is the uncertain mark of a friend? Have I a friend? How many\nfriends have I? I can invoice my stock, my goods, my land, my money,\ncan I invoice my friends? One may not always know the actual worth of a\nfriend, but he knows who are his friends, quite as well as he knows\nwho are his nephews and cousins. \"A friend is one whom you need and who\nneeds you.\" Has one a bit of good news, he flies to his friend, he wants\nto share it. Has one a sorrow, he seeks his friend who will gladly share\nthat. Does one meet with a defeat or victory, instantly he thinks of his\nfriend and of how it will effect him. Friends need one another, as truly\nas the child needs its mother, or the mother her child. Is one tempted\nto commit a wrong in thought or action, his friend, though absent,\nappears at his side and begs him not to do it. If one is in doubt or\nuncertainty, he summons his friend, who become a patient reasoner, and\nan impartial judge. Who does not find himself, daily, looking through\nother people's glasses, weighing on other people's scales, sounding\nother people's voices? It is a habit that friends have with one another.\nYou can not deprive friends of one another, any more than you can\nlovers. Ah, true friends are lovers of the heaven-born sort; for\ntheir agreement is grounded in nature. They are not chosen, they are\ndiscovered. Or, as Emerson says, they are \"self-elected.\"\n\n     \"Friendship's an abstract of love's noble flame,\n          'Tis love refined, and purged from all its dross,\n      'Tis next to angel's love, if not the same,\n          As strong as passion in, though not so gross.\"\n\nThus writes Catherine Phillips.\n\n\nFRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP.\n\nTrue friendship gives ease to the heart, light to the mind, and aid to\nthe carrying out of one's life-purposes. First, ease to the heart. The\npresence of a friend is a beam of genial sunshine which lights up the\nhouse by his very appearance. He warms the atmosphere and dispels the\ngloom. The presence of a true friend for a day, a night, a week, lifts\none out of himself, links him with new purposes, and immerses him in\nnew joys. Friends breathe free with one another. They inspire sighs of\nrelief. Embarrassment disappears; liberty reigns supreme. Hearts are\nlike steam boilers, occasionally, they must give vent to what is in\nthem, or they will burst. This is the true mission of friends, to\nbecome to one another reserve reservoirs of \"griefs, joys, fears, hopes,\nsuspicions, counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress\nit,\" or elate it. You recall those familiar lines of Bacon: \"This\ncommunicating of a man's self to his friends works two contrary effects;\nfor it redoubles joys and cutteth griefs in halves; for there is no man\nthat imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no\nman that imparteth his griefs to his friends, but he grieveth the less.\"\nThe following selected lines, slightly changed, set forth this first\nfruit of friendship.\n\n    \"A true friend is an atmosphere\n      Warm with all inspirations dear,\n      Wherein we breathe the large free breath\n      Of life that hath no taint of death.\n      A true friend's an unconscious part\n      Of every true beat of our heart;\n      A strength, a growth, whence we derive\n      Soul-rest, that keeps the world alive.\"\n\nThen, friendship sheds light in the mind. \"He who has made the\nacquisition of a judicious and sympathetic friend,\" says Robert Hall,\n\"may be said to have doubled his mental resources.\" No man is wise\nenough to be his own counselor, for he inclineth too much to leniency\ntoward himself. \"It is a well-known rule that flattery is food for the\nfool.\" Therefore no man should be his own counselor since no one is\nso apt to flatter another as he is himself. A wise man never flatters\nhimself, neither does a friend flatter. As a wise man sees his own\nfaults and seeks to correct them, so a true friend sees the faults of\nhis friend and labors faithfully to banish them. The one who flatters\nyou despises you, and degrades both you and himself. An enemy will tell\nyou the whole truth about yourself, especially your faults, and at times\nthat both weaken and hurt you. A friend will tell you the whole truth\nabout yourself, especially your neglected virtues, but at a time to both\nstrengthen and help you. The highest service a friend can render is that\nof giving counsel. The highest honor one can bestow upon his friend\nis to make him his counselor. It is no mark of weakness to rely upon\ncounsel. God, Himself, needed a counselor, so he chose His Son.\n\"His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the\nEverlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.\" Isa. ix, 6. Counsel, says\nSolomon, is the key to stability. \"Every purpose is established by\nCounsel.\" Prov. Xx, 18. Who despiseth counsel shall reap the reward\nof folly. A friend is safe in counsel, according to his wisdom, for he\nnever seeks his own good, but the good of his friend. It is a saying,\n\"If some one asks you for advice, if you would be followed, first find\nout what kind of advice is wanted, then give that.\" But this is not the\nway of a friend. He has in mind the welfare of the friend and the cause\nhis friend serves. Honor does not require that one shall follow the\nadvise of his friend, rather liberty in this is a mark of freedom and\ntrust between friends.\n\nA friend aids one in the carrying out of his life purposes. Who is it\nthat helps one to places of honor and usefulness? It is his friend. Who\nis it that recognizes one's true worth, extols his virtues, and gives\ntone and quality to the diligent services of months and years? It is his\nfriend. Who is it, when one ends his life in the midst of an unfinished\nbook, or with loose ends of continued research in philosophy or science\nall about him; who is it that gathers up these loose ends and puts in\norder the unfinished work? It is his friend. Who is it that stands by\nthe open tomb of that fallen saint or hero and relates to the world his\ndeeds of sacrifice and courage which spurn others on to nobler living\nand thereby perpetuates his goodness and valor? Who does this, if it is\ndone? It is his friend. A friend thus becomes not only a completion of\none's soul as he is by virtue of being a friend, but also he becomes\na completion of one's life. Then, one's relation to his fellowmen is\na limited relationship. He may speak, but upon certain subjects, on\ncertain occasions, and to certain persons. As Francis Bacon says, \"A man\ncan not speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband;\nto his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case\nrequires, and not as it sorteth with the person....I have given the\nrule,\" says he, \"where a man can not fitly play his own part, if he have\nnot a friend, he may quit the stage.\"\n\n\nHOW TO GET AND KEEP A FRIEND.\n\nA real friend is discovered, or made. First, discovered. Two persons\nnotice an attraction for one another. They see that their desires are\nsimilar, they have the same sentiments, they agree in tastes. A feeling\nof attachment becomes conscious with each of them, slight association\nfosters this feeling, it increases. New associations but reveal a\nbroader agreement, a closer union, a perfecter harmony. The signs of\nfriendship appear. Heart and mind of each respond to the other, they are\nfriends. This is the noblest friendship. It has its origin in nature.\nIt is, as H. Clay Trumbull says: \"Love without compact or condition;\nit never pivots on an equivalent return of service or of affection. Its\nwhole sweep is away from self and toward the loved one. Its desire is\nfor the friend's welfare; its joy is in the friend's prosperity; its\nsorrows and trials are in the friend's misfortunes and griefs; its pride\nis in the friend's attainments and successes; its constant purpose is in\ndoing and enduring for the friend.\"\n\nThen, friends are made. Two persons do not especially attract one\nanother. But, through growth of character, modification of nature, or\nchange in desires, sentiments, and tastes, they become attracted to each\nother. Or in spite of natural disagreements or differences, through\nthe force of circumstances they become welded together in friendship.\nMontaigne describes such an attachment, in which the souls mix and work\nthemselves into one piece with so perfect a mixture that there is no\nmore sign of a seam by which they were first conjoined. Says Euripedes:\n\n        \"A friend\n    Wedded into our life is more to us\n    Than twice five thousand kinsman one in blood.\"\n\nSuch was the friendship of Ruth and Naomi. Orpha loved Naomi, kissed\nher, and returned satisfied to her early home; but Ruth cleaved unto\nher, saying:\n\n    \"Entreat me not to leave thee,\n     And to return from following after thee:\n     For whither thou goest, I will go;\n     Where thou lodgest, I will lodge:\n     Thy people shall be my people,\n     And thy God my God:\n     Where thou diest, will I die,\n     And there will I be buried:\n     The Lord do so to me, and more also,\n     If aught but death part thee and me.\"\n\nThe keeping of a friend like the keeping of a fortune, lies in the\ngetting, although in friendship much depends upon circumstances of\nassociation. However subtle may be the circumstances which bring friends\ntogether, or whatever natural agreement may exist between their natures,\nstill there is always a conscious choosing of friends. In this choosing\nlies the secret of abiding friendship. Young says:\n\n    \"First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;\n     Pause, ponder, sift:  not eager in the choice,\n     Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing fix;\n     Judge before friendship, then confide till death.\"\n\nSteadfastness and constancy such as this seldom loses a friend.\n\nLast of all, abiding friendship is grounded in virtue. Says a famed\nwriter on Friendship: \"There is a pernicious error in those who think\nthat a free indulgence in all lusts and sins is extended in friendship.\nFriendship was given us by nature as the handmaid of virtues and not as\nthe companion of our vices. It is virtue, virtue I say... that both wins\nfriendship and preserves it.\" And closing his remarks on this immortal\nsubject, Cicero causes Laelius to say: \"I exhort you to lay the\nfoundations of virtue, without which friendship can not exist, in such\na manner, that with this one exception, you may consider that nothing in\nthe world is more excellent than friendship.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX. TRAVEL. A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.\n\n\nWe have set in order some facts, incidents, and lessons gathered from a\nhasty trip to the old country during the summer of 1899. The journey was\nmade in company with Rev. C.F. Juvinall, for four years my room-mate\nand fellow-student, and my estimable friend. On Wednesday, June 21st, we\nsailed from Boston Harbor; reached Liverpool, England, Saturday morning\nthe 1st of July; visited this second town in the British kingdom;\nstopped over at the old town of Chester; took a run out to Hawarden\nEstate, the home of Gladstone; changed cars at Stratford-on-Avon and\nvisited the tomb of Shakespeare; staid a half day and a night in the\nold university town of Oxford, and reached London on the evening of July\n4th. Having spent a week in London, we crossed the English Channel\nto Paris; remained there two days, then made brief visits to the\nbattlefield of Waterloo, to Brussels, Amsterdam, Hull, Sheffield,\nDublin, and back to Liverpool. We sailed to Boston and returned\nto Chicago by way of Montreal and Detroit, having spent forty-nine\ndays--the intensest and delightfullest of our lives. At first, we\nhesitated to treat this subject from a point of view of personal\nexperience, but since it is our purpose to incite in others the love\nfor and the right us of all helpful resources of happiness and power, it\nseemed to us that we could no better accomplish our purpose with respect\nto this subject than to recount our own observations from this one\nlimited, imperfect journey.\n\n\nAN EYE-OPEN AND EAR-OPEN EXPERIENCE.\n\nOne is always at a disadvantage in relating the faults of others, for he\nseems to himself and to his friends to be telling his own experience.\nWe were about to speak of the superficial way in which Americans travel.\nOne who has traveled much says that \"the average company of American\ntourists goes through the Art Galleries of Europe like a drove of cattle\nthrough the lanes of a stock-market.\" Nor is it the art gallery and\nmuseum alone that is done superficially. How many persons before\nentering grand old Notre Dame, or the British Houses of Parliament,\npause to admire the elaborate and expansive beauty of the great archways\nand outer walls? It is possible to live in this world, to travel around\nit, to touch at every great port and city, and yet fail to see what is\nof value or of interest. A man on our boat going to Liverpool, said that\nhe had traveled over the world, had been in London many a time, but had\nnot taken the pains to go into St. Paul's, nor to visit the Tower of\nLondon. A wise man, a seer, is one who sees. It is possible to live in\nthis world, and not to leave one's own dooryard, and yet to possess the\nknowledge of the world, and to tell others how to see. Louis Agassiz,\nthe scientist, was invited by a friend to spend the summer with him\nabroad. Mr. Agassiz declined the gracious offer on the ground that he\nhad just Planned a summer's tour through his own back yard. What\ndid Agassiz find on that tour? Instruction for the children of many\ngenerations, a treatise on animal life, and later a text-book of\nZoology. Kant, the philosopher, the greatest mind since Socrates, was\nnever forty miles from his birthplace. On the other hand, Grant Allen,\nauthor, scholar, and traveler, says: \"One year in the great university\nwe call Europe, will teach one more than three at Yale or Columbia. And\nwhat it teaches one will be real, vivid, practical, abiding... ingrained\nin the very fiber of one's brain and thought.... He will read deeper\nmeaning thenceforward in every picture, every building, every book,\nevery newspaper.... If you want to know the origin of the art of\nbuilding, the art of painting, the art of sculpture, as you find them\nto-day in contemporary America, you must look them up in the churches,\nand the galleries of early Europe. If you want to know the origin of\nAmerican institutions, American law, American thought, and American\nlanguage, you must go to England; you must go farther still to France,\nItaly, Hellas, and the Orient. Our whole life is bound up with Greece\nand Rome, with Egypt and Assyria.\" But whatever advantage travel may\nafford for broad and intense study, whatever be its superior processes\nof refinement and learning, yet it is well to remember this, that at any\nplace and at any time one may open his eyes and his ears, his heart and\nhis reason, and find more than he is able to understand and a heart to\nfeel! You can not limit God to the land nor to the sea, to one country\nnor to one hemisphere. Thus the kind of travel of which we speak is the\neye-open and ear-open sort.\n\nLet us note first, then, that travel is a study of history at the spot\nwhere the event took place. The history of a nation is a record of its\ngreat men. You tell a faithful story of Columbus, John Cabot, and Henry\nHudson; of Winthrop, John Smith, and Melendez; of General Wolfe, General\nWashington, Patrick Henry, and Franklin; of Jefferson, Adams, Jackson,\nand Webster; of Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and\nGeneral Grant; of John Sherman, Grover Cleveland, and William\nMcKinley, and you an up-to-date history of the young American Republic,\nacknowledged by every country to have the greatest future of all\nnations. So, if one reads with understanding the inscriptions on the\nmonuments of Gough, O'Connell, and Parnell, he will get the story of the\nstruggles of the Irish. Enter London Tower, \"the most historical spot in\nEngland,\" and recount the bloody tragedies of the English people since\nthe time of William the Conqueror, 1066 A.D. Here we have a \"series of\nequestrian figures in full equipment, as well as many figures on foot,\naffording a faithful picture, in approximate chronological order, of\nEnglish war-array from the time of Edward I, 1272, down to that of James\nII, 1688.\" In glass cases, and in forms of trophies on the walls, we\nfind arms and armor of the old Romans, of the early Greeks, and Britons,\nand of the Anglo-Saxons. Maces and axes, long and cross bows and leaden\nmissile weapons and shields, highly adorned with metal figures, all tend\nto make more vivid the word-pictures of the historian. Of the small\nburial-ground in this Tower, Macaulay writes: \"In truth there is\nno sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. Death is there\nassociated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and\nvirtue, with public veneration, and with imperishable renown; not, as\nin our humblest churches and church-yards, with every thing that is most\nendearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is\ndarkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of\nimplacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice\nof friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted\nfame.\" We note a few names chiseled here: Sir Thomas More, beheaded\n1535; Anne Boleyn, beheaded in this tower, 1536; Thomas Cromwell,\nbeheaded, 1540; Margaret Pole, beheaded here, 1541; Queen Catharine\nHoward, beheaded, 1542; Lady Jane Grey and her husband, beheaded here,\n1544; Sir Thomas Overbudy, poisoned in this tower, 1613. Since travel is\na study of history at the spot where the event took place, let us cross\nthe rough and famed English Channel to visit one of the many noted spots\nof France. We select the site of the Hotel de Ville or the town-hall of\nParis. \"The construction of the old hall was begun in 1533, and was over\nseventy years in its completion. Additions were made, and the building\nwas reconstructed in 1841. This has been the usual rallying site of\nthe Democratic party for centuries. Here occurred the tragedy of St.\nBartholomew in 1572; here mob-posts, gallows, and guillotines did the\nwork of a despotic misrule until 1789. (As we left for Brussels on the\nevening of the 13th of July, all Paris was gayly decorated with red,\nwhite, and blue bunting, ready to celebrate the event of July 14, 1789,\nthe fall of the Bastile.) On this date, 110 years ago, the captors of\nthe Bastile marched into this noted hall. Three days later Louis XVI\ncame here in procession from Versailles, followed by a dense mob.\" Here\nRobespierre attempted suicide to avoid arrest, when five battalions\nunder Barras forced entrance to assault the Commune party, of which\nRobespierre was head. Here, in 1848, Louis Blanc proclaimed the\ninstitution of the Republic of France. This was a central spot during\nthe revolution of 1871. The leaders of the Commune party place in this\nbuilding barrels of gunpowder, and heaps of combustibles steeped in\npetroleum, and on May 25th they succeeded in destroying with it 600\nhuman lives. A new Hotel de Ville, one of the most magnificent buildings\nin Europe, has replaced the old hall. This is open to visitors at all\nhours. To study history at the spot where the event took place means\nwork as well as pleasure, so we took our luncheon and sleep in our car\nwhile the train carried us to Brussels, and out to Braine-l'Alleud,\nwhere, on the beautiful rolling plain of Belgium, June 18, 1805,\nNapoleon Bonaparte met his Waterloo, and Wellington became England's\nidol.\n\nA railway baggageman was on our train returning to his home in\nCleveland, Ohio. In conversation, he said: \"I have been with this\ncompany for twenty-two years; have drawn two dollars a day, 365 days in\nthe year for that time, and I haven't a dollar in the world, but one,\nand I gave it yesterday for a dog. But,\" said he, \"I have a good woman\nand the greatest little girl in the world, so I am happy.\" This is one\nof a large class of persons who receive fair wages all their lives, and\nyet die paupers, because they plan to spend all they make as they go\nalong. In conversation with a gruff, old Dutch conductor between Albany\nand New York City, I ventured to ask him if he had ever crossed the\nocean. \"No,\" he said, \"nopody eber crosses de ocean, bud emigrants, and\nbeoble vat hab more muney dan prains.\"\n\nTravel is a study of religious institutions. Among the most interesting\nin Europe, that we visited, are Wesley's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, St.\nPaul's Cathedral, and Notre Dame. The Church of Notre Dame, situated\nin the heart of Paris on the bank of the Seine, was founded 1163 on the\nsite of a church of the fourth century. The building has been altered a\nnumber of times. In 1793 it was converted into a temple of reason.\nThe statue of the Virgin Mary was replaced by one of Liberty. Busts of\nRobespierre, Voltaire, and Rosseau were erected. This church was closed\nto worship 1794, but was reopened by Napoleon 1802. It was desecrated by\nthe Communards 1811, when the building was used as a military depot. The\nlarge nave, 417 feet long, 156 feet wide, and 110 feet high, is the\nmost interesting portion of this massive structure. The vaulting of this\ngreat nave is supported by seventy-five huge pillars. The pulpit is a\nmasterpiece of modern wood-carving. The choir and sanctuary are set off\nby costly railings, and are beautifully adorned by reliefs in wood and\nstone. The organ, with 6,000 pipes, is one of the finest in Europe. \"The\nchoir has a reputation for plain song.\" On a small elevation, in the\ncenter of London, stand the Cathedral of St. Paul's, the most prominent\nbuilding in the city. From remains found here it is believed that a\nChristian Church occupied this spot in the times of the Romans, and that\nit was rebuilt by King Ethelbert, 610 A.D. Three hundred years later\nthis building was burned, but soon it was rebuilt. Again it was\ndestroyed by fire, 1087, and a new edifice begun which was 200 years in\ncompletion. This church, old St. Paul's, was 590 feet long, and had\na leaden-covered, timber spire, 460 feet high. In 1445 this spire was\ninjured by lightning, and in 1561 the building was again burned.\nSays Mr. Baedeker, whose guidebook is indispensable in the hands of a\ntraveler, \"Near the cathedral stood the celebrated Cross of St. Paul,\nwhere sermons were preached, papal bulls promulgated, heretics made to\nrecant, and witches to confess, and where the pope's condemnation of\nLuther was proclaimed in the presence of Woolsey.\" Here is the burial\nplace of a long list of noted persons. Here occurred Wyckiff's citation\nfor heresy, 1337; and here Tyndale's New Testament was burned, 1527. It\nwas opened for divine services, 1697, and was completed after thirteen\nyears of steady work, at a cost of three and a half millions of dollars.\nThis sum was raised by a tax on coal. The church is in the form of a\nLatin cross, 500 feet long, with the transept 250 feet in length. \"The\ninner dome is 225 feet high, the outer, from the pavement to the top of\nthe cross, is 364 feet. The dome is 102 feet in diameter, thirty-seven\nfeet less than St. Peter's. St. Paul's is the third largest church\nin Christendom, being surpassed only by St. Peter's at Rome.\" Three\nservices are held here daily. The religion of Notre Dame is Roman\nCatholic, but that of St. Paul's and Westminster is of the Church of\nEngland. What shall we say of Westminster Abbey, the most impressive\nplace of all our travel! As my friend and I entered here and took\nour seats for divine worship, preparatory to visiting her halls, and\nchapels, and tombs, I think I was never more deeply impressed. I said to\nmyself, \"What does God mean to allow me to worship here?\" and I seemed\nto realize how little my past life had been. I felt that circumstances\nand not I myself had thrust this new privilege, and thereby new\nresponsibility, upon me. Westminster Abbey! A church for the living,\na burial-place for the honored dead; a monument to genius, labor, and\nvirtue; England's \"temple of fame;\" the most solemn spot in Europe, if\nnot in the world! Here lie authors, benefactors, and poets; statesmen,\nheroes, and rulers, the best of English blood since Edward the\nConfessor, 1049 A.D. We must now leave this sacred spot to visit, if\npossible for us, a more sacred one, the birthplace of Methodism, or\nmore accurately speaking, in the words of Bishop Warren, the \"cradle of\nMethodism.\"\n\nOn City Road, London, near Liverpool Street Station, is located the\nhouse, chapel, burial-grounds, and tomb of John Wesley. Across the\nstreet, in an old Nonconformist cemetery, are the graves of James Watt,\nDaniel Defoe, and John Bunyan. Across the narrow street to the north\nis the tabernacle of Whitefield. We learned that Friday, July 7th, was\nreopening day for Wesley's Chapel. What a distinguished body of persons\nwe found at this meeting! Dr. Joseph Parker was the speaker of the day.\nThe Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, president of the Conference, presided at the\nmemorial services. Rev. Westerdale, present pastor, successfully managed\nthe program of the day, especially the collections, for he met the\nexpense of the rebuilding and past indebtedness with the sum of over\nfifteen thousand dollars. He told those discouraged ministers with big\naudiences to go and take courage from what the mother-church, with her\nsmall number of poor parishioners, had done. In the evening, Bishop\nWarren, on his return to America, called in and gave an interesting\ntalk. He was followed by Fletcher Moulton, member of Parliament. You\nmay not realize the feeling of gratitude with which we took part in this\neventful service of praise, prayer, and rededication! On the next day we\nreturned to see the books, furniture, and apartments of Wesley, himself.\nWe sat at his writing desk, stood in his death-chamber, and lingered\nin the little room where he used to retire at four in the morning for\nsecret prayer. From here he would go directly to his preaching service\nat five. Wesley put God first in his life, this is why men honor him so\nmuch now that he is gone. We took a farewell view of the audience-room\nfrom the very pulpit into which Wesley ascended to preach his Good News\nof Christ. From the several inscriptions on Wesley's tomb, we copied\nthe following one: \"After having languished a few days, he at length\nfinished his course and life together. Gloriously triumphing over death,\nMarch the 2nd, Anno Domine, 1791, in the eighty-eight year of his age.\"\n\nIn Liverpool, on the day of our arrival, July 1st, an old, gray-haired\nman was shining my shoes. He observed that I was from across the water,\nand that an Englishman can readily tell a Yankee. He began to praise\nAmerica. He said that Uncle Sam was only a child yet, that America was\ndestined to be the greatest country in the world; that her trouble with\nSpain was only a bickering; that the present engagement was only his\nmaiden warfare, and that he \"walked along like a streak of lightning.\"\n\nSaturday evening, July 8th, witnessed the greatest military parade\nin London for thirty years. The Prince of Wales reviewed twenty-seven\nthousand London volunteers. Early in the morning citizens from all over\nEngland began to gather in front of the English barracks, and at the\neast end of Hyde Park. By two o'clock in the afternoon hundreds of\nthousands had packed the streets and dotted the parks and lawns, until,\nin every direction one could witness a sea of faces. After the royal\nand military procession began, the patient Johnnies, with their sisters,\nsweethearts, wives, mothers, grandmothers, and great-grand-mothers,\nstood for five hours to see it go by. The Englishman does not tire when\nhe is honoring his country. At the close of this parade we dropped into\na barbershop for a shave. The gentleman seemed to understand that I was\na long ways from home. \"You fellows,\" I said, \"can tell us as far as you\ncan see us.\" \"Yes,\" said he, \"by your shoes, your hat, your coat, your\ntongue, and even by your face. We can tell you by the way you spit. A\nspittoon here, pointing about ten feet away, give a Yankee two trials,\nhe will hit it every time.\"\n\nTravel is a study of the genius of man as shown in architecture, in\nsculpture, and in painting. Ninety-seven plans were submitted for the\nHouses of Parliament, including Westminster Hall. That of Sir Charles\nBarry was selected, and the present imposing structure was built,\ncovering eight acres, at a cost of $15,000,000. The style is\nperpendicular (Gothic), with carvings, intricate in detail and highly\npicturesque. The building faces the river with a 940 feet front, but her\nthree magnificent square-shaped towers rise over her street front. The\nclock tower at the northwest corner is 318 feet high, the middle tower\nis 300 feet, and the southwest, or Victorian tower, is 340 feet high.\nThe large clock with its four dials, each twenty-three feet in diameter,\nrequires five hours for winding the striking parts. The striking bell\nof the clock tower is one of the largest known; it weighs thirteen tons,\nand can be heard, in favorable weather, over the greater portion\nof London. One never tires in looking at this noble building. It is\nappropriately adorned inside and out with elaborate carvings, statuary,\nand paintings. Here are located the Chamber of Peers, the House of\nCommons, and numerous royal apartments, lavishly fitted up to be in\nkeeping with the office and dignity of the building.\n\nCrystal Palace, situated about eight miles southeast of St. Paul's,\nconsists entirely of glass and iron. Its main hall, or nave, is 1,608\nfeet long, with great cross sections, two aisles, and numerous lateral\nsections. The two water towers at the ends are each 282 feet high. If\nyou were at the World's Fair in Chicago, and visited the Transportation\nBuilding, you may imagine something of the magnitude and beauty of\nCrystal Palace, with her orchestra, concert hall, and opera-house; with\nher fountains, library, and school of art; with her museums, gardens,\nand arenas; with her parks, panoramas, and her numerous exhibits of\nnature and art. Near the center of the palace \"is the great Handel\nOrchestra, which can accommodate 4,000 persons, and has a diameter twice\nas great as the dome of St. Paul's. In the middle is the powerful organ\nwith 4,384 pipes, built at a cost of $30,000, and worked by hydraulic\nmachinery. An excellent orchestra plays here daily.\" The concert-hall\non the south side of the stage can accommodate an audience of 4,000. An\nexcellent orchestra plays here daily. \"On each side of the great nave\nare rows of courts, containing in chronological order, copies of the\narchitecture and sculpture of the most highly civilized nations, from\nthe earliest period to the present day.\" The gardens of Crystal Palace\ncover two hundred acres, and are beautifully laid out \"with flowerbeds,\nshrubberies, fountains, cascades, and statuary.\" \"Two of the fountain\nbasins have been converted into sport arenas, each about eight and\none-half acres in extent.\" Nine other fountains, with electric light\nilluminations, play on fireworks nights and on other special occasions.\nIt is common for 15,000 visitors to attend these Thursday night firework\nexhibits. Colored electric light jets deck the fountains, flower-beds,\nand halls. Crystal Palace was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, and cost\nseven and a half million of dollars. Well may it be called London's\nParadise.\n\nShall we say that the greatest piece of constructive architecture of any\ncountry is that of Eiffel Tower! Situated on the left bank of the Seine\nRiver, it overlooks Paris and the country for fifty miles around.\n\nIn its construction, iron caissons were sunk to a depth of forty-six\nfeet on the river side, and twenty-nine and one-half on the other side.\nWhen the water was forced out of these caissons by means of compressed\nair, \"concrete was poured in to form a bed for four massive foundation\npiers of masonry, eighty-five feet thick, arranged in a square of 112\nyards. Upon this base which covers about two and a half acres rises\nthe extraordinary, yet graceful structure of interlaced ironwork\" to a\nheight of 984 feet. Eight hundred persons may be accommodated on the top\nplatform at once. It was completed within two years' time, and is the\nhighest monument in the world. Washington monument ranks second, being\n555 feet high. From the summit of Eiffel Tower one may secure a good\nview of Paris, her public buildings, chief hills, parks, and boulevards,\nmonuments, and embankments. An imitation of Trajan's column in Rome, is\n142 feet in height, and thirteen feet in diameter. It is constructed of\nmasonry, encrusted with plates of bronze, forming a spiral band nearly\n300 yards in length, on which are represented the \"battle scenes\nof Napoleon during his campaign of 1805, and down to the battle of\nAusterlitz. The figures are three feet in height and many of them are\nportraits. The metal was obtained by melting down 1,200 Russian and\nAustrian cannons. At the top is a statue of Napoleon in his Imperial\nrobes. This column reflects the political history of France.\" The design\nsculptor is Bergeret. For their antiquity the mummies and statues in\nthe Egyptian galleries of the British Museum are very interesting. They\nembrace the period from 3600 years before Christ to 350 A.D. \"The tomb\nof Napoleon by Visconte,\" and \"the twelve colossal victories surrounding\nthe sarcophagus by Pradier,\" are among the finest works of Parisian\nsculpture. The sarcophagus, thirteen feet long, six and one-half feet\nhigh, consists of a single huge block of reddish-brown granite, weighing\nupwards of sixty-seven tons, brought as a gift from Finland at a cost of\n$700,000. The Louvre, Paris, contains one of the finest art galleries in\nEurope, and with the Tuilleries, covers about eight acres, \"forming one\nof the most magnificent places in the world.\"\n\nIn our limited experience at travel we have yet to find a single object\nof beauty or utility that is not the product of skill, of genius, of\ngreat labor. Every monument bears testimony of struggle, of bloodshed,\nof hard-earned victory; beneath every tomb that honor has erected rests\nthe body of incarnate intelligence, fidelity, and courage. In the shadow\nof every great cathedral lies collected the moth and rust from the\ncoppers of myriad-handed toilers of five and ten centuries. The towers\nand domes of London, and Paris, and Amsterdam, and Dublin are monuments\nto the genius of the architect and to the faithfulness of the common\ntoiler. The parks and gardens tell of centuries of wise and faithful\napplication of the laws of growth, of symmetry, of design in form and\ncolor. The historic chapels of worship and learning breathe the very\nincense of devotion and reverence for truth; while the conservatories\nof sculpture and painting preserve what is divinest in human experience.\nAge alone can produce a great man or a great nation. Decades for the man\nand centuries for the nation; these are the measuring periods for real\nachievement. But all this is on the human side. Correggio and Titian in\npainting; Bacon and Bailey in sculpture; Raphael and Michael Angelo in\nsculpture and painting; and Sir Christopher Wren in architecture,--the\nworks of art of such as these elevate and purify one's thought and\nfeeling. But the profoundest impressions that come to one from travel,\ncome alone from the works of nature. The Crystal Palace in London can\nnot compare in glory with the crystal ripples of a mid-ocean scene. The\nbotannical gardens of the Tuilleries in Paris do not stir the soul as\ndoes the splendor of the Welsh mountains. The rockery plants of Phoenix\nPark, Dublin, are insignificant compared with growths of ferns and moss\nOn the rock ledges of Bray's Head, south of Dublin. No panorama that man\nhas painted can equal the scene of Waterloo battle-field, observed from\nthe earthen mound near the fatal ravine. So, we shall always find it\ntrue, that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so the thoughts of\nGod are higher than the thoughts of man, and his ways than man's ways.\n\n\n\n\nX. HOME AND THE HOME-MAKER.\n\nWHAT IS HOME?\n\n\n\"RECENTLY a London magazine sent out 1,000 inquiries on the question,\n'What is home?' In selecting the classes to respond to the question it\nwas particular to see that every one was represented. The poorest and\nthe richest were given an equal opportunity to express their sentiment.\nOut of eight hundred replies received, seven gems were selected as\nfollows:\n\n      \"Home--A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in.\n      \"Home--The place where the small are great and the great are\n  small.\n      \"Home--The father's kingdom, the mother's world, and the\n  child's paradise.\n      \"Home--The place where we grumble the most and are treated\n  the best.\n      \"Home--The center of our affection, round which our heart's\n  best wishes twine.\n      \"Home--The place where our stomachs get three square meals\n  daily and our hearts a thousand.\n      \"Home--The only place on earth where the faults and failings\n  of humanity are hidden under the sweet mantle of charity.\"\n\nDr. Talmage defines home, as \"a church within a church, a republic\nwithin a republic, a world within a world.\" Dr. Banks writes, \"It is not\ngranite walls, or gaudy furniture, or splendid books, or soft carpets,\nor delicious viands that can make a home. All of these may be present,\nand yet it be only a dungeon, if the great simplicities are not there.\"\nSings one:\n\n    \"Home's not merely roof and room,\n       Needs it something to endear it.\n      Home is where the heart can bloom,\n        Where there's some kind heart to cheer it.\n\n      Home's not merely four square walls,\n        Though with pictures hung and gilded,\n      Home is where affection calls,\n        Filled with charms the heart hath builded.\n\n      Home!  Go watch the faithful dove\n        Sailing 'neath the heavens above us,\n      Home is where there's one to love,\n        Home is where there's one to love us.\"\n\nWe believe the five sweetest words in the English language to the\nlargest number of persons--words which carry with them intrinsic meaning\nand blessing are these: \"Jesus,\" \"Mother,\" \"Music,\" \"Heaven,\" \"Home.\"\n\"Twenty thousand people gathered in the old Castle Garden, New York, to\nhear Jennie Lind sing. After singing some of the old masters, she began\nto pour forth 'Home, Sweet Home.' The audience could not stand it. An\nuproar of applause stopped the music. Tears gushed from thousands like\nrain. The word 'home' touched the fiber of every soul in that immense\nthrong.\" In an early spring day, when the warm sun began to invite one\nto bask in his rays, my wife, delicate in health, lay drowsing on some\nboards near the house. The large garden spot spread out to the rear of\nher; a beautiful grassy lawn carpeted round a deserted house, granary,\nand shop-building in front of her. She was living over her girlhood\ndays. She thought she was in the old home orchard, where she used to\ndoze, dream, and play. The songs of the birds seemed the same; the same\ngentle breezes played with her hair; the same passers-by jogged along\nthe roadside; the same family horse nibbled the tender grass in the\nbarnyard. How sad, and yet how sweet are the memories of early days! The\ntender associations of home never leave one, however roughly the coarse\nhand of time would tear them away. It is because home means love that\nits associations and lessons remain.\n\n\nESSENTIALS TO A HAPPY HOME.\n\nAlthough home means love, yet love alone may not insure happiness. In\naddition to love, without which a true home can not exist, we select\nfour essential requisites to make home life useful and happy. These are\nintelligence, unselfishness, attractiveness, and religion.\n\nFirst, Intelligence. Much of the misery of the world in individual and\nfamily life is due to gross ignorance. Once the father of a family said\nto me, \"We did not get our mail to-day, I miss my reading.\" Knowing the\nman we were surprised at such a remark, and ventured to ask him what\npapers he took. A list of ten or a dozen papers was named. All of them\nwere newspapers. One was a general daily, two were local dailies, and\nthe rest were local weekly papers. No intelligent person would have\ncarried over three of those papers from the post-office. This man spent\nhours upon a class of reading that should be finished with a few minutes\neach day. In this same family the mother told me that she had never\nrode on a railway train, and that she had never been outside of her\nown county. This is an exceptional case, but it illustrates how that\nignorance makes thrift and happiness impossible in a home, neither\nof which belong to this family. Here every law of health is violated,\nforesight in providing for the physical comforts of the home is\nwanting; little attention is given to the education of the children;\nno sacrifices to-day enrich to-morrow; life is a humdrum, a routine, a\ndread, with no exuberance, joy, or hope. In time, such a life leads\nto failure and gloom, to secret, then to open vice, and to a final\nshipwreck of the home and of the individual. In a similar yet in a less\nmarked way, the career of many a home is ended. No one may be directly\nto blame, but want of common knowledge and common wit have set a limit\nbeyond which such a family may not go. The intelligent family has some\nsort of a history which it is their privilege and duty to perpetuate.\nMembers of the intelligent family are moral sponsors for one another,\nthe mother for the daughters, the father for the sons, the brothers\nand sisters for one another. They find their own best interests in the\ninterests of one another. The intelligent family is not superstitious.\nThey act upon the wisdom of the ancient poet, \"every one is the\narchitect of his own fortune.\" They look to cause and condition for\nresults. They spell \"luck\" with a \"p\" before it. The intelligent farmer\nplants his crop in the ground, rather than in the moon, and looks for\nhis harvest to the seed and the toil. The intelligent merchant locates\nhis business on the street of largest travel and makes the buying of his\ngoods his best salesman. The intelligent man of letters thrives at first\nby making friends of poverty and want, until one day his genius places\nhis name in the temple of honor. So it is with the artist, the musician,\nthe inventor, the architect. To be happy and useful in one's lot, one\nmust know something of the sphere in which he lives and works, of its\npractical wisdom, and must be prepared to live, or glad to die for the\ncause he serves. No indolent, superstitious, or ignorant family need\nlook for abiding happiness nor expect to be permanently useful.\n\nThen unselfishness is essential to happy home life. It is a serious\nmatter for two persons, even when they are naturally mated, to undertake\nto live together in peace and harmony. It is a more serious matter when\nthey are not naturally mated. It is more serious still when children\nenter the home, for they bring with them conflicting tendencies,\ndispositions, and wills. Often have we wondered how it is that families\nget on as well together as they do when we have considered, what natural\ndifferences exist between them, and what little teaching and discipline\nhave been used to harmonize these differences. An harmonious home is\ntruly begun in the parental homes of the husband and wife. Two persons\nmay be perfectly suited to one another, and yet they may be selfish in\nwanting their own way. As one grows up, if he is allowed to have his\nown way regardless of the rights and privileges of others, he becomes\na selfish person, and his parents are to blame. A selfish person in the\nhome plans for his own comfort, decides and acts as he wishes, and seeks\nto satisfy his own desires. He does not take into consideration the\nplans, wishes, and desires of other members of the family. It is\nunderstood that his authority is supreme. Not one member of the family\ndreams of expressing dissent to his dominion. A so-called peace of\nthis sort is not uncommon among families. This supreme authority may be\nvested in husband, or wife, or in one or all of the children. A forced\npeace of this kind is worse than rebellion and is as bad as open war.\nHow can any persons be so presumptuous as to think that any person, or\na number of persons, exist solely for his comfort and advantage! Let\ntwo such selfish persons get together, a permanent riot is assured.\nUnselfishness in the home means thoughtfulness, discipline,\nself-control. Each child is taught the rights and privileges of others\nas well as his own. When two unselfish persons join their lives there\nbegins a holy and beautiful rivalry in seeking the rights and privileges\nof one another. The very atmosphere of such a home is deference,\nrespect, and love. As the stranger, the neighbor, the friend, comes and\ngoes, he catches the spirit of it and carries it with him into his own\nand other homes. Children born into such a home early imbibe its spirit,\nand, O, the inspiration one receives from going into that family circle!\nNo home-life can be an inspiration and a blessing where selfishness is\nallowed to reign. Nor can it be useful and happy.\n\nElla Wheeler Wilcox describes a selfish, though a kind and loving\nhusband:\n\n\nTHEIR HOLIDAY.\n\n     THE WIFE:\n\n     Our house is like a garden--\n       The children are the flowers,\n     The gardener should come, methinks,\n       And walk among his bowers.\n     So lock the door of worry,\n       And shut your cares away,\n     Not time of year, but love and cheer,\n       Will make a holiday.\n\n     THE HUSBAND:\n\n     Impossible!  You women do not know,\n     The toil it takes to make a business grow:\n     I can not join you until very late,\n     So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.\n\n     THE WIFE:\n\n     The feast will be like Hamlet,\n       Without the Hamlet part;\n     The home is but a house, dear,\n       Till you supply the heart.\n     The Christmas gift I long for\n       You need not toil to buy;\n     O, give me back one thing I lack:\n       The love-light in your eye.\n\n     THE HUSBAND:\n\n     Of course I love you, and the children, too.\n     Be sensible, my dear.  It is for you\n     I work so had to make my business pay;\n     There, now, run home, enjoy your holiday.\n\n     THE WIFE, TURNING AWAY:\n\n     He does not mean to wound me,\n       I know his heart is kind,\n     Alas, that men can love us,\n       And be so blind--so blind!\n     A little time for pleasure,\n       A little time for play,\n     A word to prove the life of love\n       And frighten care away--\n     Though poor my lot, in some small cot,\n       That were a holiday.\n\n\nTo preserve the family circle, the home must be made attractive.\nNo amount of practical wisdom, of Puritanic piety, nor mere kindly\ntreatment will hold a family of children together until they are strong\nenough to resist the temptations of the world. The home must be made\nmore attractive than the street or places of amusement. The average boy\nor girl who loses interest in home and uses it chiefly as an eating and\nsleeping place, does so with good reasons. Home has lost its charm. No\nprovision is made for his pastime and pleasure. Not finding this at home\nhe will go elsewhere in search of it. \"An unattractive home,\" says one,\n\"is like the frame of a harp that stands without strings. In form and\noutline, it suggests music, but no melody arises from the empty spaces;\nand thus it is an unattractive home, is dreary and dull.\" How may home\nbe made attractive? We have presupposed a certain amount of education\nand culture in the home by maintaining for it intelligence and\nunselfishness. Any home that is intelligent and unselfish is capable\nof being made attractive. In the first place, in as far as it is\npracticable, each member of the family should have a room of his own\nand be taught how to make it attractive. Here, one will hang his first\npictures, start his own library, provide a writing desk, and learn to\nspend his spare moments. Recently we visited a home in Chicago. The\nrooms are few in number and hired. The family consists of father,\nmother, and three children, now grown. During our short stay in the home\nI was invited into the boys' room. The walls are literally covered with\noriginal pencil designs, queer calendars, odd pictures; the dresser\nand stand are lined with books and magazines, with worn-out musical\ninstruments, art gifts from other members of the family, and ball-team\npictures, while two lines of gorgeous decorations stretch from wall to\nwall. This is still these young men's little world, their interests\nhave centered here. No less than five kinds of musical instruments were\nvisible in this home. The walls of the living room and parlor are made\nbeautiful with simple tasteful pictures made by the daughter, whose\nnatural gift in art was early cultivated. The table, shelves, and\nmantelpiece are decorated with china bowls, plates, and vases, simply,\nyet elegantly adorned. This work was done by the daughter and mother.\nNot a large but a choice collection of flowering plants relieved the bay\nwindow of its emptiness. This is an attractive home. The children\nnever have cared to spend their evenings on the street nor at places of\namusement. Games of skill, innocent, instructive, and entertaining, may\nbe used to make home life more attractive. Only let the amusements of\nthe home be under the direction of father and mother, and be practiced\nby them. Here is a chance to teach shrewdness, honor, interest, and by\nall means, moderation. To overdo at games and amusements is more harmful\nthan to overwork.\n\nReligion is essential to happy home life. A family may get on for a time\nvery smoothly without prayer, Bible study, faith in God, and love for\nJesus Christ; but no family life is completed without a storm, many\nstorms of some sort. Years may pass as on a quiet sea, but one day at\nhigh noon, or, perhaps, in the silent, early hour, a small cloud is seen\nin the distance; it comes nearer; the wind begins to blow, the thunders\npeal, the lightnings flash, the old home, for so long an ark of safety,\nis being tossed on the billowy waves. A testing time is at hand.\nMother is gone, or father has ventured too far and lost all; or son has\ndisgraced the family name; or daughter is in shame; or the darling of\nthe home is no more! It makes a vast difference who is at the helm when\nthe storms of home life rage. It is a mark of highest wisdom to place\nthe family ship under the world's best Captain, Jesus Christ. He never\nlost a life. He alone can arrest the lightning, quiet the waves, inspire\nconfidence, and restore peace and good will in any storm. But\nreligion is not only useful in trouble, it is an ornament in peace and\nprosperity, in the making and building of the home. Tempers must be\ncontrolled, dispositions cultivated, conduct improved, hearts softened,\nand minds purified and disciplined. To accomplish all of this, no\nsubstitute can be made for the spirit and faith of Jesus Christ.\n\n\"'Dear Moss,' said the thatch on an old ruin, 'I am so worn, so patched,\nso ragged, really I am quite unsightly. I wish you would come and cheer\nme up a little. You will hide all my infirmities and defects; and,\nthrough your loving sympathy no finger of contempt or dislike will be\npointed at me.' 'I come,' said the moss; and it crept up and around,\nand in and out, till every flaw was hidden, and all was smooth and fair.\nPresently the sun shone out, and the old thatch looked bright and fair,\na picture of rare beauty, in the golden rays. 'How beautiful the thatch\nlooks!' cried one who saw it. 'How beautiful the thatch looks!' said\nanother. 'Ah!' said the old thatch, 'rather let them say, 'How beautiful\nis the loving moss!'\" So it is with the religion of Christ, it adorns\nand beautifies the life who really wears it; so that the plainness of\nthat life is covered, its ruggedness softened, and its \"pain transformed\ninto profit and its loss into gain.\"\n\nCharles M. Sheldon gives as an essential for a permanent republic,\n\"A true home life where father, mother, and children spend much time\ntogether; where family worship is preserved; where honesty, purity, and\nmutual affection are developed.\"\n\nJ.R. Miller beautifully sums up the secret of happy home-making in\none word--\"'Christ.' Christ at the marriage altar; Christ on the bridal\njourney; Christ when the new home is set up; Christ when the baby is\nborn; Christ when the baby dies; Christ in the pinching times; Christ\nin the days of plenty; Christ in the nursery, in the kitchen, in the\nparlor; Christ in the toil and in the rest; Christ all along the years;\nChrist when the wedded pair walk toward the sunset gates; Christ in the\nsad hour when the farewells are spoken, and one goes on before and the\nother stays, bearing the unshared grief. Christ is the secret of happy\nhome life.\"\n\n\nTHE HOME-MAKER.\n\nJust as a surly husband, a dissipated father, or a reckless son may\nblight a home and destroy its happiness, so may a thoughtful, virtuous,\nand kind man in the home change its very atmosphere and help to make\nit a heaven. As a home-maker man has the ruggeder part. It is his to\nprovide. The man who falls short of this in the home does not do his\npart. No woman can respect a man much less love him, who places her, her\nwork, her life, her home, her world under constant embarrassment by a\nscant and niggardly provision. She loses her ambition, ceases to make\nher self and her home attractive; disorder, filth, unwholesome food,\nlack of spirit on her part is the result. She can not be to him, most of\nall, what he expects her to be, a companion, a counselor, a comfort--a\nhome-maker. Also, it is the part of the man in the home to shield the\nwoman from the heavier burdens and responsibilities. Let him count the\ncost of his enterprises, secure himself against hazardous speculations,\nand give his wife and children to realize that his shoulders, and\nnot theirs, are to bear the load of financial obligation and\nmaterial support. This leaves the woman with her finer instincts and\nsensibilities to make the home the dearest spot on earth to husband,\nchildren, and to all who cross her threshold. The house is her dominion.\nThere she is queen. What a tender and beautiful one she may become!\n\n\nSOME PRACTICAL HINTS.\n\nThe true home-maker does not spend all of her time with her ducks,\nchickens, pigs, and cows, nor yet with her neighbors, her club, nor her\nChurch. She finds some time to cultivate her intellectual nature and\nthe finer feelings of her children. She does not degenerate into a\nmere household drudge. She is not the slave of her husband, but his\ncompanion. If she has musical ability, she keeps up the practice of\nher music; if she is inclined to literature, she reads some every day.\nWhether literary or not, every woman should spend some time each day in\nreading that she might keep abreast with the world, at least with her\ncompanion, in the movements and thoughts of every-day life. The true\nhome-maker plans to have a few minutes each day which she calls her own,\nin which she may do as she pleases regardless of call or duty, that she\nmight relax herself, remove the strain of intense effort, rest, give her\nnature its free bent and inclination. It will pay her in every way. She\nwill accomplish more and better work in the busy hours. A spirit and\na force will characterize every effort. The women of to-day are\noverworked. They can not do themselves, their families, not their homes\nthe true spiritual service that it is their part to do. Plan for a few\nminutes rest with the daily routine of care. But how is one to do\nthis with so many demands made upon her? For she is expected to be\nseamstress, laundress, maid, cook, hostess, a companion to her husband,\na trainer of her children, a social being, and a helper in the Church.\nIf it is impossible or impracticable for one to have a servant, she will\nfind these few minutes for daily recreation and study only in a wise\nchoice of more important duties, and will allow the less important ones\nto go undone. Many housewives could well afford to keep a helper. It\nbecomes a question which is of greater importance, the life and health\nof the wife and mother, or the paltry wages of a servant? We knew a\nfamily in Illinois who were quite able to keep help in the home, but did\nnot do so. The mother made a slave of herself, in a few years broke in\nhealth, and left a large family of small children to struggle alone in\nthe world. The stepmother, who soon came into the home, could afford one\nservant girl and part of the time two. This is a common experience\nin ill-managed homes. Or this question arises, Which is of greater\nimportance, to make more money or to improve the moral tone of the home;\nto seek to gratify the outer senses, or to seek to elevate the spiritual\nlife of the children and the parents? In pleading for rest and study for\nthe mother in the home we plead for the highest interests of the entire\nfamily. For how can a wife be a companion to a husband when she is made\nirritable and nervous from overwork and worry. How can she be a true\nmother to her children and neglect their mental and spiritual growth?\n\nNapoleon once said: \"What France wants is good mothers, and you may be\nsure then that France will have good sons.\" Thomas McCrie, an eminent\nScotch preacher, used to tell, with great feeling, of how his mother,\nwhen he was starting out for school in the city, accompanied him along\nthe road a little way, and then leading him into the field where she\ncould be alone, prayed with him, that he might be kept from sin in the\ncity, and become a very useful man. That moment was the turning point\nin his life. A few minutes a day spent with the eager, susceptible child\nmind, will bring everlasting blessing upon the father and mother.","title":"Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":34121}