Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1896 — TALMAGE'S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE'S SERMON.

THEY THAT USE THIS WORLD AS NOT ABUSING IT. Bev. Dr. Talmage Discusses Good and Bad Recreations—The Force of Music —Outdoor Sports—Foundations for Soul Building—The Last Hour. Social Diversions. In his sermon Sunday Dr. Talmage discussed a subject of universal interest — viz., “Our Social Recreations.” His text was chosen from L Corinthians vii., 31: ■“They that use this world as not abusing it” Judges xvi., 25: "And it came to (wss, when their hearts were merry, that they said, call for Samson, that he may make us sport.” There were 3,000 people assembled in the temple of Dagon. They had come to make sport of eyeless Samson. They were all ready for the entertainment. They began to clap and pound, impatient for the amusement to begin, and they cried, “Fetch him out, fetch him out!” Yonder I see the blind old giant coming, led by the hand of a child into the very midst of the temple. At his first appearance there goes up a shout of laughter and derision. The blind old giant pretends he is tired, and wants to rest'himself against the pillars of the house. So he says to the lad .who leads him, “Show me where the main pillars are!” The lad does so. Then the strong man puts his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on another, and, with the mightiest push that mortal ever made, throws himself forward until the whole house comes down in thunderous crash, grinding the audience like grapes in a wine press. “And so it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house, and he made them sport.” In other words, there are amusements that are destructive, and bring down disaster and death upon the heads of those who practice them. While they laugh and cheer, they die. The 3,000 who perished that day in Gaza are as nothing compared to the tens of thousands who have been destroyed by sinful amusements.

Lawful Pleasures. But my first text implies that there is a lawful use of the world as well as an unlawful abuse of it, and the difference between the man Christian and the man unChristian is that in the former case the man masters the world, while in the latter case the world masters him. For /whom did God m: ke this grand and beautiful world? Fo* whom this wonderful expenditure of color, this gracefulness of line, this mosaic of the ground, this fresco of the sky, this glowing fruitage of orchard and vineyard, this full orchestra of the tempest, in which the tree branches flute, and the winds trumpet, and the thunders drum, and all the splendors of earth and sky come clashing their cymbals? For whom did God spring the arched bridge of colors resting upon buttresses of broken storm cloud? For whom did he gather the upholstery of fire around the windows of the setting sun? For all men, but more especially for his own dear children. If you build a large mansion and spread a great feast after it to celebrate the completion of the structure, do you allow strangers to come in and occupy the place, while you thrust your own children in the ■kitchen, or the barn, or the fields? Oh, no! You say, “I am very glad to see strangers in my mansion, but my own sons and daughters shall have the first right there.” Now, God has built this grand mansion of a world, and he has spread a glorious feast in it, and while those who are strangers to his grace may come in I think that God especially intends to give the advantage to his own children—those who are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, those who through’ grace can look up and say, “Abba, Father.” You cannot make me believe that God gives more advantages to the world than he gives to the church bought by his own blood. If, therefore, people of the world have looked with dolorous sympathy upon those who make profession of religion and have said, “Those new converts are going down into privation and into hardship; why did they not tarry a little longer in the world and have some of its enjoyments and amusements and recreations’’—l say to such men of the world, “You are greatly mistaken,” and before I get through I will show that those people who stay out of the kingdom of God have the hardships and self denials, while those who come in have the joys and satisfactions. In the name of the King of heaven and earth, I serve a writ of ejectment upon all the sinful and polluted who have squatted on the domain of earthly pleasure as though it belonged to them, while I claim, in behalf of the good and the pure and the true, the eternal inheritance which God has given them. Hitherto Christian philanthropists, clerical and lay, have busied themselves chiefly in denouncing sinful recreations, but I feel we have no right to stand before men and women in whose hearts there is a desire for recreation amounting to positive necessity, denouncing this and that and the other thing, when we do not propose to give them something better. God helping me and with reference to my last account, I shall enter upon a sphere not usual in sermonizing, but a subject which I think ought to be presented at this time. I propose now to lay before you some of the recreations which are not only innocent, but positively helpful and advantageous. Influence of Music. In the first place, I commend, among indoor recreations, music—vocal and inetrumental. Among the first things created was the bird, so that the earth might have music at the start. This world, which began with so sweet a serenade, is finally to be demolished amidst the ringing blast of the archangel’s trumpet, so that as there was music at the start, there shall be music at the close. While this heavenly art has often been dragged into the uses of superstition and dissipation, we all know it may be the means of high moral culture. Oh, it is a grand thing to have our children brought up amidst the sound of cultured voices and amidst the melody of musical instruments. There is in this art an indescribable fascination for the household. Let all those families who have the means to afford it have flute or harp or piano or organ. As soon as the hand is large enough to compass the keys teach it how to pick out the melody. Let all our young men try this heavenly art upon their nature. Those who have gone into it fully have found in it illimitable recreation and amusement. Dark days, stormy nights, seasons of sickness, business disasters, will do little toward depressing the soul which can gallop off over musical keys or soar in jubilant lay. It will cure pain; it will rest fatigue; it will quell passion; it will revive health; it will reclaim dissipation; it will strengthen the immortal soul. In the battle of Waterloo Wellington saw that the Highlanders were falling back. [He said, “What is the matter there?” He was told that the band of music had ceased playing, and he called up the pipers and ordered them to strike up an inspiriting air, and no sooner did they strike the air than the Highlanders were rallied and helped to win the day. Oh, ye who have ;been routed in the conflicts of life, try, by the force of music, to rally your scattered battalions.

I am glad to know that in our great cities there is hardly a night in which there are not concerts where, with the best musical instruments and the sweetest voices, people may find entertainment. Patronize such entertainments when they are afforded you. Buy season tickets if you can for the Philharmonic and the Handel and Haydn societies. Feel that the $1.50 or $2 that you spend for the purpose of hearing an artist play or sing is a profitable investment. Let your academies of music roar with the acclamation of appreciative audiences assembled at the concert or the oratorio. Physical Culture. Still further, I commend, as worthy of their support, the gymnasium. This institution is gaining in favor every year, and I know of nothing more free from dissipation, or more calculated to recuperate the physical and mental energies. While there are a good many people who have employed this institution, there is a vast number who are ignorant of its excellencies. There are men with cramped chests and weak sides and despondent spirits who through the gymnasium might be roused up to exuberance and exhiliaration of life. There are many Christian people despondent from year to year, who might, through such an institution, be benefited in their spiritual relations. There are Christian people who seem to think that it is a good sign to be poorly; and because Richard Baxter and Robert Hall were invalid they think that by the same sickliness they may come to the same grandeur of character. I want to tell the Christian people of my congregation that God will hold you responsible for your invalidism if it is your fault, and when, through right exercises and prudence, you might be athletic and well. The effect of the body upon the soul you acknowledge. Put a man of mild disposition upon the animal diet of which the Indian partakes, and in a little while his blood will change its chemical proportions. It will become like unto the blood of the lion, or the tiger, or the bear, while his disposition will change, and become fierce and unrelenting. The body has a powerful effect upon the soul. There are good people whose ideas of heaven are all shut out with clouds of tobacco smoke. There are people who dare to shatter the physical vase in which God has put the jewel of eternity. There are men with great hearts and intellects, in bodies worn out by their own neglects—magnificent machinery, capable of propelling a Majestic across the Atlantic, yet fastened to a rickety North river propeller. Martin Luther was so mighty for God, first, because he had a noble soul, and secondly because he had a muscular development which would have enabled him to thrash any five of his persecutors, if it had been Christian to do so. Physical development which merely shows itself in fabulous lifting, or m perilous rope walking, or in pugilistic encounter, excites only our contempt* Dut we confess to great admiration for the man who has a great soul in an athletic body, every nerve, muscle and bone of which is consecreted to right uses. Oh, it seems to me outrageous that men, through neglect, should allow their physical health to go down beyond repair—a ship which ought, with all sail set and every man at his post, to be carrying a rich cargo for eternity, employing all its men in stopping up leakages! When you may, through the gymnasium, work off yo-ur spleen and your querulousness and one-half of your physical and mental ailments, do not turn your back upon such a grand medicament.

Parlor Games. Still further, I commend to you a large class of parlor games and recreations. There is a way of making our homes a hundredfold more attractive than they are now. Those parents cannot expect to keep their children away from outside dissipations unless they make the domestic circle brighter than anything they can find outside of it. Do not, then, sit in your home surly and unsympathetic and with a half condemnatory look because of the sportfulness of your children. You were young once yourself; let your children be young. Because your eyes are dim and your ankles are stiff, do not denounce sportfulness in those upon whose eyes there is the first luster, and in whose foot there is the bounding joy of robust health. I thank God that in our drawing rooms and in our parlors there are innumerable games and sports which have not upon them the least taint of iniquity. Light up all your homes with innocent hilarities. Do not sit down with the rheumatism, wondering how children can go on so. Rather thank God that their hearts are so light, and their laughter is so free, and their cheeks are so ruddy, and that their expectations are so radiant. The night will come soon enough, and the heartbreak, and the pang, and the desolation —it will come soon enough for the dear children. But when the storm actually clouds the sky it will be time enough for you to haul out your reef tackles. Carry, then, into your homes not only the innocent sports and games which are the inventions of our own day, but the games which come down with the sportfulness of all the past ages—chess and charades and tableaux and battledore and calisthenics and lawn tennis, and all those amusements which the young people of our homes know so well how to contrive. Then there will be the parlor socialities —groups of people assembled in your homes, with wit and mimicry and joviality, filling the room with joy from door to mantel, and from the carpet to the ceiling. Oh, is there any exhilaration like a score of genial souls in one room, each one adding a contribution of his own individual merriment to the aggregation of general hilarity? Suppose you want to go abroad in the city, then you will find the panorama, and the art gallery, and the exquisite collections of pictures. You will find the museum and the Historical Society rooms full of rare curiosities, and scores of places which can stand plainly the test of what is right and wrong in amusements. You will find the lecturing hall which has been honored by the names of Agassiz in natural history, Doremus in chemistry, Boynton in geology, Mitchell in astronomy, John B. Gough in moral reform, and scores and hundred of men who have poured their wit and genius and ingenuity through that particular channel upon , the hearts and consciences and imaginations of men, setting this country fifty years farther in advance than it would have been without the lecture platform. I rejoice in the popularization of outdoor sports. I hail the croquet ground, and the fisherman’s rod, and the sportsman’s gun. In our cities life is so unhealthy and unnatural that when the census taker represents a city as having 400,000 inhabitants there are only' 200,000, since it takes at least two men to amount to one man, so depleting and unnerving and exhausting is this metropolitan life. We want more fresh air, more sunlight, more of the abandon of field sports. I cry out for it in behalf of the church of God as well as in behalf of secular interests. I wish that our ponds and our rivers and our capitoline grounds might be all aquake with the heel and the shout of the swift skater. I wish that when the warm weather comes the graceful oar might dip the stream, and the evening tide be resonant with boatman’s song, the bright prow splitting the crystalline billow. We shall have the smooth and grassy lawn, and we will call out the people of all occupations and professions and ask them to join in the ballplayer's sport. You will come back from these outdoor exercise*

and recreations with strength in your ana and color in your cheek and a flash in your eye and courage in your heart. In this great battle that is opening against the kingdom of darkness, we want not only a consecrated soul, but a strong arm and stout lungs and mighty muscle I bless God that there are so many.recreations that have not on them any taint of iniquity—recreations in which we may engage for the strengthening of the body, for tiie clearing of the intellect, for the illumination of the soul. There is still another form of recreation which I commend to you, and that is the pleasure of doing good. I have seen young men, weak and cross and sour and repelling in their disposition, who, by one heavenly touch, have wakened up and become blessed and buoyant, the ground under their feet and the sky over their heads breaking forth into music. '“Oh,” says some young man in the house today, “I should like that recreation above all others, but I have not the means.” My dear brother, let us take an account of stock. You have a large estate, if you only realize it. Two hands, two feet You will have, perhaps, during the next year at least $lO for charitable contribution. You will have 2,500 cheerful looks, if you want to employ them. You will have 5,000 pleasant words, if you want to speak them. Now, what an amount that is to start with! You go out to-morrow morning, and you see a case of real destitution by the wayside. You give him 2 cents. The blind man hears the pennies rattle in his hat, and he says: “Thank you, sir! God bless you!” You pass down the street, trying to look indifferent, but you feel from the very depth of your soul a profound satisfaction that you made that man happy. You go on still farther and find a poor boy with a wheelbarrow, trying to get it up on the curbstone. He fails in the attempt. You say: “Stand back, my lad. Let me try.” You push it up on the curbstone for him and pass on. He wonders who that well-dressed man was that helped him. You did a kindness to the boy, but you did a great joy to your own soul. You will not get over it all the week. On the street to-morrow morning you will see a sick man passing along. “Ah,” you say, “what can I do to make this man happy? He certainly does not want money; he is not poor, but he is sick.” Give him one of those 2,500 cheerful looks that you have garnered up for the whole year. Look joy and hopefulness into his soul. It will thrill him through, and there will be a reaction upon your own soul. Going a v little farther on, you will come to the store of a friend who is embarrassed in business matters. You will go in and say: “What a fine store you have! I think .business will brighten up, and you will have more custom after awhile. I think there is coming a great prosperity to all the country. Good morning.” You pass out. You have helped that young man, and you have helped yourself. The Greatest Joy. Col. Gardiner, who sat with his elbow on a table spread with all extravagant viands, looking off at a dog on the rug, saying, “How I would like to change places with him, I be the dog and he be Col. Gardiner,” or those two Moravian missionaries who wanted to go into the lazaretto for the sake of attending the sick, apd they were told: “If you go in there you will never come out. We never allow any one to come out, for he would bring the contagion.” Then they made their wills and went in, first to help the sick and then to die. Which was the happier—Col. Gardiner or the Moravian missionaries dying for others? Was it all sacrifice when the missionaries wanted to bring the gospel to the negroes at the Barbadoes and, being denied the privilege, sold themselves into slavery, standing side by side and lying side by side down in the very ditch of suffering, in order that they might bring those men up to life and God and heaven? Oh, there is a thrill in the joy of doing good! It is the most magnificent recreation to which a man ever put his hand, or his head, or his heart.

But before closing I want to impress upon you that mere secular entertainments are not a fit foundation for your soul to build on. I was reading of a woman who had gone all the rounds of sinful amusement, and she came to die. She said, “I will die to-night at G o’clock.” “Oh,” they said, “I guess not! You don’t seem to be sick.” “I shall die at 6 o’clock, and my soul will be lost. I know it will be lost. I have sinned away my day of grace.” The noon came. They desired her to seek religious counsel “Oh,” she said, “it is of no use! My day is gone. I have been all the rounds of worldly pleasure, and it is too late. I shall die to-night at 6 o’clock.” The "day wore away, and it came to 4 o’clock and to 5 o’clock, and she cried out at 5 o’clock, “Destroying spirits, you shall not have me yet! It is not 6—it is not 61” The moments went by, and the shadows began to gether, and the clock struck 6, and while it was striking her soul went. What hour God will call for us I do not know—whether 6 o’clock to-night, or 3 o’clock this afternoon, or at 1 o’clock, or at this moment. Sitting where you are, falling forward, or dropping down, where will you go to? The last hour of our life will soon be here, and from that hour we will review this day’s proceedings. It will be a solemn hour. If from our death pillow we have to look back and see a life spent in sinful amusement, there will be a dart that will strike through our soul sharper than the dagger with which Virginias slew his child. The memory of the past will make us quake like Macbeth. The iniquities and rioting through which we have passed will come upon us, weird and skeleton as Meg Merrilles. Death, the old Shylock, will demand and take the remaining pound of flesh and the remaining drop of blood, and upon our last opportunity for repentance and our last chance for heaven the curtain will forever drop.