Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1887 — RECREATION. [ARTICLE]

RECREATION.

Innocent Atklbttc . Amusement* Should Not be Discouraged. Mirth and MaaU Ou*bt to AhonaU~Tu Every Heme-dUany WaJ» of Kokin* the DomriMe t'■«s•<• Happy—Christian CharHy Shoald Hover o*er All. l Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Subjects, "Recreations, Good and Bad.” Texts, i. Corinthians, ch. 7, v. 3i: “They that use this world, are not abnsingit;” and Judges, ch. 1«; v. 2§: “And 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 otit of the prisoners: and he made them sport.” Dr. Talmage said: We are entering upon the gayest season of the year The winier opens before us the gates of a thousand amusements, some of them good and some bad. One of my texts will show you that amusements may be destructive; my o'her text will show you that amusements may be under the Divine blessing and direction. " ... ' This morning, 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 pare and the true, the eternal inheritance which God has given them. Hitherto, Christian philanthropists, clerical and lay, have busied themselves in denouncing sinful recreations; but I feel wi have no right to Btand before men and women in whose hearts there is a desire for recreation amounting to a positive neceseitv, denouncing this and that and the other thing, when we do not propose to give them something better. Cod helping me this morning, and with reference to my last account, I shall enter upon a sphere no usual in sermon!*mg,but a subject which I think ought to be presented at this time. I propose now to lav before you some of the recreations which are not only innocent! but positively helpful and advantageous. In the first placo, I commend, among indoor recreations, music, vocal and instrumental. Among the first thing* 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 amid the ringing blast of the archangel's trumpet, so that, ns there was music at the start there shall be music at the close- While this art heavenly has as often been dragged into the uses of superstition and dissipa tiony we all know it mav lie the means of high moral culture. Oh, it is a grand thing to have our children brought up amid the sound of cultured voices and amid the sound 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 fofind 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 on 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. 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 nay find entertainment.. Patronize sue i entertainments when they are affottied yon. Buy • season tickets, if you can, for the Philharmonic and the Handel and Hayden societies. Feel that the $1.50 or $2 that you spend for the purpose of bearing an ,artigt play or sintr is a profitable invest ment. Let your B:einway Halls and your Academies of Music, roar with the acclamation of appreciative audiences assembled at the concert or the oratorio. 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 ther.e are a good many people who have employed this institution, there is a vast number who’ are ignorant of its excellences. There are men witji cramped cheats and weak sides and despondent spirits, who,, through thg gymnasium, might be' roused up to exuberance and exhilaration of life. There are many: Cnristian -people depondent from year to y'earwho might tnrough such an institution, be benefit ted in their spiritual reia>ioi:B. Tnere are Uim-t .n people who seem to think th,,t it Is good sign to be poorly; and became Richard Baxter and Robert Hall were invabdvthey think thatby. tr-e same sickliness they may come to the san.e crandeur of character. I want to tell the (hristian people of my congregation that God wid bold you responsible tor your invalidism if it is your fault, and when through right txercise end pru dence von might be athletic and well: The effect of the body upon the so pi y n acknowledge. Rut g. mart of mi d disco sition upon the animal diet of which the Indian partake*; and in a little while his blood will change its chemical pro portions. It will become like unto the blood ot the lion or tiger, or the bear, while his disposition will change and become fierce, cruel and unrelenting. The body has a powerful effect upon the soul. Physical development which merely shows itself in fabulous lifting, or in perilous rope-walking, or in in pngilißlic encounter, excites only our constempt; but we corneas to great admiration for the man who has a great soul in an athletic body, every merve, .muscle and hone» f wnich is consecrated to right uses. Oh, it seems to me outrageous that m-n, through neg*fc r , , Ehould atiow their physical health to go down beyond repair. Slid further I commend to yon a large claes of parlor games and recreations. There » a wav of making our homes a hundred-fold: raore attractive than they are now. Tboee parent® can not expect to keep their children away from outside dissipations unless they make the

J domestic circle brighte r than any thing they can find outside of it. D > not,then, sit in your home surly add ttusympß- ! thetic, and with a haif-c<>n<k-amatory I look because of thespOrtfulnCMt of your children. You. were young pheo yonir- . sell; let your children lie young. Because your eyrw ore dim *nd Venr ank- > lea are stiff no not dnuotuioa sportful nets 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 oar drawing-rooms and in our -parlors there are innumerable games and Bports w hich have not npon them the least taint of iniquity. Light up all your homes with innocent hilarities. Do not set down with the rheumatism, wondering how the children can go on so, Rather thank God that their Hearts are so light, and their laughter iB so free, and that their cheeks are so ruddy, and that their expectations are so radiant. Carry, then, into your homes, not only the innocent sports and games wnich 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, saliethenics and lawn-tennis, and all those amusements which the young pecple of our homes know so well how to contrive. Then there will be the parlor socialties —groups of people assembled in your homes, with wit and mimicry and joviality, tilling the room with joy from the door to the 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? 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 nnnatnral that when the census-taker represents a city as having four hundred thousands inhabitants, there are only two hundred thousand, 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.X-X cry out for it in behalf of the Church of God as well as in behalf of secular interests. I wish that this winter our ponds and our rivers and our Capitolme 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 the boatman’s song, the bright prow splitting the crystalline billow. We shall have the smooth and .grassy lawn, and we will call out people of. all occupations and professions and ask them to join in the bail-player’s pport. You will come back from these outdoor exercises and recreations, with strength in your arm and color in your cheek, and a-tiash in your eye and courage in your heart. Yon go out to-morrow morning and you see a case of real destitution by the wayside. You give him two 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 yon feel from the very depth of your soul a profound satiefaciion that you made that man happy. You go on still further and find a poor hoy with a wheelbarrow, trying to get it up on the curbstone. He fails in the attempt. You sav, “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. Yon did a Kindness to the bo , 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 twentyfive hundred cheerful looks that yen 'have gathered up for the whole year. Look joy and hopefulness into his soul. It will thrill him through and there will he a reaction upon your own soul. 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 mail ever putß his hand or his head or his heart. But our hour for adjourning has already come, and the last hour of onr 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 onr soul sharper than the d.<ggerwith which “Virginius” 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 snd pt eletcuv as “Meg Merrilies ” Death, :he • Rhylock.” will deuiaud and take I I he remaining pound, o.f flesh and the ' niainlng drop of Wood; aad upon our | last opportunity - for repentance and onr last chance for heave i the curtain will j forever drop. The Goose. . .Ti-lmaie e Bars position. Gooses are tne biggest birds known to me human eye, an! the he one is a gander: The gander is the monark of the air, but the rooster can lick him’ co* the rooster be is.bravfe like General Solmon, but the gander isn’t fighty, more like preachers. The goos is a sailor, but not a wicked one like Jake Brily, wich chews tobako, and swears, and evry thing,- and it has got Tethers between its toes for to wolk the wotter liek a thing of life. Ducks thay are sailors too, but the swon has got a long neck like a giraft, and wen it baa got a sore throtq it is mighty sick. The little gooses is goßlums and is green. My sister, she see a goilum and she ast Uncle Ned wot made it green, and he said,- Uacle Neddid, that it was co* it wasent ripe. Then Billy, he spoke up and said wen it was ripe it would be picked. And I will tell you a story. There are twenty-seven red-headed men in the new Congress.