Popular Amusements

re strong, and the word of God abideth in you, an

e of their thoughtless pleasures. Your conscience resists, and yet you feel the effect of their solicitations. You are sometimes almost ready to wish that your parents, your pastor, your class-leader, and your own conscience would consent to y

ents have always been condemned

? If you do, look at the past history of the Church. Which of the founders of Methodism favored dancing? Did John Wesley? Did Fletcher or Clarke? Which of them favored the theater or the horse-race? Did Hedding, or Fisk, or Olin? I challenge the apologists for dancing, theaters, and races to show that a single one of the multitude of holy men and women who have a name in our annals ever practiced or approved such diversions. On the contrary, there arise from their honored graves a great cloud o

among us finds that the practices into which he has fallen are at variance with the deliberate judgment of the Wesleys, the Clarkes, the Asburys, and the Heddings of the past, and all the Bishops and pastors of the present day, I respectfully suggest that he will not be liable to be convicted of excessive modesty if he should begin to suspect that his ideas o

is bound by a solemn pledge to abstain from all qu

ion of persons into the Church after probation

hold sacred the ordinances of God, and endeavor, as much as in you lies, to pro

didate for reception must answer, before God a

can not be used in the name of the Lord Jesus." That Rule has always been understood to condemn balls and dancing, theaters, attendance at horse-races, and the whole list of corrupting amusements. The logi

those who are faithful to their word. He delights in the man who keeps his promise, even when it is against his own temporal interests to abide by it. If God counts it a dishonorable and wrong thing for a man to repudiate a pledge given to his fellow-man, what will he think of those who

re drawn into frivolous diversions, it is a sorrow o

holy lives are the joy and crown of the Church, and one of the main elements of its strength in the community. It is by these, and such as they, and God working through them, that we have Bibles and Sabbaths, and law and order, and civilization itself-all that exalts a Christian country above a heathen land. These devoted followers of Christ love his Church and his people. Some of them have been long in the way. They feel that they are approaching the gates of the city which hath foundations, and they are expecting dai

and fond of worldly pleasure, the unconver

and the rapture of praise, the blessedness of communion with God they can not comprehend. They listen, and wonder, and sometimes doubt and do not know what to think. But when they find that young members of the Church are just as eager as themselves after questionable pleasures, they conclude that these roseate pictures of the happiness of the Christian are, to say the l

in them. Tell a sinner that he is not wise in attending balls, and he will twit you with the parlor dancing at some well-known professor's house. Warn him against the theater, and he will ask you to point out the moral difference between that and the play at the museum. Tell him that the gambling den is a dangerous place for young men, and he will remark, with a significant look, that living away from home he can not play cards in his father's hou

under condemnation, it can not fail to lessen y

, you feel that you have not their confidence fully. This will trouble you, perhaps irritate you. You fancy that you are looked upon coldly. You detect little instances of neglect. You imagine that certain expressions in sermons of your pastor or the prayers of your brethren were meant for you. Things get worse the longer you brood over them. You are tempted first to stay away from the sacrament, and then to neglect the other means of grace. Some well-meaning but clumsy brother pounces upon you at a most untimely moment,

yal member of her communion. This alone will suffice to bring a chill and a blight upon you. The world, too, see that you are not in accord with your brethren-not at home in the place which you occupy-and this encourages them to ply their arts to lead you still further. If you resist, they remind you of your own past conduct, and inquire, perhaps with a sn

nd righteousness, but compromised positions are of all t

r importunities are urgent, and it taxes all your powers of resistance to withstand them. You grow weary of the conflict between duty and inclinatio

n right and wrong? If you do you will abandon a strong position for a weak one. If you yield in regard to dancing in private parties, you will be invited, in due time, to attend a ball. If you go to see some "moral drama" performed at the museum, you will be urged to attend the theater. And the assault made on your halfway

The foolish diversions in which you are now importuned to join war with health, waste time, squander money, mar Christian reputation, dissipate serious thought, hinder usefulness, attack every temporal and every eternal interest. Can you persuade yoursel

judgment. The most intelligent and devoted Christians in the various Churches around us share these convictions. Will you set yourself in array against whole Conferences, Councils, and General Assemblies? And if you deem yourself equal in judgment to all combined, let me ask you another question: Is your conclusion as safe as theirs? They think it dangerous to dance, play cards, and attend the theater. Are you equally confident that it is dangero