305. A Craze of the Times

A Craze of the Times

Eze_3:13 : ’93The noise of the wheels over against them.’94

Nah_3:2 : ’93The noise of the rattling of the wheels.’94

In one verse are wheels of help, and Ezekiel heard them. In the other verse are the wheels of destruction, and Nahum heard them. The good wheels and the bad wheels will decide the destiny of this planet. Archimedes eulogized the lever, and he said if he had a place for the fulcrum outside of this world on which the lever could rest, he could move the world; but he found no such resting place for the fulcrum. And it is not the lever that is to lift or sink this world, but the wheel, whether the solid disk, or made up of the rim and spokes and hub. Wheel of rail-train accelerating travel; wheel of printing-press multiplying intelligence; wheel of sewing machine alleviating toil; wheel of chronometer recording the passage of the hours.

Balance-wheel, fly-wheel, belt-wheel, spur-wheel, driving-wheel, racket-wheel, all suggested to us by the planetary system, which is a wheel, and the constellations and the galaxies, which are wheels, and these smaller wheels playing into the great wheel of the universe, the axis of which is the pillar on which rests the throne of God. Tell me which way the world’92s wheels turn, and I will tell you whether it is going toward ransom or ruin. Tell me how many revolutions they make in a minute and I will tell you how rapidly it hastens on toward disenthralment or demolition.

In recent years the principle of the wheel has been applied to recreations and amusements, and the velocipede and the bicycle and the tricycle and the roller-skate are the consequence, and the thousand-voiced question to be met is, ’93Are they wheels of help, like those which Ezekiel heard, or wheels of ruin, like those that racketed in the ears of Nahum?’94 Never in your time or mine has there been such high, wide, popular agitation of the question of amusement; and all ministers of the Gospel and all parents and all young people and all old people need to be able to give an answer to these questions and a right answer and a reason for the answer.

Let me premise that for many years I have been looking for some healthful amusement’97healthful for the body and the mind’97and an amusement that would come in time to rescue this generation. Of healthful, honest, useful amusement, you know as well as I there has been a great scarcity. Plenty of places to blight and blast and consume body, mind, and soul. No lack of gambling saloons! Within an hour of every home and every hotel and every boarding-house in these cities there are places where a young man may get divorced from his money, and where the old spider of the gaming-table officiates at the funeral of the innocent flies. You can lose ten cents or you can lose a house and lot or you can lose all you have, in a night. Plenty of gambling saloons! I do not know a community on earth that is lacking in this direction. Plenty of grog-shops, where the owner, by expending twelve dollars for genuine alcohol, can fix up a mixture that he can sell for two hundred. Nice little percentage of profit! They let a young man have all he wants as long as his money lasts’97one glass, two glasses, three glasses, four glasses, five glasses, until his money is all gone, and it is demonstrated that he has not so much as a postage-stamp left, and then they turn him into the street to take care of himself, or be helped home by some one not quite so intoxicated as himself, for the grog-seller never accompanies his victim to his home, lest at the door he confront mother or wife, to whom the Lord may have lent for a little while one of his smaller thunderbolts with which to smite the despoiler into ashes. Plenty of gates of hell, and all of them wide open and temptresses to say, ’93Come in, come in!’94 But of honest, useful, healthful amusements a great scarcity. Seven o’92clock P. M. finds tens of thousands of young men at their home or at the hotel or at the boarding-house. The young man says, ’93How shall I spend this evening?’94 You say, ’93Got to prayer-meeting.’94 Good advice for two nights of the week, and add to that the Sabbath night; subtracting three nights for religious purposes, you have four nights left for secular purposes. What shall the young man do with the four other nights? You say, ’93Go and hear a lecture on astronomy.’94 But the young man’92s brain is all tired out with running up long lines of figures in the account-book or from trying to sell goods to people who do not want to buy them, and he has no appetite for astronomy. He does not want to know anything about other worlds, when he has more than he can do to take care of this one!

Now, you are a good man, you are a good woman, you take up a newspaper to tell that young man where to go. You will find, if you have ever tried it, that the vast majority of the advertisements invite to places illy ventilated, with depraving companionship, and much of the spectacular indecent. Two hours and a half in such a place of amusement, and the young man will come forth with body asphyxiated, mind weakened, soul scarred. Continuous entertainment of that kind makes lively work for undertakers, and gives tragedy of illustration for discourses on the text: ’93The end thereof is death.’94 What our young people want is something of recreation that will help the body and help the mind’97something that will allow them to be sound asleep at eleven o’92clock at night and to awaken at seven o’92clock in the morning, or earlier, thoroughly rested. We want something for our boys and girls that will put them at the goal of manhood and womanhood, ready for practical and useful life. Not mere splinters of humanity, not invalids at nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, not masculine and feminine apologies, but ready to command respect, and with their own right arm able, under God, to put aside all obstacles. A great many people ask the question ’93Does the roller-skate recreation afford this?’94

This amusement was invented in 1819 by Mr. Plympton, a Frenchman, who has been called the ’93Father of the Rink.’94 He kept a tight grip on the invention of the skate until, in 1883, the patent ran out, and soon there were factories all over the land producing roller-skates, and every evening there were tens of thousands of people, young, middle-aged, and old, on these wheels, good or bad. You ask me if I favor the roller-skate exercise? I reply, Yes, with restrictions, and No, if there be no restrictions; yes, if it be restricted, and no, if it be unguarded. In other words, you can make it the best thing, or you can make it the worst thing. They have already, some of them, been exhilaration to the body’97they have given health to the sick and the enfeebled, and have been innocent hilarity to a vast multitude. Other of the rinks have broken up families, have set surgeons to perform most painful operations, have produced lifelong ailments and everlasting misfortune. There is as much difference between skating-rinks as between light and darkness, as between heaven and hell. I will not be misunderstood on this subject. If any one shall go away from this house this morning and say I gave unrestricted praise or blame to the skating-rink exercise, he misrepresents me, and will be found to be a defamer when the full stenographic report of this sermon shall be published. Many people know that for years I have carried a loaded gun, ready to aim at every description of amusement that puts tooth and paw of destruction on our young people. But I must discriminate. I propose on all occasions and everywhere to aim at the offenders who destroy American homes. I want to aim at those who need to be unhorsed and slain. But you had better never shoot, than shoot the wrong one. The skating-rink exercise, with proper precautions’97and I shall show you what they are before I get through’97seems to me among the most graceful and healthful of all amusements and all recreations. It eclipses coasting, it eclipses croquet, it eclipses football and lawn tennis and skating under moonlight over frozen pond and all the other amusements that preceded it. It is good for the muscles, it is good for the nerves, it is good for the lungs, it is good for the limbs, it is good for the circulation, it is good for the spirits’97under proper precautions. It has all the advantage of the gymnasium, with more exhilaration of spirit; it has all the advantages of the skating-pond over which our fathers and mothers used to dart, without any of the danger of breaking through the ice; it has all the exhilaration of outdoor sport, without being dependent on the condition of the atmosphere. With proper precautions, I say. It would be well if our young men almost every night or afternoon of the secular week would take one hour for this healthful recreation, and come back to their duties again. It would be well if the women of America, who decline the brisk walk called the ’93constitutional,’94 which keeps the English women roseate and strong, would one hour’97one hour’97of the secular afternoon or the secular evening, turn back on darning and mending and bread-making and housekeeping and try this exhilarating sport. It would bring health to some of these hollow cheeks, it would bring back to the lack-luster eye the lost light, it would give strength to the worn-out body, it would straighten the stooped shoulders and drive away consumption and merciless neuralgia, and nervous prostration would be gone forever. The great demand in this country has ever been for some reasonable, honest, healthful recreation for the women of America, who perish for the lack of it. It would be well if the young man in the hotel of New York or Brooklyn, while during the day he purchases goods for a Western house, should in the evening just go to a respectable rink and hire a pair of skates, and, interfering with no one, independent of everybody else, take a little of this exercise and go back to his hotel again. But while I see the possibilities of this exercise, it has been the means of destruction to body, mind, and soul of a good many. And now come the restrictions.

First of all, let us have no more of the vulgarity or immodesty of young women going along the streets of these cities unattended and alone to any place of amusement, whether it be rink or anything else. Let them be chaperoned by mother or older sister or father or brother. If in a skating-rink a man, without proper introduction, tips his hat to a lady, let the officers of the rink hasten that offender to the door and help him down the front steps with all modes of accelerating momentum he can think of. If these well-dressed devils who haunt skating-rinks and sometimes stand at church doors, would get quick justice done them, there would be less crime abroad and less ruin of society and more honest amusement allowed and more pure recreation.

Another remark I have to make, and that is, let not the bright lights and the enchanting music tempt you to senseless prolongation of the amusement. Let there be no strife as to who shall be the swiftest skater, or shall count up the most fabulous number of circuits. Stop when you have gained all the health there is in the amusement. Remember that the laws of health are the laws of God. Keep the Ten Commandments written on your nerves and on your bones and in the tissue of your lips and on your lungs and on your heart. Remember that at the door of every skating-rink and every place of amusement, honest or dishonest, on every cold night a whole group of pneumonias stand ready to escort you to the sepulcher. Cool off before you face the north wind. Accept no unwarranted gallantries. Let the law that dominates the parlor dominate the place of amusement. And I want all the people to understand that the evil I hint at is not a characteristic of skating-rinks any more than of a great many other places and a great many other conditions. In other words, it is high time that people in this country understood that flirtation is damnation. When on Broadway, New York, or Fulton Street, Brooklyn, toward the evening hour, as gentlemen of business are returning from their work, I see the daughters of respectable families, with ostentatious behavior and a giggle intended to attract masculine attention, a horror goes through my soul, and I wonder if their parents are at all observant. The vast majority of those who make everlasting shipwreck carry that kind of sail. The pirates of death attack that kind of craft. If I had a voice loud enough to be heard from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande, I would cry out, ’93Flirtation is damnation!’94

Another remark, a craze on any subject is deplorable. Ball-playing, which has given to many of us the muscle and the strength with which we have gone on to discharge the duties of life, has become with many a dementia, and the gamblers have clutched it with their fingers, and from the innocent game of ball many have gone home robbed of their money, and, worst of all, robbed of their morals. Is that anything against ball-playing? Boating, which with many of us who lived on the banks of rivers resulted in development of chest, which has allowed us easy respiration for twenty, thirty, forty years, and which would have given stout lungs to many who long ago vanished under pulmonary complaints’97innocent boating has been seized upon by college students, who have sacrificed book for oar and brain for muscle. Victors at the boat race dead failures in all the practical business of life. Is that anything against boating? Strip this roller-skate excitement of the craze, and substitute common sense. It is a consolation to know that such a craze is always transient; and I give notice that a great many people who are building skating-rinks, will after a while go into bankruptcy. Do not calculate on the permanence of any craze.

There is another very important thing for us all to remember’97especially those of us who have got beyond forty years of age’97and that is, we were boys and girls once ourselves. From the memory of a great many good people that fact seems to be obliterated. Go back forty years, and then think what was necessary for you then, and what was appropriate for you then. Rheumatism is incompetent to give law to solid ankles. You cannot expect people to have the tastes of the aged before they get to thirty. Do not go out looking for goldenrod and China asters on a May morning. These people who have the tastes of the aged before they get to the thirties, after a while, are the people who bore the life out of prayer-meetings, and turn religion into a sniffling cant, and disgust the world with that which ought to be attractive. Do not forget that we once enjoyed the hilarities of life, if indeed we have passed along so far that we have forgotten it. Ah, no! we cannot improve on God’92s arrangement. God knew what was best. He made them boys and girls, and he intends them to stay boys and girls until they are called to some other condition. They will come to the tug of life soon enough. Do not be envious of them; do not be jealous of them. They have the same battle ahead that we are fighting. Let them now cultivate broad shoulders and brawny arm and stout health, which will be taxed to the utmost long after you and I are under the ground.

Nothing of a secular nature pleases me so well as to see the young people laugh and have a good time’97I mean by that a good innocent time’97for I say to myself, in a little while all the generation now at the front will pass away, and these others will come on, and they will have the battle of life to fight, and they will have burdens to carry, and oh, how many sorrows and annoyances and vexations! I rejoice now if they have amusements and hilarities. Let all the promoters of healthful exercise and all parents unite in one grand conspiracy to overthrow the poor health and the physical stagnation of our cities and then the bad places of amusement will be empty, and the coming generation will have a vigor rebounding and athletic. Oh, that they might all start life with more strength of body than we have! Their battle may be greater than our battle has been. As the world comes on toward the great Armageddon the strife is going to be the more tremendous. And most certainly we want human longevity attained. We want the average of human life instead of thirty, one hundred and fifty. Why not? In olden times they lived two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred years. The world ought to be as healthy now as it ever was. Many of the marshes have been filled up. Medical science has gone forth and crippled and balked and destroyed many diseases, and why not make the average of human life now something like what it used to be? But you know how it really is. By the time we get our education or learn our trade and get fairly started we have to quit because we are emeritus. We fall at the opening of the great war of existence instead of at the close, at Bull Run instead of Gettysburg. I want all to understand that our amusements and recreations are merely intended to fit us for usefulness. I hope that none of you have fallen into the delusion that your mission in life is to enjoy yourself. You just hand me a list of the people you find at all hours of day and night at places of entertainment, and in one minute I will give you a list of the people who are sacrificing themselves for both worlds. Pepper and salt and sugar and cinnamon are very important, but that would be a very unhealthy repast that had nothing else on the table. Amusements and recreations are the spice and condiment of the great banquet. But some people are feeding the body and soul on condiments. Ah! it is only those who have work to do and are doing it well’97it is only such persons who are really entitled to the amusements and the recreations of this life. I know many people think this is a sarcastic passage which says: ’93Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.’94 It is not sarcastic, it is not ironical; it simply means to say, have a good time, have a real good time, but do not go into anything that will render you affrighted by the Judgment Throne, do not forget your duties, do not forget you are immortal. We are to make these recreations of life preparations for practical usefulness.

Solon made a law that once every year every man should show by what trade or occupation he got his living, and if he could not show any he was imprisoned and punished as a thief. In olden time when a man wanted to become a Roman citizen the officer of the law would take his hand and feel it; and if the hand felt hard the conclusion was that the man was industrious; and if the hand felt soft, the conclusion was he was idle. While in our time many a diligent man has a soft hand for the reason that his toil is with the brain, and hence the palm does not get calloused, nevertheless we must all have some earnest work to do, and we must concenter on that work. We must make our amusements a reenforcement of our capacity. My brother, if at the close of any recreation or amusement you go home at night and cannot get down on your knees and say: ’93O Lord, bless the amusement and entertainment of this night to my better qualification for usefulness!’94 that is an amusement in which you ought not to have engaged. Living is a tremendous affair, and alas! for the man who makes recreation a depletion instead of an augmentation.

Can you imagine any predicament worse than that which I now sketch? Time Has passed, and we come up to Judgment to give an account for what we have been doing. The Angel of the Judgment says to us: ’93You came up from a world where there were millions in sin, millions in poverty, millions in wretchedness, and there were a great many people, philanthropists and Christians, who toiled themselves into the grave trying to help others’97what did you do?’94 And then the Angel of the Resurrection, the Angel of the Judgment, will say: ’93Those are the women who consecrated their needle to God and made garments for the poor.’94 And the Angel of the Judgment will say: ’93Those are the men who consecrated their sword to patriotism and fought for their country; those out yonder are the angels of Northern and Southern battlefields; these people are those who were eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf and bread to the hungry and heaven for the lost. What did you do?’94 The Angel of the Judgment, facing the group of pleasurists: ’93What did you do?’94 ’93Well,’94 says one of them, ’93I was very fond of the drama, and I spent my evenings looking at it.’94 ’93Well,’94 says another, ’93I was the champion of ball pitchers.’94 ’93Well,’94 says another, ’93I could beat any one in our town in lawn-tennis.’94 ’93Well,’94 says another, ’93I could go around swifter on the skate than any one else, and my gyrations won many plaudits.’94 ’93Was that all?’94 says the Angel of Judgment. ’93That was all,’94 say the pleasurists. ’93That was all!’94 says the keeper of the records. ’93That was all!’94 says the earth, reddening in the last conflagration. ’93That was all!’94 says the Judge of quick and dead as he seals their destiny. ’93That was all!’94 echo the ages of eternity. ’93That was all, that was all!’94 May the Almighty God forbid that you and I should make the terrific mistake of substituting amusement for duty.

Pliny says that the mermaids danced on the green grass, but all around them were dead men’92s bones. Neither bat nor ball, nor boat, nor skate, although they all have their uses, can make death, life, and eternity happy. A king said to two of his wise men: ’93You go out and make me a recipe for happiness; you will have two months to make the recipe in, and I want you to tell me in that prescription how I can be happy, and how I can make all my subjects happy.’94 Well, they took two months, and then the wise men came in. One of them had a roll of two hundred rules by which this king should be happy and make all his subjects happy, and the king got tired with the recital. Then he turned to the other wise man, and said: ’93What is your prescription for making myself and all my subjects happy?’94 And the wise man answered in two words: ’93Love God.’94 ’93Why,’94 said the king, ’93I gave you two months to give me a rule for happiness; is that all you have to offer?’94 ’93Yes,’94 he replied, ’93that is all I have to offer. Love God, and if you love God you will be happy, and you will make all your subjects happy.’94 Love the world and you will be miserable. Love God and you will be happy.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage