What amusements are lawful to
people who wish to live a holy life?
(R.W. Dale, "AMUSEMENTS" 1895)
What amusements are lawful to
people who wish to live a holy life--
is one of the questions by which many
godly people are sorely perplexed. Many
yield to the current customs of the times--
but yield with hesitation, discomfort,
and apprehension.
At first sight, some of the distinctions
which have been drawn between
amusements which are permitted, and
amusements which are forbidden, appear
to be altogether arbitrary.
They seem to originate in no moral
or spiritual principle. Why should card-
playing stamp a man as "worldly" and
chess be perfectly consistent with
devoutness? Why should people
take their children to a circus--
who would be horrified at their
going to a theater?
The things allowed are so like the things
forbidden, that the distinction which has
been drawn between them will probably
be pronounced by many people to be
altogether irrational.
Many of the broad moral distinctions
which evangelical Christians make
between amusements which are very
much alike, receive an easy explanation
when we consider the very different
accessories with which, either in our
own days or in former days, they have
been associated. There can be no more
harm in playing with pieces of colored
cardboard, than with pieces of carved
ivory; but cards have been always
associated with gambling, and
chess has not.
The traditions of what is allowable,
and what is forbidden, which have
come down to us are explicable;
and if we are people of sense,
we shall ask whether the same
circumstances which made certain
amusements objectionable a hundred
years ago, or fifty years ago--
make them objectionable now.
Profanity, impurity, and
cruelty are always evil--
whether connected with our
amusements or with the common
business and habits of life.
Whatever tends to these things
is evil too. If any recreation,
however pleasant, involves
a clear breach of moral laws--
then it must be bad for all men
and under all circumstances.
Or if, though harmless in itself,
immorality has become inseparably
connected with it, every good man
will avoid and condemn that
particular amusement.
Prize-fighting, cock-fighting, and
bull-baiting are plainly barbaric sports.
It is utterly disgusting that men should
be able to find any pleasure in them;
and the right feeling of English society
has made them all utterly disreputable.
But there are amusements which cannot
be called immoral either in themselves
or their accessories, about which a good
man will have serious doubts.
The object of all recreation is to increase
our capacity for work, to keep the bodily
health strong, and the brain bright, and
the temper kindly and sweet.
If any recreation exhausts our strength
instead of restoring it, or so absorbs
our time as to interfere with
the graver duties of life--
then it must be condemned.
Amusements are objectionable
which interfere with regular and
orderly habits of life, and which,
instead of increasing health and vigor,
produce weariness and exhaustion.
The common reason alleged for
condemning certain amusements
in which no moral evil can be shown
to exist, is that they are "worldly."
But there is no word in our language
which is more abused than this.
The sin of worldliness is a very grave
one; but thousands and tens of thousands
of people are guilty of it, who are most
vigorous in maintaining the narrowest
moral standards. One would imagine,
from the habits of speech common
in some sections of religious society,
that worldliness has to do only with
our pleasures, while in truth it has to do
with the whole spirit and temper of our life.
To be "worldly" is to permit
our transcendent relation
to JESUS our LORD--
to be overborne by inferior interests.
There is a worldliness of the counting-
house as fatal to the true health
and energy of the soul--
as the worldliness of the ball-room;
and there are more people whose
loyalty to CHRIST is ruined
by covetousness--
than by love of pleasure.
There is a worldliness in the conduct
of ecclesiastical affairs, quite as
likely to extinguish the divine fire
which should burn in the church--
as the worldliness which reveals
itself in the frivolity of those unhappy
people whose existence is spent
in one ceaseless round of gaiety.
Let no man think that
he ceases to be worldly--
ceases, that is, to belong to that
darker and inferior region of life from
which CHRIST came to deliver us--
merely by abstaining from half
a dozen of his old recreations.
Not thus easily, is the great
victory won which is possible only
to a vigorous and invincible faith.
Not thus artificial, are the boundaries
between the heavenly commonwealth
of which the Christian man is a citizen--
and the kingdom of evil from which
he has escaped.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
people who wish to live a holy life?
(R.W. Dale, "AMUSEMENTS" 1895)
What amusements are lawful to
people who wish to live a holy life--
is one of the questions by which many
godly people are sorely perplexed. Many
yield to the current customs of the times--
but yield with hesitation, discomfort,
and apprehension.
At first sight, some of the distinctions
which have been drawn between
amusements which are permitted, and
amusements which are forbidden, appear
to be altogether arbitrary.
They seem to originate in no moral
or spiritual principle. Why should card-
playing stamp a man as "worldly" and
chess be perfectly consistent with
devoutness? Why should people
take their children to a circus--
who would be horrified at their
going to a theater?
The things allowed are so like the things
forbidden, that the distinction which has
been drawn between them will probably
be pronounced by many people to be
altogether irrational.
Many of the broad moral distinctions
which evangelical Christians make
between amusements which are very
much alike, receive an easy explanation
when we consider the very different
accessories with which, either in our
own days or in former days, they have
been associated. There can be no more
harm in playing with pieces of colored
cardboard, than with pieces of carved
ivory; but cards have been always
associated with gambling, and
chess has not.
The traditions of what is allowable,
and what is forbidden, which have
come down to us are explicable;
and if we are people of sense,
we shall ask whether the same
circumstances which made certain
amusements objectionable a hundred
years ago, or fifty years ago--
make them objectionable now.
Profanity, impurity, and
cruelty are always evil--
whether connected with our
amusements or with the common
business and habits of life.
Whatever tends to these things
is evil too. If any recreation,
however pleasant, involves
a clear breach of moral laws--
then it must be bad for all men
and under all circumstances.
Or if, though harmless in itself,
immorality has become inseparably
connected with it, every good man
will avoid and condemn that
particular amusement.
Prize-fighting, cock-fighting, and
bull-baiting are plainly barbaric sports.
It is utterly disgusting that men should
be able to find any pleasure in them;
and the right feeling of English society
has made them all utterly disreputable.
But there are amusements which cannot
be called immoral either in themselves
or their accessories, about which a good
man will have serious doubts.
The object of all recreation is to increase
our capacity for work, to keep the bodily
health strong, and the brain bright, and
the temper kindly and sweet.
If any recreation exhausts our strength
instead of restoring it, or so absorbs
our time as to interfere with
the graver duties of life--
then it must be condemned.
Amusements are objectionable
which interfere with regular and
orderly habits of life, and which,
instead of increasing health and vigor,
produce weariness and exhaustion.
The common reason alleged for
condemning certain amusements
in which no moral evil can be shown
to exist, is that they are "worldly."
But there is no word in our language
which is more abused than this.
The sin of worldliness is a very grave
one; but thousands and tens of thousands
of people are guilty of it, who are most
vigorous in maintaining the narrowest
moral standards. One would imagine,
from the habits of speech common
in some sections of religious society,
that worldliness has to do only with
our pleasures, while in truth it has to do
with the whole spirit and temper of our life.
To be "worldly" is to permit
our transcendent relation
to JESUS our LORD--
to be overborne by inferior interests.
There is a worldliness of the counting-
house as fatal to the true health
and energy of the soul--
as the worldliness of the ball-room;
and there are more people whose
loyalty to CHRIST is ruined
by covetousness--
than by love of pleasure.
There is a worldliness in the conduct
of ecclesiastical affairs, quite as
likely to extinguish the divine fire
which should burn in the church--
as the worldliness which reveals
itself in the frivolity of those unhappy
people whose existence is spent
in one ceaseless round of gaiety.
Let no man think that
he ceases to be worldly--
ceases, that is, to belong to that
darker and inferior region of life from
which CHRIST came to deliver us--
merely by abstaining from half
a dozen of his old recreations.
Not thus easily, is the great
victory won which is possible only
to a vigorous and invincible faith.
Not thus artificial, are the boundaries
between the heavenly commonwealth
of which the Christian man is a citizen--
and the kingdom of evil from which
he has escaped.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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