As pastors, we can no longer evade this question. Our people are hearing,
reading, and being influenced by discussions of the subject in various
quarters. Obviously, we must not let our congregations form their
conclusions on so important a matter, independently of their chosen
spiritual guides. The word of each pastor will carry with it, in most
cases, a weight which can attach to no other’s word. Let us see to it that
we separate ourselves, as much as possible, from prejudice in our
examination of this question. Let us face the facts fairly, and inquire
what provision is furnished by the gospel to meet them. We have nothing to
do with any other consideration. Whether the gospel principles and methods
applicable to this case appear to us safe or unsafe, we have no right to
advocate any other. We have no right to be silent.
What are the facts?
1. _The youth, as a class, are vitally important to the church and to the
state._ Our work as Christian teachers reaches beyond our own generation.
We owe to the future the proper training of the men and women who are to
mould its destinies. The present youth are the future leaders of church
and state. How they shall lead them, depends very much upon us. These
truths are self-evident.
2. _They are exposed to peculiar dangers calling for special effort on
their behalf._
Special efforts are being made to ruin them. The self-interest of vice is
interested in this work; for to youth its appliances look chiefly for
support. As one has happily expressed it, “Age has few passions to which
profligacy can appeal; and the proselytism of decrepitude and years are
enlistments of little value.” The withdrawal of young men from the rolls
of the intemperate and licentious, would leave two-thirds of the drinking
saloons and brothels bankrupt. The passions to which these appliances
appeal are such as are most active and dangerous in youth. They offer the
freedom and license which youth loves. They throw off the shackles which
youth hates. Our cities and villages swarm with traps set expressly for
them. Thousands are freely expended to invest the bar room and the
gambling hall with the cozy attractions of the parlor. The harlot’s palace
opens wide its doors. The public ball room displays its fascinations.
Dissipation draws round itself the attractions of wealth and taste and
fashion, and in its splendid club rooms secures for itself the pleasures
which expediency forbids it to seek more publicly. Vice literally flaunts
its banners in the face of the public. But a few days since I saw from my
window a banner carried through the streets, blazoned with the name and
attractions of one of the vilest fashionable groggeries in the city, and
preceded by the music of a drum and fife. The snug retreat, known only to
the initiated few, where licentiousness and drunkenness are secluded, and
thousands lost and won, was never more popular than now. Practiced decoys
lie in wait for the daughters of our families, and the whirl of general
society in which so many of them, at a tender age, are madly revolving
night after night, is no poor preparation for the fatal success of these
wiles. Young girls, who come from quiet country homes to seek employment,
cast adrift on these surging tides of life without a friend or an adviser,
readily fall victims to the wiles of young seducers whose social position
ensures their security. In a certain city, I was informed not long since,
of one keeper of a fashionable brothel who had removed her trade, because
it was too largely usurped by victims of this class to render it any
longer profitable. Young men, too, are coming to the cities in crowds, to
engage in business or study. They must have society and recreation; and
the votaries of vice are sparing neither pains nor expense to give them
abundance of both, fraught with ruin to soul and body.
Without going outside of our special sphere as pastors, viewing this
subject solely with reference to the youth of our congregations, as, in
common with others subjected to these and other temptations, _what ought
to be our influence in arresting and counteracting these evils_?
It ought to be second to none but parental influence. If the name pastor
mean anything, our position as the chosen religious teachers of
congregations ought to give us free access to every household in our
flocks, and the strongest influence over the youth whose moral training we
directly or indirectly shape. We ought to be not only _respected_ and
_reverenced_, but so loved as to be the familiar advisers and confidants
of the youth of our charges. Our word ought, next to the parents’, to have
weight in turning them from improper courses and associations, and in
keeping them from such. Moreover, our influence ought not to be merely
restrictive and admonitory. We should be sufficiently in sympathy with
them, familiar enough with the demands of their age and with the best
means of satisfying them, to be able to offer positive suggestions
respecting their employments, recreations, society, reading, and the like.
If we sustain proper relations to the youth of our charges, they will be
as likely to refer such questions to us, as matters of theology or
practical morality.
Now, the question of the amusements of our youth is as good a test
question in this matter as we need ask. _What, then, is the influence of
the clergy at large in regulating the diversions of the youth?_
I appeal to the experience of the mass of ministers, not with the few
_special friends_ and admirers, which most of them have among the young
people of their congregations, but with the _mass of the youth_. I appeal
to those judicious, farseeing Christians, who are wont to observe
carefully the tendencies of society, _if this influence is not a
comparative nullity_. In a question which, perhaps, as much as any other,
concerns the welfare of our youth, which has the most vital relations to
the attractions of home, which will enter, whether we may think it right
or not, into the considerations which influence the choice or rejection of
a religious life; at a point which the ministers of vice are fortifying
most strongly, wresting the best diversions to themselves, striving to
make them peculiarly their own, and to invest them permanently with
associations which shall exclude them from Christian homes; here, I say,
the Christian church, the appointed regulator and instructor in the ethics
of amusement, is, to a great extent, _at open issue with her own
intelligent youth, and practically powerless to execute her own decrees_.
It is well for us as ministers, to look this fact squarely in the face,
and to call things by their right names. How many pastors are in the
confidence of their youth with respect to the amusements of the latter? Is
not the fact rather that there is a tacit antagonism recognized between
the youth and the clergy on this subject, an antagonism growing, too,
every year less tacit and more avowed? Can it be denied that a very large
proportion of our youth regard their ministers as the foes to recreation,
and would sooner think of consulting them on any subject than on this? Is
it not the fact that while presbyteries and conferences and conventions
pass long and stringent resolutions on the subject of dancing and on the
use of cards and billiards, multitudes of Christian families practice
dancing; scores of them may be found playing whist at their own firesides,
and scores more with their billiard rooms fitted up in their own houses?
It will not answer to say that those who practice these things are
backslidden in heart and worldly minded, and that, if they were truly
Christ’s children, they would neither practice nor desire them. This is
begging the whole question at issue, and moreover is flatly contradicted
by facts. Many of those who engage in these recreations are among the most
devoted, enlightened, faithful members and even ministers of our churches.
Is it not the fact, again, that the pastors of these individuals would be
very much at a loss to administer discipline in such cases? Do they not
know that any attempt at authoritative interference would be regarded as
trenching upon individual rights of conscience, and would send scores of
active and faithful members to other communions? The truth is, and there
is no shirking it, that, in the cities especially, in the largest and most
powerful churches, the clergy are practically brought to a stand in this
matter. They do not and cannot control it. A vast mass of enlightened
Christian sentiment is against their attempts to enforce the traditional
church doctrines on this subject. Their people pay little or no heed to
the official utterances of church assemblies. Many of them treat them with
ridicule. There is no denying these facts. Hundreds of pastors are
painfully impressed with them. The church’s position in this matter is
most humiliating.
What then is the course of the clergy?
Some of them are more than half persuaded that the more liberal view of
their people is correct. They fully sympathize, perhaps, with that view,
yet they remain silent. They cannot conscientiously reprove; they refuse
to come boldly forward and define their position for fear of awakening
prejudice, or for fear their views may be misunderstood or misconstrued.
In short they think it is not safe. And yet, all the while, the initiated
in the congregation know pretty well the general drift of their minister’s
sentiments; that, though he says little, he winks a tacit encouragement to
many indulgences which far over-step the bounds of ancient orthodoxy. But
is _this_ safe? Is it safe or honorable for the church to be impotent to
carry out her own dogmas? Is it safe for her to be under the charge of
inconsistency from the world because her statute books and the practice of
her members are at open variance? Is it safe for the views of an
influential Christian teacher to be known only generally and vaguely, that
his church and the world may draw undue license therefrom? If he is
convinced that the church has been mistaken in this matter, and has in
past years committed herself to undue stringency, is it safe to let the
error remain untouched, and going on working its pernicious consequences?
If the gospel teaches a larger liberty, a broader conception of Christian
living and Christian enjoyment than the church has preached, has that
minister who conscientiously believes the fact any right to withhold the
truth because he deems it unsafe, and to let a falsehood (as he believes)
gain currency and power, and forfeit moreover the attraction presented to
a sinful world by his more cheering and liberal conception of Christ’s
teachings? Not safe! Will not God take care of his truth? Doubtless men
will misconstrue it. Doubtless they will wrest the preaching of gospel
liberty to the confirmation of worldly license. But the greater the danger
of this, the more reason why the truth, the _whole truth_, should be
proclaimed loudly, boldly, distinctly, frequently. When the water is first
let into a reservoir, it is apt to be very muddy; but that is no reason
why the reservoir should remain dry forever. The water will settle by and
by, and the whole people be refreshed. If there is truth in these more
liberal views of amusement, it is in vain for religious newspapers to
shirk the discussion of the question. It is in vain for influential
ministers to beg young men’s Christian conventions not to raise it. It is
in vain for the pulpit to preserve a discreet silence. The thing will out.
The truth will stay swathed in no cave in the rock. The things that have
been spoken in the ear in closets will be proclaimed upon the house tops.
The Christian public will the sooner attain correct views on this subject
through free discussion. If the thing be not of God, it will sooner come
to nought through this process than through any other. But by their love
for souls, and by their sworn loyalty to God and truth, let the clergy run
the sword of the Spirit through and through this matter, that the world
may know the truth and detect the falsehood.
It is confessed by some that they have given the subject no attention.
They have accepted the traditions of the church as they found them, have
preached and have tried to enforce them, or else have settled down upon
the assumption that the matter is of minor importance. I simply ask if
this is justifiable in view of the facts; in view of the contradictory
position of the church on this subject; in view of the important part
which amusements must play in the education of youth; in view of their
great and patent abuses; in view of the point urged in these discourses
that many of the popular diversions of the day may be wrested from the
devil’s hands and turned to good purpose in keeping the young from evil
influences and associations?
Some _positively refuse_ to consider the question under any new aspect. It
is settled, once and for all. The books are balanced, shut and sealed. The
wisdom of a past generation exhausted the question. Its dictum is to be
received as gospel. Little needs to be said here. Such declarations demand
the utmost stretch of Christian charity. They betray an ignorance which,
in a popular teacher, is unpardonable, and a blind acquiescence in the
conclusions of the past which is pitiable.
The truth, moreover, is not promoted, _in any direction_, by abusing those
of more liberal views on this question. The man who conscientiously
believes them wrong, and boldly says so, and does not simply declaim
against them but opposes them by fair argument drawn from scripture, is to
be honored. I would there were more such. But it will not in the least
tend to conciliate favor for the more stringent aspect of the question,
for its advocates to cast slurs upon the sincerity and piety of those who
differ from them, to announce them as corrupters of youth, enemies of the
church, underminers of pure religion, and the like. The day for this has
gone by. The best men may differ even on this question, which some think
so firmly settled; and the liberal view of this subject is supported by
too many shining names in the Christian ministry, by too large a mass of
Christian devotion and consistency and learning and intelligence, to
entitle such assertions to any notice whatever. The want of Christian
charity which leads one public teacher to asperse his brother’s Christian
consistency and purity of motive upon such grounds, is at least as
reprehensible as the holding of liberal sentiments on dancing or
billiards.
Once more. The pulpit, in some places, though alive to the importance of
the subject, is holding sternly by its old, stringent views. It is laying
down the law authoritatively, decrying as sinful all but a very limited
allowance of amusements.
The results of this policy so long and so thoroughly tried, are before us.
With all this preaching, the prevalence and variety of amusements steadily
increases. Year after year such utterances of the pulpit fall with less
weight. Year after year the character and standing of those who openly set
them at defiance renders it more and more difficult to back them by
discipline. The clergy are not gaining ground with the youth. Hundreds of
the latter, repelled by this teaching, are tearing themselves away from
the churches of their fathers, to unite with folds where a more liberal
gospel is preached. A prominent merchant of the Methodist church, a man
whose name is known in both hemispheres, wrote me, not more than a month
ago, “the teachings of my own church on this subject have had the effect
to drive nearly my whole family into the Protestant Episcopal church.”
It is sometimes said: “Let them go. We are better without such. We do not
want members who will not relinquish these suspected amusements. We do not
want half way Christians, conformed to the world, trying to hold fast to
pleasure and secure heaven at the same time.” But such statements do not
fairly represent the case. Again, the whole question is begged. Many of
those who refuse to conform to the churches dicta on these subjects care
nothing whatever for the amusements in question. The matter is entirely
one of principle. They leave our churches, not because conscience is
relaxed, but because it is acutely sensitive, and because they would keep
it unsullied. The above method of putting the case assumes that all the
conscience is on one side; that, while it operates strongly to condemn, it
cannot possibly operate to approve. Many of these persons resort to other
communions, because they are too honest to compromise with conscience;
because they cannot see these questions in the light in which their own
churches present them; and rather than go to God’s altars with even an
implied falsehood upon their consciences, or embrace the alternative of
remaining outside of Christ’s fold, they will sever life-long ties,
entwined with some of their dearest and tenderest recollections, and go
alone with their conscience and their God to altars where no such tests
are imposed. And in these new associations they bear themselves with all
Christian fidelity. They bring forth rich fruits of grace. They walk
humbly and consistently with God. They are exemplary fathers and mothers.
They are liberal in their gifts to the cause of Christ, and active in
promoting schemes to advance it. Our churches have been driving away such
men and women as these who would have been their ornaments and bulwarks,
because they have sought unduly to constrain Christian conscience on these
subjects.
Worse than this. This course is keeping youth away from _all_ church
communions; away from Christ. Few pastors have not received this answer,
when urging young persons to come to the Savior. “If I become a Christian,
I must be very solemn. I must repress my lightness of heart. I must
relinquish all my cherished enjoyments.” Admit that these views are
greatly exaggerated, as doubtless they are, the question forces itself
upon us, _why do we meet such views so often_? Why are they so generally
prevalent among our youth? Why does the immense amount of preaching,
forcible, eloquent preaching, on the comforts and joys of a Christian life
produce, seemingly, so little impression upon them? Why is it that they
persist in regarding _Christian_ joy as a sickly, stunted thing, and
religion as the enemy of all light and hilarity and taste and freedom?
Is all this result of native depravity? I cannot believe it. I cannot
dissociate a large measure of this most lamentable result from the old
teaching and practice of the church on the subject of recreation. It is of
no use to preach to ardent, active youth, that Christianity is a religion
of joy, unless they see some joy brought out of it besides mere smiles and
a class of recreations which to them as a class are insipid. To them
_Christian_ cheerfulness appeals as being less cheerful than any other
kind; as a sort of mild, repressed gayety, from which their quick
sensibilities and stirring blood revolts. They feel that in the church
they must be cheerful only in the way the church directs. Those ministers,
they reason, can be very cheerful, and even laugh uproariously over a
discussion on decrees; but what do I care for decrees? Those elderly
Christians can be cheerful in a quiet conversation on politics or on the
church. But if I want to be cheerful in a merry dance in proper society
and at proper hours, if I want to go to my friend’s billiard table and
play a quiet game, if I want to make merry over a few hits of backgammon,
or give my energy full vent in rolling ten-pins for an hour, I am a
heathen and a publican and unfit for the society of Christians.
As already observed, these views are doubtless greatly exaggerated by the
young. Yet does not the state of the case warrant us in asking carefully
and prayerfully if there is no connection between the stringent dogmas of
the church on the subject of recreation, and the general suspicion of
religion which characterizes the mass of unconverted youth?
Be this as it may, the case is narrowed down to this. Of all the subjects
naturally under the church’s supervision, there is not one in which her
influence is less than in this. She neither represses nor regulates. One
of two courses she must pursue if she would escape the stigma of
impotency. Either she must reassert her old dogmas, and back them by the
severest discipline, or she must modify them, and openly commit herself to
a larger liberty. Is she prepared for the first of these courses? Is she
prepared, first of all, to defend it from God’s Word. Every other defense
is worthless here. Is she ready to cut off remorselessly the man or the
woman, the youth or the maid who dances, however properly and modestly? Is
she ready to expel or suspend every minister who shall roll a ten-pin
ball, or while away an hour with chess or backgammon? Is she ready to lay
violent hands upon every member who fingers a card or handles a cue, or
strikes a croquet ball? If so, I tremble for the results of the
experiment. She will pause before she undertakes this course. Or will she
openly confess to undue stringency in the past, and write a new motto upon
her banners—“More abundant life?” Here what seems a formidable objection
is often preferred with great confidence. Grant that these more liberal
views are correct, still public sentiment is not yet such as to make it
safe to promulgate them. The argument, both in its character and result,
very strongly resembles that which used to be such a favorite with the
advocates of slavery. The negro is not fit for freedom. It recoiled on
those who advanced it. Who made the negro unfit for freedom but those who
held him in bondage until his imbruted nature ceased to prize or to desire
liberty? Similarly I say, if there is such a state of public sentiment,
_why is it so?_ How came this thing there? Who is responsible for a state
of sentiment in the church which makes it inexpedient to declare the plain
teachings of Christ on _any_ subject? There can be but one answer. The
responsibility lies between the church and the world, and the world surely
has not done it. The church herself has made this sentiment, has created
the factitious conscience, has awakened the morbid sensibility, by
preaching on this subject a theory which shrivels at the touch of Christ,
and which she has clearly shown her inability to carry into practice. And
the fact that such a sentiment exists, so far from calling for silence, is
the strongest of all reasons why the church should speak out with a voice
of thunder, and set herself right with the vast mass of conscience which
she so powerfully influences.
Would you then, says one, free this matter entirely from the restraints of
the church? By no means. On the contrary, I am calling upon the church to
regain influence which she has forfeited. I am pleading for a _regulation_
of these things by the church which does not now exist. Indulgence is
going too far in the church itself. But from her present stand-point on
this question, the church is, from the very nature of the case, almost
powerless to regulate. Assuming that the recreations in question are evil
and only evil, she _must not_ regulate. That would be compromising. She
must _crush_. Hence the matter resolves itself into a war of extermination
on both sides. Either these forms of amusement must be exterminated from
the church, or they must get the upper hand of the church’s statutes, in
which case the church has no law for them. She has only provided for
destroying them; and failing in this, must stand and see them run riot in
her very courts.
I would not have the church compromise one hair’s-breadth with sin. Better
that she should err in excessive stringency. But I would have her gain a
new vantage ground _by being simply true_, and not proclaiming unmixed
evil, where evil and good are blended in liberal proportions. By not
undertaking the task of _extermination_, where her duty is that of
_discrimination_. The moment she begins upon the principle of _analyzing_
these mixed elements, casting only the bad away, and using, developing and
enjoying the good, that moment she mounts to a point from which she can
regulate _any_ matter which falls under her jurisdiction. And to be thus
true, she must go direct to Christ. His word and example are conclusive,
and we may safely preach what we find there. Do we find any such principle
of repression as the church has preached for years past? No; we find abuse
condemned, and use allowed and approved. The Savior is at the hilarious
merry-making of the marriage, contributing to the festivity. His own
parable is on record, bidding men put the gospel into all the forms and
developments of life, to refine and fit them for human enjoyment. The long
list of exceptions with which men are forbidden to bring the gospel leaven
into contact has been added by men, not by Christ. He was condemned for
the very same reason for which hundreds condemn a so called liberal
Christian to-day; because he used the world which other men used, and
thought it not necessary to abstain from use because others abused. These
teachings are there if anything is there. They are for all time. The
conditions of no age can justify Christians in refusing to preach and to
apply them just as they stand. Nine-tenths of the really sinful indulgence
over which the church is mourning to-day, is simply because of the failure
to do this faithfully. Because good men have been startled by the
magnitude and power of evil, and have been too timid to meet it with
methods which seemed so slow, and which even gave room for the charge of
compromise. In being wiser than her Lord, the church has drawn the reins
too tightly, and the results speak for themselves. Much is said about
expediency; and Paul’s words about meat offending his brother, have been
saddled with more burdens than any ten other passages of scripture; but
after all, the result proves simply this, that it is always most expedient
to follow Christ implicitly.
I would, moreover, that the church in dealing with this question, would
consent to meddle less with its details, and leave them more where they
properly belong, with the individual conscience. No one man can decide
these things for another. No man has a right to insist that his standard
of expediency shall be his brother’s. Where God’s law is explicit, both
are bound alike. When it throws a decision upon conscience, neither has a
right to complain if the paths diverge. Both paths may not be right, but
to his own Master shall each traveler stand or fall.
The church, indeed, can do better than to busy herself with such details,
or, to speak more correctly, she can deal with them much more successfully
by shifting her point of power from the circumference to the centre. Her
duty in this case will be very much simplified and lightened, if she will
give more attention to the _springs_ of Christian life, to the conformity
of the _heart_ to the mind and will of Christ, to fostering an
enthusiastic devotion to him. Then these details and distinctions will
mostly take care of themselves. The church has lacked faith in the
regulative power of this principle, and has sought to supply its assumed
defects by innumerable special provisions; and the consequent tendency of
this course has been to fetter Christian individuality, and to insist that
love to Christ should express itself only in such modes as the church
might prescribe. Hence the sentiment often expressed, a true Christian
will have no taste for these things. But here again the whole question is
begged. You do not know, you cannot know what affinities a Christian life
may develop. All that you can with any confidence assert is the general
fact that he will love all that is good, acceptable, perfect, and hate all
that is essentially evil. As to other matters, things whose moral value
arises entirely from circumstances, a love to Christ as sincere and as
ardent as yours, may lead him in a direction the very opposite of yours.
Therefore it will be more in the interest of a true Christian
individuality, of a higher and more generous Christian manhood, for the
church to throw the soul more on its love to Christ as the great
regulative principle. Let her probe the hearts committed to her, deeply
for this. Let her strengthen this sentiment by every possible safeguard.
Let her urge her members earnestly to higher attainments in this, and her
difficulties in the regulation of the amusement question, and of every
similar question will, in a great degree, disappear. Her courts will be
full of the richest developments of grace, the most varied activities, the
most glorious examples of that wondrous unity in diversity which
Christianity alone displays.
Might not the church, moreover, profitably ask herself if there be not a
positive duty toward these much abused things, as well as a privilege of
letting them alone? If a thing has good in it, does Christ teach that our
duty to it is discharged in letting it alone for the sake of the evil
mixed with it? That is the easier way, I know. It is a good deal easier to
throw overboard good and evil together, than to separate them carefully
and to develop the good into a power. But if easier, is it better? I
cannot avoid quoting just here the exquisite words of Trench on the
Marriage at Cana, as bringing out clearly our Savior’s example on this
point: “We need not wonder to find the Lord of life at that festival; for
he came to sanctify all life, its times of joy, as its times of sorrow;
_and all experience tells us that it is times of gladness, such as this
was now, which especially need __ such a sanctifying power, such a
presence of the Lord_. In times of sorrow the sense of God’s presence
comes most naturally out; in these it is in danger to be forgotten. He was
there, and by his presence struck the key-note to the whole future tenor
of his ministry. He should not be as another Baptist, to withdraw himself
from the common paths of men, a preacher in the wilderness; but his should
be at once a harder and a higher task, to mingle with and purify the
common life of men, to witness for and bring out the glory which was
hidden in its every relation.” To the same purpose are the pertinent words
of Alford: “To endeavor to evade the work which he has appointed for each
man, by refusing the bounty to save the trouble of seeking the grace, is
an attempt which must ever end in degradation of the individual motives
and in social demoralization, whatever present apparent effects may follow
its first promulgation.”
“A terrible responsibility you are taking on yourself,” say some to the
writer. “Youth are going to perdition on your authority, pleading your
word and example as a Christian minister.” I have only to say I fear not
to meet such before the highest of all tribunals. If any man shall, after
carefully reading these four discourses, say that they give his worldly
heart full license to indulge its will, I tell him to his face, he is
either a fool or a hypocrite. Not proudly, I trust, but in humble reliance
upon him for whose sake every line has been penned, I bow my shoulders to
every morsel of responsibility which the utterance of these truths
involves. No youth will go to perdition on their authority. If he shall
infer the right to abuse from a plea for moderate Christian use, his
perdition be on his own head. The truth I have uttered shall condemn him.
If I err, God will bring this thing to nought: and I, who have erred in
good faith, and with an honest conscience, shall be dealt with by a tender
Savior as lovingly and leniently as I believe he will deal with those who,
with equal sincerity and zeal, may possibly have erred in so presenting to
youth a gospel of light and joy and freedom, as to make some of them
prefer the risk of perdition to embracing it.