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IX.

AMUSEMENTS.

YOUNG lady once remarked, that she should like to be a Christian, but she did not think she could give up balls.

This is an indication of the reason why many do not set about becoming Christians. They draw a line. On one side is religion; on the other side happiness. If they take religion, they take safety for the next world, but a cheerless kind of happiness for the remainder of this. If they take happiness, they take a gay, pleasant, agreeable life for this world, but run a risk for the next. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and they, naturally enough, decide to make sure of this life at any rate, and life are the evils thereof.

sufficient unto the next They do not know much

but they do know the

about that future world, present. They will keep what they get, and get what they can; and in a measure they are right.

Certain present happiness is better than uncertain future happiness. It stands to reason that the present, actual world, the world we were born into, the world we are now living in, is the world with which we are chiefly concerned. The future world will have its own conditions, its own duties; but they will not devolve upon us till we get through with this. It is our business to do the duties of this world, and it is our right to enjoy its pleasures. I, for one, should very much mistrust any man who should put heaven's work in place of earth's work; or who should promise happiness in the next world only at the sacrifice of happiness in this.

But it is not so. These people make a mistake. The beauty of true, Evangelical, Gospel religion - of Christ-religionis that it is a religion for this world, this busy, gay, social, active, living, present world. Not that it is confined to this. By no means. It lights up the dim aisles of the past and of the future, revealing to us all we know of the glory that has been, and promising us a glory yet to be revealed, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived. rious things it speaks to us for our comfort;— of a golden city, clear as crystal, unto which the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and their honor; of many mansions prepared for us therein by the Lord of light; of a life into which shall no more enter anything that defileth, nor any sorrow,

Glo

or crying, or pain, or death. All this it promises us for an incitement, and the loss of all this for a warning; yet its present, its great, I had almost said its chief value, is not in the future, but in what it is doing for us every day. It is of inestimable price in this life, as well as in that which is to come. It is good for us in this world, even if there were no other. The virtues which it enjoins fit us not only for heaven, but for earth. They are not only pure, but profitable. They are due not only to Christianity, but to humanity. Whatever a man ought to do because he is a Christian, he ought to do because he is a man. Whatever wrongs his Christianity wrongs his manhood. Everything that is unchristian is impolitic. Sin is not only sinful, but it does not pay. Any act that transgresses God's moral law is a poor business calculation. Whatever increases a man's value in the Church, increases his value in the World. The better the Christian, the better the citizen. In proportion as bankers and brokers and merchants become true Christians, will business be put on a sure footing. Christian principles are the best possible basis for a business character.

So with the happiness of religion. It will take us to heaven, but we shall not have to wait till we get to heaven before we get any pleasure out of it. pays as it goes. It is a comfort and a blessing

It

all the way along.

It is the one pleasure that

never fails, and brings no after-pains. If it dis

ness,

places old joys, it brings in new and better ones to fill their places. It is the very fountain of happinot only spreading out into a placid lake at our journey's end, a sea of glass mingled with fire, whereon they that have gotten the victory shall stand with the harps of God, — but all the way through the wilderness its waters break out, and its streams in the desert, so that even the parched ground becomes a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. It is eminently and preeminently the religion of now.

But all this cannot, of course, be known by those who have not tasted that the Lord is gracious. They cannot forget those things that are behind, because they do not see in their true light the things which are before, and there is no beauty for them to desire. In all such cases two courses may be pursued. We may say, "You then love amusement better than life. You will sacrifice heaven to an evening's enjoyment. You will barter an eternity of bliss for a lifetime of uncertain and certainly fleeting pleasures. You will take gayety in exchange for your soul. Here is the choice: here, worldly pleasures; there, heavenly. Choose this day whether you will serve the god of this world, or the God of all worlds."

This may be the wise course, but I do not think it is. The opportunity of choice is of no value unless we are acquainted with the character of the things to be chosen. Solomon's wisdom and

Enoch's goodness would be of small service when your little boy comes to you with his hands behind him, and says, "Which will you have, the right, or the left?" In asking a person to choose between earthly and heavenly pleasures, you ask him to choose between what he knows and what he does not know. You ask him to give up something which he knows he likes, for something which he not only does not know that he likes, but rather thinks he does not like. Is it altogether to be expected that he will do it? It is of no use to say that worldly pleasures, so called, are not real pleasures; because it is not true. They are real. There is pleasure in dancing, gambling, and horseracing, in fine clothes, theatres, and wine suppers. Every one who has tried it knows there is pleasure in it, and when you say there is not, you contradict the facts of his consciousness. Think a moment, if there were no pleasure in it, why do so many do it? Nobody ever cut off his hand for the pleasure of the thing. Nobody ever drank a friend's health in assafoetida. It is true that they do not bring the highest kind of happiness, but neither do ripe pears, nor tight roofs, nor well-tilled farms, nor well-ordered houses; yet we do not despise them on that account, much less condemn them. A great deal that goes to make life comfortable springs from inferior sources. We cannot afford to slight the brook that ripples through our garden, because it was not born amid the snow-crested

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