AMUSEMENTS-PURITANICAL RESTRICTIONS CONDEMNED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 253, 15 March 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS-PURITANICAL RESTRICTIONS CONDEMNED

liV REV. A. 11. COLVILE. Preaching on the subject of amusements in St. .Uan'a Churcii uii Sunday evening last, the He v. A. 11. Colvile took as Ins text 1. Cor. 'J-25: "Every man who strivelh lor the mastery is temperate in all things." "Amusements," remarked the speaker, "have a legitimate place in every well-balanced lilt, and we cannot prohibit them. It was tried in England under the rule of the Puritans, and prohibition simply paved the way lor the licentiousness and immorality of the Restoration. And that is always the danger attending the rule of the I'uritan. Too strict prohibition invariably leads to reaction, and the last state is worse than the lirst- The Puritan is as a rule an excellent man. He does good service to the community by calling the attention of men to evils which but for him would Be slurred over and tolerated. We should all listen to the Puritan, respect him and take what he says to heart, but we need not necessarily take his remedies as infallible, nor deem total prohibition the only way. i'or through a good servant he is a tyrannical master whenever he gets power. He has little imagination, and thinks that all men should be cut to the same pattern as himself. Worthily, though somewhat frivolously, he was rebuked in the immortal words of Sir Toby Belch in 'Twelfth Night': 'Go todo you think because you are virtuous there Bhall be no more cakes and ale?' For the characters of the Puritan I have the greatest respect, but from the tyranny of his rule—good Lord deliver me.." DANCING. Speaking of the amusement of dancing, Mr. Colvile said: "'Temperate in all things'—isn't it possible to enjoy a dance happily and naturally without losing our heads and getting feverishly excited and allowing it to upset the balance of our lives? I do deprecate the fashion of turning a dance into a rowdy romp and converting a ball-room into a football-field. It is perhaps expecting too much to hope that some of the stately and dignified dances of the past may be revived, but at least we can be "temperate in all things." The decency of the ball-room depends largely on the women. The conduct of men at such times is very much what the women require that it shall be. If all young women who jjo to dances would carefully preserve their self-respect and resolutely refuse to dance with men who have drunk too much, or whose behaviour is rowdy and ungentlemanly, or whose character they know to be bad, we should be giving less reason for the enemy to blaspheme, or the Puritan to condemn. CARD-PLAYING. "There are few things more useful than a good game of bridge for giving rest to an overworked brain. But to play bridge almost every afternoon and evening through the winter, as some women do, is to lose the right perspective of things, to get one's life out of proportion, and to live merely on the surface of live—leaving the big things and the*decp things uncultivated, unexplored and idle. In this matter, too, we must be 'temperate.' OUT-DOOR GAMES. "It is a healthy sign when a young man enjoys a strenuous out-door game. Buys ought to be encouraged to play the more strenuous games, such as football and cricket, which bring out the moral qualities of courage, unselfishness and self-restraint, and teach discipline and the necessity of combination. The Greek ideal of the culture of the body is an excellent one. -Tesls Christ Himself referred to it. The body is more than raiment,' He said, but 'The life is more than all.' To give up all our spare time to games—to play golf all Sunday, for example—is to neglect the essential for the accidental and to abuse the liberty Christ has given Us in our Christian Sunday. You must remember the cynical 'French epitaph on the successful tradesman: 'He lived a man, and died—a grocer.' Just as pregnant might be the epitaph over some modern pleasure-seeker. 'He lived a man, and died—a golfer"—all people have got to remember him by. If we would live a well-balanced life and preserve the due proportion of things and become masters of ourselves, we must keept St. Paul's words constantly in mind with regard to our amusements—"Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all thing's.'"