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Christian Recreation
While we are seeking to refresh our spirits and invigorate our
bodies we are required of God to use all our powers at all times to
the best purpose. We can, and should, conduct our recreations in
such a manner that we shall be better fitted for the more successful
discharge of the duties devolving upon us, and our influence will be
more beneficial upon those with whom we associate. We can return
from such occasions to our homes improved in mind and refreshed
in body, and prepared to engage in the work anew with better hope
and better courage.
We are of that class who believe that it is our privilege every
day of our lives to glorify God upon the earth; that we are not to
live in this world merely for our own amusement, merely to please
ourselves. We are here to benefit humanity and to be a blessing to
society; and if we let our minds run in that low channel that many
who are seeking only vanity and folly permit their minds to run in,
how can we be a benefit to our race and generation? how can we be
a blessing to society around us? We cannot innocently indulge in
any amusement which will unfit us for the more faithful discharge
of ordinary duties.
Between the associations of the followers of Christ for Christian
recreation, and worldly gatherings for pleasure and amusement, will
exist a marked contrast. Instead of prayer and the mentioning of
Christ and sacred things, will be heard from the lips of worldlings
the silly laugh and the trifling conversation. The idea is to have a
general high time. Their amusements commence in folly and end
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in vanity. Our gatherings should be so conducted, and we should so
conduct ourselves, that when we return to our homes we can have a
conscience void of offense toward God and man; a consciousness
that we have not wounded or injured in any manner those with whom
we have been associated, or had an injurious influence over them.
The natural mind leans toward pleasure and self-gratification. It
is Satan’s policy to manufacture an abundance of this. He seeks to
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