To Christians who have formed the habit of card playing, dancing, and attendance at the theater, we affectionately send a word of entreaty, begging to assure them that we are constrained by the love of Christ, and by a sincere regard for their own welfare. You cannot be ignorant, dear friends, of the fact that your indulgence in these amusements is a source of great sorrow to many who love you; and if there were no other ground upon which we could earnestly and prayerfully implore you to indulge in them no more, it ought to be enough for you to know that your conduct grieves your fellow Christians, who are persuaded that it also grieves the Holy Spirit of God.
Are you sure, therefore, that you are not gathering serious harm to yourselves? Are you willing to die at a card table, or in a dance, or in a theater? Can you take Christ with you there? Would it not seem a strange sound to hear His name mentioned by your companions, except in jest or blasphemy? Could you wish to ascend from such amusements to meet Him in the air? Are they not in their origin, associations, and tendencies thoroughly worldly and only evil continually? Since you formed the dreadful habit of taking your body, the temple of the Holy Ghost, into the midst of scenes where earnest Christians are never found, are you not conscious of increasing indifference to the honor of your Lord, to the reading of His Word, to secret prayer, to your own spiritual interests, and to the salvation of others? Alas if you are not less active and consecrated than formerly, it is to be feared that you only had a name to live, while dead.
Oh, brethren and friends, if there is no harm in these things, how is it that the entire Church of God has ever condemned them as dangerous and wrong? Is it possible that there has been no cause for alarm, when the purest and wisest men and women for centuries have raised their voices in sad and solemn protest against the practices into which you have fallen; or can it be that all of these saintly and honored witnesses were but narrow bigots, soured to the sweet enjoyments of life? You know as well as we that Jesus says, “No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:2424No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24)); that in His last prayer for all of His disciples He separates them from the world by the distance of His own separation. (John 17:1414I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:14)); that His Cross has snapped the link which bound them to the world. (Gal. 6:1414But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14)); and hence the full force of the Apostle’s tender beseeching “by the mercies of God,” echoed by all of His true followers, must roll in upon your souls today, “Be not conformed to this world.” (Rom. 12:22And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2).)
SEL.