It is remarkable that the very thing, entertainment, churches most earnestly forbid their members to indulge within is the very thing these very churches utilize to their own ends. The church tells me I must not go to the theater and other places of worldly amusement; but 'church' entertainment says, "Come to me and I will give you very much the same, only under another and softer name." The church forbids my gambling and warns me against the lottery; but in relation to 'church' entertainment we are told, "In lieu of this, I will let you indulge in raffles, the grab-bags, or the recent practice of voting, which is a mild form of a game of chance."

Who wonders that our children are found in places of worldly amusement when we are all the time educating them in this direction -- giving them, ourselves, a taste and relish for such things! Who wonders that after we have blunted their spiritual sensibilities and familiarized their minds to such a life by contact with the more refined forms of worldliness in the church, to find them afterwards perfectly content and at home with the courser forms of worldliness outside the church!

There is a young man in the penitentiary of Ohio today, placed there for some crime committed as a gambler, who says he is there from the influence and effect on his character of 'church' entertainments. He says, "He was so lucky in all the grabbing and raffle performances of the 'church', that on entering life as a young man, he discovered a relish and thirst awakened in him for things of that character. It occurred to him that as he had been so fortunate in 'church' raffles, he might be equally successful in cards, lotteries, etc." And so he embarked in the life of a gambler. Then came a crime as a gambler, and then the penitentiary. Oh, church of the living, holy God, how glorious has your work become! The drift, or educative tendency, of entertainment, I emphatically repeat, is toward evil, and to grave evils all the while.

In a certain church in the West, it was resolved to raise some funds to push on the work of the gospel. The idea of a supper was hooted at, that being too tame. Something new, interesting and crowd-drawing was demanded, and so the marvelous spectacle was beheld of a saloon in one corner of the hall where drinks of alcoholic nature were sold for so much. In the other corner was a billiard table, both run in the interests of the 'church'! All this money was to push the gospel on in its victorious way!

What follies and evils may we not expect to flow from entertainment, which is itself the child of such parentage as Covetousness and Worldliness! What may we expect of such a child, and what will the grandchildren be?

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