



Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS AND WORTHY SUBSTITUTES

By J. M. Judy



  Introduction by George H. Trever, Ph.D., D.D.  The manuscript of
  This book was not submitted to any publisher, but was put in its
  present form by JENNINGS & PYE, for a friend of the author.
  Address.  Chicago: Western Methodist Book Concern, 1904.




INTRODUCTION.

By George H. Trever, PH.D., D.D.

Author of Comparative Theology, etc.


A BOOK on "Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes" is timely
to-day. Such a grouping of subject matter is in itself a commendation.
Possibly we have been saying "Don't" quite enough without offering the
positive substitute. The "expulsive power of a new affection" is, after
all, the mightiest agency in reform. "Thou shalt not" is quite easy to
say; but though the house be emptied, swept, and garnished, unless pure
angels hasten to occupy the vacated chambers, other spirits worse than
the first will soon rush in to befoul them again.

The author of these papers, the Rev. J.M. Judy, writes out of a full,
warm heart. We know him to be a correct, able preacher of the gospel,
and an efficient fisher of men. Having thoroughly prepared himself for
his work by courses in Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical
Institute, by travel in the South and West of our own country, and by a
visitation of the Old World, he has served on the rugged frontier of his
Conference, and among foreign populations grappling successfully with
some of the most difficult problems in modern Church work.

The following articles aroused much interest when delivered to his own
people, and must do good wherever read. In style they are clear and
vivid; in logical arrangement excellent; glow with sacred fervor, and
pulse with honest, eager conviction. We bespeak for them a wide reading,
and would especially commend them to the young people of our Epworth
Leagues.

WHITEWATER, WIS., March 2, 1904.




PREFACE.

"QUESTIONABLE Amusements and Worthy Substitutes" is a consideration of
the "so-called questionable amusements," and an outlook for those forms
of social, domestic, and personal practices which charm the life, secure
the present, and build for the future. To take away the bad is good; to
give the good is better; but to take away the bad and to give the good
in its stead is best of all. This we have tried to do, not in our own
strength, but with the conscious presence of the Spirit of God.

The spiritual indifference of Christendom to-day as one meets with it
in all forms of Christian work has led us to send out this message.
"Questionable Amusements," form both a cause and a result of this
widespread indifference. An underlying cause of this indifference among
those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, is lack of conviction
for sin, want of positive faith in the fundamental truths of the
Scriptures, too little and superficial prayer, and lack of personal,
soul-saving work. Is the class-meeting becoming extinct? Is the
prayer-meeting lifeless? Is the revival spirit decaying? Is family
worship formal, or has it ceased? However some may answer these
questions, still we believe that the Church has a warm heart, and that
signs of her vigorous life are expressed in her tenacious hold for high
moral standards, and in her generous GIVING of money and of men.

Our point of view has been that of the person, old or young, regardless
of sect, race, party, occupation, or circumstances, who has a life to
live, and who wants to make the most out of it for himself and for his
fellow-men, and who believes that he will find this life disclosed in
nature, in history, and in the Word of God. J.M.J.

ORFORDVILLE, WIS., March, 1904.



CONTENTS

    PART I.
    QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS

    CHAPTER
    I    TOBACCO
    II   DRUNKENNESS
    III  GAMBLING, CARDS
    IV   DANCING
    V    THEATER-GOING

    PART II
    WORTHY SUBSTITUTES

    VI   BOOKS AND READING
    VII  SOCIAL RECREATION
    VIII FRIENDSHIP
    IX   TRAVEL
    X    HOME AND THE HOME-MAKER




PART I. QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS.

     "The excesses of our youth are drafts on our old age,
     payable about one hundred years after date without
     interest."--JOHN RUSKIN.




I. TOBACCO.

Tobacco wastes the body. It is used for the nicotine that is in it. This
peculiar ingredient is a poisonous, oily, colorless liquid, and gives to
tobacco its odor. This odor and the flavor of tobacco are developed by
fermentation in the process of preparation for use. "Poison" is commonly
defined as "any substance that when taken into the system acts in
an injurious manner, tending to cause death or serious detriment
to health." And different poisons are defined as those which act
differently upon the human organism. For example, one class, such as
nicotine in tobacco, is defined as that which acts as a stimulant or
an irritant; while another class, such as opium, acts with a quieting,
soothing influence. But the fact is that poison does not act at all
upon the human system, but the human system acts upon the poison. In
one class of poisons, such as opium, the reason why the system does not
arouse itself and try to cast off the poison, is that the nerves become
paralyzed so that it can not. And in the case of nicotine in tobacco the
nerves are not thus paralyzed, so that they try in every way to cast off
the poison. Let the human body represent the house, and the sensitive
nerves and the delicate blood vessels the sleeping inmates of that
house. Let the Foe Opium come to invade that house and to destroy the
inmates, for every poison is a deadly Foe. At the first appearance of
this subtle Foe terror is struck into the heart of the inmates, so that
they fall back helpless, paralyzed with fear. When the Intruder Tobacco
comes, he comes boisterously, rattling the windows and jostling the
furniture, so that the inmates of the house set up a life-and-death
conflict against him.

This is just what happens when tobacco is taken into the human system.
Every nerve cries out against it, and every effort is made to resist it.
You ask, Will one's body be healthier and live longer without tobacco
than with it? We answer, by asking, Will one's home be happier and more
prosperous without some deadly Foe continually invading it, or with such
a Foe? When the membranes and tissues of the body, with their host of
nerves and blood vessels, have to be fighting against some deadly poison
in connection with their ordinary work, will they not wear out sooner
than if they could be left to do their ordinary work quietly? To
illustrate: A particle of tobacco dust no sooner comes into contact with
the lining membrane of the nose, than violent sneezing is produced.
This is the effort of the besieged nerves and blood vessels to protect
themselves. A bit of tobacco taken into the mouth causes salivation
because the salivary glands recognize the enemy and yield an increased
flow of their precious fluid to wash him away. Taken into the stomach
unaccustomed to its presence, and it produces violent vomiting. The
whole lining membrane of that much-abused organ rebels against such an
Intruder, and tries to eject him. Tobacco dust and smoke taken into
the lungs at once excretes a mucous-like fluid in the mouth, throat,
windpipe, bronchial tubes, and in the lungs themselves. Excretions such
as this mean a violent wasting away of vitality and power. Taken in
large quantities into the stomach, tobacco not only causes an excretion
of mucus from the mouth, throat, and breathing organs, but it produces
an overtaxing of the liver; that is, this organ overworks in order to
counteract the presence of the poison. But one asks, If tobacco is so
injurious, why is it used with such apparent pleasure? A small quantity
of tobacco received into the system by smoking, chewing, or snuffing is
carried through the circulation to the skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and
to all the organs of the body, by which it is moderately resisted. The
result is a gentle excitement of all these organs. They are in a state
of morbid activity. And as sensibility depends upon vital action of
the bodily organisms, there is necessarily produced a degree of
sense gratification or pleasure. The reason why these sensations are
pleasurable instead of painful is, in this state of moderate excitement
the circulation is materially increased without being materially
unbalanced. But as with every sense indulgence, when the craving for
increased doses becomes satisfied, when larger doses are taken the
circulation becomes unbalanced, vital resistance centers in one point,
congestion occurs, then the sensation becomes one of pain instead of one
of pleasure. This disturbance or excitement caused by tobacco is nothing
more nor less than disease. For it is abnormal action, and abnormal
action is fever, and fever is disease. It is state on good authority,
"that no one who smokes tobacco before the bodily powers are developed
ever makes a strong, vigorous man." Dr. H. Gibbons says: "Tobacco
impairs digestion, poisons the blood, depresses the vital powers, causes
the limbs to tremble, and weakens and otherwise disorders the heart." It
is conceded by the medical profession that tobacco causes cancer of the
tongue and lips, dimness of vision, deafness, dyspepsia, bronchitis,
consumption, heart palpitation, spinal weakness, chronic tonsillitis,
paralysis, impotency, apoplexy, and insanity. It is held by some men
that tobacco aids digestion. Dr. McAllister, of Utica, New York, says
that it "weakens the organs of Digestion and assimilation, and at length
plunges one into all the horrors of dyspepsia."

*Tobacco dulls the mind.* It does this not only by wasting the body,
the physical basis of the mind, but it does it through habits of
intellectual idleness, which the user of tobacco naturally forms.
Whoever heard of a first-class loafer who did not e-a-t the weed or burn
it, or both? On the rail train recently we were compelled to ride for
an hour in the smoking-car, which Dr. Talmage has called "the nastiest
place in Christendom." In front of me sat a young man, drawing and
puffing away at a cigar, polluting the entire region about him. In the
short hour enough time was lost by that young man to have carefully read
ten pages of the best standard literature. All this we observed by
an occasional glance from the delightful volume in our own hands. The
ordinary user of tobacco has little taste for reading, little passion
for knowledge, and superficial habits of continued reasoning. His
leisure moments are absorbed in the sense-gratification of the weed. But
if as much attention had been given in acquiring the habit of reading as
had been given in learning the use of tobacco, the most valuable of all
habits would take the place of one of the most useless of all habits.
When we see a person trying to read with a cigar or a pipe in his mouth,
Knowing that nine-tenths of his real consciousness is given to his
smoking, and one-tenth to what he is reading, we are reminded of the
commercial traveler who "wanted to make the show of a library at home,
so he wrote to a book merchant in London, saying: 'Send me six feet of
theology, and about as much metaphysics, and near a yard of civil law in
old folio.'" Not a sentimentalist, a