Amusements, pleasures and gaieties of the world!

(John Abbott, "The Christian Mother")  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

It is not necessary for us to search for happiness in dangerous and forbidden paths. The young, inexperienced in the dangers of the world, often wonder why their pious parents are so unwilling that they should acquire a fondness for worldly amusements—which appear so innocent and pleasing to their youthful hearts.

Parents! Cultivate in your children a taste for pure and noble pleasures—instead of a love of worldly gaiety. Pure and noble pleasures last. They wear well. They leave no sting behind. The pleasures of worldliness and gaiety do not wear well. They exhaust the powers of body and mind, and all the capacities of enjoyment, prematurely—and leave a sting behind. That is the reason why the Word of God condemns them—and why Christians abstain from them.

He who acquires a taste for the amusements, pleasures and gaieties of the world—will find his earthly happiness greatly impaired, and will be exposed to temptations which will greatly endanger his eternal well-being.

These worldly amusements are all of the same general character—leading to peculiar temptations. They all tend to destroy the taste for those quiet, domestic enjoyments, which, when cultivated, grow brighter and brighter every year—and which confer increasing solace and joy when youth has fled—and old age, and sickness, and misfortune come. Christian parents endeavor to guard their children against acquiring a taste for these worldly pleasures, because they foresee that these amusements will, in the end, disappoint them—and they can lead them in a safer path, and one infinitely more promotive of their happiness!

The true Christian has experienced the folly of a life of worldly pleasure. There are thousands who were once the devotees of worldly gaiety; and they will tell you, that, since they have abandoned their former pursuits, and sought happiness in different objects, and cultivated a taste for different pleasures—they have found peace and satisfaction which they never knew before—and they have no more disposition to turn back to these gaieties, than they have to resume the rattles of babyhood!