The Cost of Pleasure and Religion.
By Editor
It is startling to estimate the cost of pleasure—not that merely which all will pronounce to be "guilty," but that which the world excuses as lawful pastime. It is stated for instance, that "the receipts of Niblo's Garden, N. Y., for six months ending Dec. 31st, were $169,907; Wallack's, $111,114. Of the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, twelve months, ending the same time, $166,058; Arch Street Theatre, $48,867; Receipts at Pike's Opera House, Cincinnati, for thirteen weeks, $76,000. Edwin Forrest played five nights at Crosby's Opera house, Chicago, last week. The receipts were $11,379.50. In Chicago, in eleven months $145,458, were expended at operas and concerts, and $299,611, at theaters. Think of it, reader, that one pleasure establishment should cost the people, in six months, $169,907! Were some one church along side of Niblo's to receive this much money, it would be pronounced monstrous. Yet, the equivalent any evangelical church properly manned, would give in return for such an outlay, would far outweigh that of the sickly, demoralizing influences of the best conducted theatre. But passing from theaters to billiard and liquor saloons, dens of infamy and the like, and the figures are still more startling. Take liquor saloons, for example, and Cleveland as an illustration, and admitting at the same time that our own fair city is in advance of many others, here we have over 600 liquor shops; and supposing they average but 100 glasses per day—which is probably too little by one hundred per cent.—and the amount would be 60,000 glasses. This, at a cost of 10 cents each—the present price—would amount to $6.000 or $2,190,000 in a year! In this same city we have some twenty evangelical churches, whose average cost, at a liberal estimate, is $2,000 each, or $40,000 per year—thus demonstrating that liquor alone imposes a tax of $2,000,000 more per year than vital religion—or many times as much, in dollars and cents. If we add the cost of brothels, gaming tables, dance houses, balls—masked and unmasked—we should reach several millions easily. And taking the capital invested in providing places, supplies, and agents intervening195between seller and buyer, provider and enjoyer—we would reach some millions for Cleveland alone, as the cost of sanctioned pleasure and guilty indulgences. The Rev. R. E. Fenton, of Columbus, O., in giving the statistics of iniquity of that city, says that its population is 30,000; considering one-half as children, there remains as adults, 15,000. Of these he estimates as regular and irregular attendants on Divine worship, 5,000—"leaving the Devil" 10,000. There are sixteen Protestant churches at that place, supported at an aggregate cost of $22,400. This, in itself, appears quite a sum, being about $4.50 per capita, for each church going person. But compared with the cost of sin it is as nothing. On whisky selling, at Columbus, the "revenue tax" alone amounts to $7,000 per year—and the whole cost, as Mr. F. affirms $1,200,000! Licentiousness, in the same city, supports 55 houses and 750 inmates; these are estimated as costing $450,000, per year! Gambling is put down at a cost of $1,000,000; theatres, $80,000; total cost of iniquity, in Columbus, three millions, seven hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars! Cleveland having double the population of Columbus, ought to be multiplied by two, provided its morals were as low. But our estimates have supposed its morals better; as the capital of a State, or of a Nation, is generally more depraved than other places of equal size. Why, we will not discuss; yet we can conceive of many things contributing to such fact. In looking, however, at the figures relatively to theatre going in New York, alone, well does a Baptist contemporary say—"Niblo's Garden absorbs in six months as much as all the Baptists of North America expend in Foreign Missions for a whole year. As much is wasted on actors, clowns and harlots, as our whole denomination gives to evangelize the world. Wallack's theatre costs as much for six months as all the Baptist churches in New York cost for a whole year. A Baptist minister labors a whole year for $1,500 or $2,500, but in five nights an engagement of Edwin Forrest brings $11,379.50." In speaking of theatres and operas, there is a humiliating fact connected therewith. The New York Observer, with its eye on that city, says: "If our church members would not sustain these, they would not be sustained at all!" "We put the remark," adds the editor, "in italics, that it may be read and challenged," if untrue. "We repeat the idea: withdraw from the theatres and operas in any American city, the patronage of those who are members of Christian churches, and of course those who are under the control of such members, and the theatres and operas could not live. They would be left to the support of those who do not regard reputation as worth anything. They would be voted as immoral at once, and would be soon abandoned." Applying like estimates to all the cities in the Union and at what a cost is sin sustained! The figures, if given, would shame the benevolence and justice of believers in religion. Especially would they silence the carping of an ungodly world as to the relative cost of truth and error, holiness and sin. And if the infinite value of religion, as compared with the destructive character and tendency of vice, were taken into the account, vice would be silent, and religion stirred up, in the persons of their devotees. We write to put all to thinking—not to exhaust the subject, for this latter would require books to be written, rather than a brief editorial.—Evangelical Messenger.