The Business of Amusement
By C. M. S.
ONE of the characteristics of the last days was to be the prevalence of amusements. “Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God,” was to be such a distinctive feature of the last generation that the Bible specifies it as such so that men may have another evidence to help them in distinguishing the generation of our Lord’s return. At a meeting of the New York Theater Club held at the Hotel Astor, in New York City, on April 20, Commodore J. Stuart Blackton, president of the Vitagraph Company of America, stated that for the year 1913 the sum of $275,000,000 was paid by the general public for admission to various motion picture houses throughout the country. He further stated that eleven million persons visit moving picture theaters daily in this country; that during 1913 forty thousand miles of moving picture films were made. This is only one line in which this mania for amusement manifests itself. Anything that will amuse the people in these days will succeed as a business enterprise; anything that will amuse will draw the crowds. The prayer meeting is abandoned by the majority if there is anything taking place that will amuse or will tickle itching ears. The coldness of the majority of the church membership toward spiritual things is as much a sign of the times as is the mad race of masses after amusements. This condition ought to shock the members of our own churches into a realization of our own individual danger. We are traveling over Satan’s enchanted ground, and many are succumbing to its stupefying influences. Let us arouse and awake and break the spell, and then make most earnest efforts to help others to throw off the lethargy of death. Some will soon go out to meet the Bridegroom. We are individually deciding now whether or not we will be among them.
C. M. S.