p. 328 | The Love of Pleasure by Walter A. Nelson

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 25, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 21.

The Love of Pleasure

By Walter A. Nelson

It Has Absorbed the World—It Is Supplanting Godliness in the Church Itself

By Walter A. Nelson

The love of pleasure is a striking tendency of the day. People want what they call “a good time.” Life itself, they think, is too mild and commonplace without some exciting pleasure. So during the baseball season, the cars for the ball park are crowded; the street at the entrance of the grounds is a moving mass of eager humanity; automobiles are lined up on both sides of the street for a block or more; and the grand stands within the park are packed with excited spectators, all anxious to satisfy their love for pleasure.

A New National Amusement

But baseball is no longer the national amusement, if we judge by numbers; not that its attractions are decreasing, but larger crowds are drawn by another amusement—the moving-picture show. There are now nearly 20,000 motion picture theaters running in this country, showing annually something like 40,000 miles of film. Every day, an average of 7,200,000 persons visit the picture show. Annually $275,000,000 in nickels is received at the gilded cage in front of the motion picture theater.

A sad feature of the shows is the baneful influence they are exerting over so many children. Miss Flora Hendley, a supervising principal of public schools in Washington, D. C., said in an address at a meeting of the Mother’s Congress: “I have found that five children in one hundred go to moving-picture shows every day. Twenty-five per cent go more than once a week. Fifty per cent or more go at least once a week. Seventeen per cent go to moving pictures before six o’clock in the evening, and the rest after that time. Half of them go alone or with other children.”

Even professed Christians appear to love pleasure more than the things of God, and amusements now have a large place in church activities. A prominent Baptist clergyman, addressing a camp meeting audience of about six thousand last summer, said that our parents of a few decades ago could enjoy a camp meeting of ten days, listening to preaching three or four times a day, without any special recreation; but their children want to associate amusements with their religious gatherings, and so the demand must be met. Then followed an announcement of motion picture shows and concerts to be given in connection with the camp meeting.

Amusements in the Church

The churches in general have concluded that to hold their members and to win the young people, amusements must be given in the church. For this reason, baseball teams are organized among the members, and social evenings are planned. A writer in a leading paper went so far as to say that if moving pictures are wanted in the church, they should be given.

Scriptural Predictions

The lack of spiritual power in the lives of many who are professedly Christian is one of the principal causes of this condition. The gospel has lost its attraction to them. They still wish to share in the Christian’s rewards, but fail to sense the importance of dying to the world and living for Christ. Religion is to them but a mere form with a few minor requirements. The Lord, speaking to Ezekiel of such a class, says: “They sit before thee as My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.” Eze. 33:31. Speaking of such a class living in the last days, Paul says that they are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 2 Tim. 3:4, 5.