p. 16 | Undiluted Joy

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 4, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 31.

“Undiluted Joy.”

The Bohemian club of San Francisco numbers among its members many of the prominent citizens of that city, and no doubt many of them are professedly Christians. But there could be no better term to describe their yearly outing, divided into “high jinks” and “low jinks,” than the old heathen one of “Bacchanalia.” The papers tell us that the last one was a time of “undiluted joy.” One of their “high jink” contributions to the “joy” was a sermon by their high priest “on the downfall of civilization by the entrance into the world at large of Christianity,” on which occasion a cross was erected in the center of the stage and illuminated. “The most amusing feature was a tug of war between two ox teams for first and second prizes, and a gallon of whisky to the driver who used the most picturesque language during the contest,” that is, to the one who could be the most profane, ribald, and blasphemous. Two of the members, it is said, “admit that the atmospheric effects at that time were the bluest kind of blue they ever witnessed.” All of which recalls the words of the wise man, “Folly is joy to him that is destitute of understanding.” Reader, there is purer, better joy than this, namely, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy.”