Are You Going to the Circus? by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 9, 1878

“Are You Going to the Circus?”

By John Norton Loughborough

THAT sounds like a strange question to ask in a religious paper; but it is just the question that is now being asked by thousands all over the land, especially as we are in that season of the year that circuses, with their various paraphernalia to attract the people, are going through the country.

My mind was stirred some on this point, as I read, a few days since, a letter from a friend; in the letter he spoke of a professor of religion that he thought might be ready now to do his part in religious finances, as he “spent twelve dollars the day before on a circus.”

What, thought I, a professed follower of Jesus Christ, using twelve dollars of the talent committed to him—the Lord’s money, with which he might have done good—on a circus? Worse than “hid” in the earth—wasted.

Why should one go to a circus? Is it a place to learn good morals, where clowns talk nonsense, and use texts of scripture in connection with low jests and ribaldry? Is it something that is calculated to bring us nearer to Christ, to fit us for living better Christians, to make us shine as lights in the world, and give us that unction from on high that shall enable us to lead souls to Christ, to see men and women swinging in the air by one foot or hand, or performing some other fool-hardy feat, seemingly trying to see how near they could come to killing themselves and not do it?

“Oh!” says my brother, “I did not go to those things, I went to let the children have a chance to see the animals.” Yes, and didn’t you know that these showmen got the animals on purpose, so that they could draw in all classes to see their performances? Your children hear more about the clown’s talk afterwards than they do about the animals. Seriously, did you not know that one of the very things in the world that we have to overcome is, the “lust of the eye?” See 1 John 2:16.

One thing I have noticed, that those who plead that they took in the children to see the animals, most always take in all the older portion of the family to help the children see the animals. This desire to see leads many into vice, and so in this matter of the circus let us not permit the desire to see the animals lead us to expose ourselves to all its foolery and nonsense.

The best rule to apply in all such cases is never to go to any place where we conclude our Saviour would not go, if he were here upon earth. Surely none of us could for a moment think he would visit such a place as a circus. We can’t afford to be a moment without him. Then when the question is asked us, “Are you going to the circus?” let us be ready to firmly say, No. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.