Vain Amusements | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 2, 1873

Vain Amusements.

OUR Protestant Episcopal brethren have had, it seems, a canon against “attending horse-races, theatrical exhibitions, and other vain and light amusements.” It has been, we suppose, a “dead letter;” for, with here and there an exceptional individual, the theater, opera, etc., are zealously patronized by Protestant Episcopalians. We doubt whether many of them have been aware of the prohibitory canon. It is an ominous sign of the times that the late Annual Convention of the Maryland Diocese (which includes the District of Columbia) voted for the repeal of this unfashionable canon. Much debate attended the act, but it was passed with a qualification which, in such a connection, means nothing—namely, “That in recommending the repeal of this canon, the committee is not to be understood as intending to give any sanction to such worldly amusements as are plainly inconsistent with baptismal vows.”

Bishop Whittingham sent in a protest against this act, declaring that it is virtually a change of position respecting the specified vices; that the people would so understand it, and be thereby morally injured, and that his own authority and administration regarding the old canon shall not be affected by this indiscreet action of the convention. We honor the bishop’s course, and hope his people will uphold him.—Methodist.