The Craze for Pleasure

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 1, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 30.

The Craze for Pleasure

MORE than 2,000 delegates attended the "Motion Picture Exhibitors' League of America," in Chicago. The convention lasted for something like ten days. Among the striking statements made in some of their open meetings was one to the effect that an average of 25,000,000 people in the United States attend the motion picture shows each day. There are 21,600 of these shows, and they represent an investment of $2,000,000,000.

One of the subjects to receive prominent discussion was "The Curtailment of the Rapidly Mounting Salaries Paid to Players by Film-Producing Companies." Some of these players receive salaries as high as $650,000 a year. It was thought that the only way to curtail them would be for the exhibitors to combine, and thus crush out competition.

The Amusement Trust

It is a very interesting thing to those who are studying world conditions, to note the tremendous craze for pleasure and fun that characterizes our time. True pleasure and real enjoyment is a natural condition for the human being, and may properly be sought in any legitimate and sane way. But the amusement trust is working to create excitement and to form habits and dispositions among the people that will intoxicate them with the ideas of pleasure.

When the records show that one out of every four of the people of the United States attends the moving picture shows each day, the fact is superabundantly clear that this form of amusement has become an alarming craze. The statistics given out a year ago indicated that about 18,000,000 a day were attending the motion picture shows; but it would seem that during the last year, there has been an increase of some 6,000,000. Such things have a tendency to increase; and the more rapidly they do so, the more do individuals become intoxicated with the thought of pleasure, and the less taste they have for the real substantial and necessary things of life.

As Nations Go to Pieces

ANY one who has studied the history of the various civilizations of this world has observed that as a nation is going to pieces, one of the strongest and most prominent symptoms is the passion for exciting amusements of various kinds.

The populace of Rome, during her last hours, while the barbarians from the north were breaking her up, was clamoring for the theater, the chariot race, the gladiatorial fights, and other exhibitions of that sort. The people in great droves moved from the country to the cities, and demanded of the rulers that they be permitted opportunities for these exciting pleasures, which were often in the form of gross, debasing follies.

Yet, while Rome was thus engaged, she was persisting that she had stood so long, and was such a tremendous power, that she could never go down. Rome continued to point to her past glories, and to the great principles that she had held when she was a powerful nation, not realizing that "Ichabod" had already been inscribed across her portals, indicating that her glory and power were departed.

Not Awake to the Danger

MEN who are making their millions out of amusing the people, become so overwhelmingly interested in that one thing as to fail to take into account that they are undermining the foundations of society, and preparing the world for inevitable ruin. Men ought, from the sheer philosophy of history, to see these things. And those who have confidence in the divine Book of God, will know, from its prophetic utterances and inspired warnings, that the conditions which are so rapidly developing in our time have been foretold, and furthermore, that they mean disaster to those who are looking to this world with the thought that the conditions of the present time may continue indefinitely. God has most plainly pointed out, in His inspired Book, that one of the perils of the last days will be the placing of the love of pleasure above the love of God. Please read carefully the first part of the third chapter of 2 Timothy, and allow this warning to have its full weight.

God does not condemn pleasure. On the contrary, one of the most beautiful promises in His inspired Book reads, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." Ps. 16:11. God promises "fullness of joy" and "pleasures forevermore"; and the true joys that He gives, and the real pleasures that He promises forevermore, are upbuilding, refining, and ennobling. But in order to keep men from receiving these, Satan invents counterfeits that lead to follies, vices, and degrading, degenerating debaucheries. It is against these counterfeit pleasures with which Satan is flooding the world, that God has warned us. They are prominent among the things that will fill the last days with peril. Men who are intoxicated with greed, or pleasure seeking, or any other consuming passion, may not be able to see these things; but wise men and women will keep sober, and open their eyes wide. Men should see these things in the light of God's word, for the great day of the Lord is bursting upon an unprepared and wicked world.