4. The Philosophy Of Pleasure
" We must deal with pleasures as we do with honey, only touch them with the tip of the finger, and not with the whole hand, for fear of surfeit''' - Venerable Bede.
" They came to a delicate plain called Ease, where they went with much content, but that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it." - Pilgrim's Progress.
Pleasure is the most uncertain thing in the world. That which gives one man a glow of genuine happiness is to another man nothing but unutterable weariness. And more remarkable still, that which bores a man at one time will delight him at another. But the strangest characteristic of pleasure is this : that it is not to be bought with money, or acquired by effort, or secured by influence. " Fly pleasure," says Shakespeare, " and it will follow thee." And we may well add, " Pursue it, and it will utterly fade away." Pleasures are transitory, mysterious, and, to a large extent, dangerous. They are dangerous in this sense, that they need to be governed, restrained, and Hmited by wisdom, by piety, and by Christian sagacity. The transient and evanescent nature of pleasure is seen in the fact that half the enjoyment of life is in anticipation. How the keen, shrewd man of business revels in his work ! To him it is full of romance, interest, and excitement. He has made up his mind to succeed, to attain a high reputation, to build up a great career, and to earn a fortune. Now look ahead. He has completed his task and retired from work. All his desires are more than fulfilled, and life would seem to be a garden of beauty and comfort and unsullied joy. That is where you are mistaken. He is miserable. He has acquired a huge fortune, but his happiest days were spent in making it ; and he would give a good deal to be back in the dingy little city office, where he planned his campaigns and enjoyed his triumphs. All the pleasure, you see, was in the anticipation.
This is often the case, also, in planning a hoHday. For weeks beforehand you spend long hours in poring over guidebooks, studying time-tables, working out routes, and interviewing tourist agents. What a time you are going to enjoy ! And when the tour begins, you wonder what you left home for. Was it to see this ? Is that the paradise pictured in the guide-books and praised in the railway advertisements ? It is grand, certainly ; but you expected so much more. All the pleasure was in the anticipation. So when you visit a great man, you look fowrard with eager delight to the matchless wit and the lofty wisdom you will gain from his lips. And when the interview is over, you are asking to what accident that man owes his reputation.
He was positively dull ; and yet the world hangs upon his utterances.
Superficial as pleasure is, it occupies a very large and prominent part in life. Men will do for pleasure what nothing else under heaven could prevail upon them to attempt. See the athletic young men grinding their bicycles up a steep hill till the machines groan under the desperate and painful effort. If requested by their employers to work with half this zeal and persistence, they would promatly and indignantly resign. See the dense swaying mass of people outside a theatre, clamoring for admission. They will endure the utmost inconvenience and discomfort in order to obtain a few hours of recreation. The love of pleasure influences the masses with magnetic effect. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the man who writes a popular song exerts a greater power than the man who produces a thousand sermons. The most brilliant discourse will only reach a few thousand hearers ; and even when the press gives it wings, and sends it fluttering through ten thousand homes, its work is still limited. But think of the immeasurable power of song. A million sermons would not reach the people who have been influenced by the " Lost Chord" or the "Better Land."
It is time that the Church took her part in providing rational pleasures for the people. Why not start a music-hall and run it on right lines, without beer and without vulgarity ? Why should Christianity calmly submit to be outdone in this direction ? With certain classes the Church has absolutely no chance. Its doors are opened on fifty days in the year, but the theatres and the music halls are busy for three hundred days in the year, and it is not diflficult for the devil to outdo in six nights the good which the Church has accompHshed in onet We want some one to do for the people's amusements what the London Religious Tract Society, and many private firms have done for the people's literature. In one case the argument is this : " Here are bad books that stir np evil passions, disseminate degrading thoughts, and work the ruin of the people. Now books are not in themselves bad. Let us therefore provide good reading, that shall be as interesting and attractive as the bad ; reading that shall be pure but not puritanical, mildly exciting but not contaminating and scrofulous." Why should we not reason in the same eminently wise and practical way regarding amusements ? Let us argue thus : " Here is a great city, absolutely honeycombed with places of amusement. Some of them are hopelessly bad and demoralizing, the atmosphere is foetid and enervating, and the entertainment is often unblushingly filthy. And yet amusement is not necessarily an evil. It has been shown that there is a profitable market for good books. Why not also as large a demand for pure pleasures ? Let us therefore provide laughter that shall be clean, merriment that shall have no pain in it, pleasure that shall never be the forerunner of torment." The wise and Christian policy is to support and promote the good, and to reject and annihilate the evil. Pure amusements would do as much to promote the welfare of the people as high-class fiction has done.
I cannot imagine any man finding satisfactory delight in dancing. There may be no harm in a quiet dance amongst the home circle. But the public dancingrooms are nothing less than dens of destruction. Dancing, when indulged in at promiscuous assemblies, has two grave dangers. There is a tendency to make it the .one business of life ; indeed, I have known men whose conversation seldom rose beyond vague and mysterious discussions regarding the relative value of the waltz and schottisch. It also leads to late hours, and you may be quite sure that the young man who turns up at business in evening dress, with sleepy eyes, weary frame, and a splitting headache, will soon find himself presented with an indefinite holiday. Dancing has been described as " hugging to music, " and it is undoubtedly true that, apart from the music, Mrs. Grundy would soon step in and put a stop to the whole business. It is said that dancing leads to marriage. That may be true ; but who would care to look for a wife amongst the giddy, thoughtless, gushing creatures at a public dance ?
Pleasure is an excellent thing if it is well chosen, wisely guarded and vigorously controlled. So long as you can master it and keep it in its place, all will be well ; but give yourself up to it, and the Biblical prophecy shall be fulfilled, " He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man." The most pleasureless man in the world is the man whose whole life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure is like fire - a useful and indispensable servant, but a dangerous and fatal master. A room with a fire in it is comfortable ; a room all fire means death and destruction. So it is with pleasure. A life with pleasure in it is entirely right and satisfactory ; but a life all pleasure is not fife at all, the grand purposes of life are forgotten, the noblest ideals are buried under a load of reckless mirth and senseless tomfoolery.
I am not speaking rashly, but with careful forethought, and as the result of some years of observation and experience, when I say that the cause of failure in five out of every six young men is the insane passion for pleasure. Thousands of men come to the large cities every year, all bent upon success. What is the result? Their great aims are soon forgotten, their youthly enthusiasm quickly cools, and they have to rub along with a small wage which hardly keeps them alive. The cause is not always to be found in lack of ability or failure of character. It lies in a love of debilitating and unwholesome pleasures. When they should be engaged in healthful physical exercises or in strenuous mental improvement, they are kicking up their heels in a dancing-hall, or stewing in the gallery of a third-rate theatre. Such men will fail, inevitably and completely. They will sink by degrees. Gambling will fascinate them, strong drink will stupefy them, bad men will victimise them, and through love of pleasure they will become "poor men," stunted in intellect, enfeebled in body, ruined in soul. Beware, then, my brothers, of riotous and irrational pleasures. The disillusionment is swift and terrible, and leaves a lasting scar behind. The pleasures that satisfy and invigorate are to be found in sturdy exercise, in healthful rambles through the verdant country, or amid the exquisite and ever-varying delights of the sea-shore, in the enjoyment of good books, noble pictures, and soul-stirring music. These are pleasures upon which you can ask the blessing of God, pleasures in which you can look for the companionship of your Master, Christ. They may not excite, but they recreate, and that is what you want. Remember, no man has a right to any enjoyment until he has earned it by steady, persevering toil. Before you can properly appreciate an evening's pleasure, you must do a day's work, and do it with thoroughness and alacrity. Those who never do any work never enjoy a holiday.
Remember, also - and this is the chief thing after all - that the truest pleasure to be found on earth is in self-sacrificing. Christian service. The only happy life is that which is lived "unto God." Spend much of your leisure in trying .o bring heaven's rest nearer to earth's weariness. Succour the helpless, stand up for the oppressed, oppose every prevailing evil, seek the highest welfare of men, and you will experience a sacred rapture in the glowing brightness of which all earth's superficial pleasures will rapidly fade away. Such work will prevent all morbid introspection, all the wretched ennui of a selfcentred existence, and it will drive away all melancholy and gloom. The only lasting pleasure is that which is found in an inflexible allegiance to duty, and in earnest social service for Jesus Christ.