“The Christian and Amusements” was the subject of Dr. Luther Bridgers, evangelist, at Tryon Street Methodist Church Sunday night before a large audience, one of the largest that ever assembled at Tryon Street Methodist Church. Extra chairs had to be brought in and placed in the aisles to accommodate the audience.
“There is a way which seemeth right unto man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death” was the text chosen by Dr. Bridgers. Pointing out that the words of the text were ascribed to Solomon, the wisest of all men, Dr. Bridgers made the statement that the text contained a great truth, else it would not have been in the Bible.
Dr. Bridgers expressed the opinion that the churches of Charlotte should get together on certain moral reform problems, for in this way church members could make the community just what they wished it to be, as there would not be enough opposing forces to stop them.
‘Is there any harm in it,” has been the universal question from Adam down to the present,” Dr. Bridgers asserted, and while very man has his own opinion, it is the man who keeps farthest away from sin that gets along best, and the answer, “there is no harm in it,” according to Dr. Bridgers, has kept the human race in trouble ever since the time of Adam.
Everybody knows the eternal difference between right and wrong, Dr. Bridgers contended, a conscience having been given everyone to guide him in making the differentiation. Every normal man fears to do wrong.
Dr. Bridgers scored the immodesty in present-day dress of women, calling the prevailing styles both immodest and indecent. He said immodesty is immodesty and cannot be made right, either by the dictates of fashion or by public opinion. He said he hoped Christian women of America would not further prostitute themselves in following the styles set by the demimondaine of Paris.
Dr. Bridgers also severaly scored card-players. Of the 5,000 professional gamblers in Chicago, he said, 95 per cent of them got their start toward the gaming tables in a social game of cards. Every man or woman that plays cards for a prize, Dr. Bridgers said, was just as much a gambler as the boys in the back alley who shoot craps.
“You church members bet on baseball games, you match for drinks at the soda fountain right in front of boys and girls. Worldliness and thoughtlessness like this is the bane of the church today. The tendency of the young people is to ‘stay in the swim’ at any price. But just the same, sinners must pay the price. There is no escape from it.”
Dancing also came in for excoriation at the hand of Dr. Bridgers, who declared people that danced were the hardest of all to reach with the gospel or any other good appeal. There is no institution in America today which threatens the safety of the nation so much as modern dance, Dr. Bridgers declared.
From The Charlotte News, Oct. 3, 1921
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