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About holidays
(To see a comment regarding this article go to the 1st August 2012 Blog)
This article sets out what JRWR constitutes a good holiday and warns against the hazards that may be encountered while on holiday.
Dear Young Friends,
I suppose you are already thinking about your summer holidays, if you have not actually made your plans. It is certainly a delightful anticipation if you have had to work hard for eleven months of the year or longer. What an exhilarating novelty it is to feel that for a week, or ten days, or a fortnight you will enjoy a change from your ordinary occupation and that the hours will be largely your own to spend precisely as you please.
Possibly you are going to some new place this year, and you are wondering what it will be like, with what fresh sights and sounds and scenery you will become familiar during your stay, and what new friends it may be your privilege to meet. Some of you have been "saving up" very likely to secure these delights, and I need not suggest to you that if the money has cost you something to possess you will have all the more pleasure in spending it wisely. Money, like leisure, is only truly appreciated when it has been duly earned. I believe no one enjoys a holiday more thoroughly than the hard-working young businessman or woman, and for that reason, fifty weeks of honest toil and earning form the best possible preparation
I sometime wonder, however, if holidays in the form usually taken by some people should not be prohibited. I imagine it would be a decided benefit for all parties concerned. When I think of the first of July scramble to get away, and the wild rush of the August bank holiday exodus, I seriously ask myself could there not be some better arrangement? It is a curious thing that so many want to leave at the same time, and to crowd along the same common road, caught by the same holiday fever. And then, why, after months of strenuous toil and activity, of which the weeks preceding are usually the most feverish, not to mention the rush of packing and getting away, do people desire to plunge at once into more nerve-fraying excitements?
The idea many people have of a "change" now-a-days is the hastiest possible transit to the nearest, noisiest seaside resort followed by aimless days in crowded boarding houses, ogling parades on the promenades, orgies of ice-cream, repeated visits to the "pictures" and various shows, and hours spent in breathing in the vitiated atmosphere of some dancing saloon in the evening. This is not a holiday, and is it any wonder if you so indulge, that you feel disgusted and jaded and tired when you return and feel in addition that you would like to go to bed for a week?
There is no sensible reason why you should strain yourself to the last limit before your holiday, and then when you get away, plunge immediately into a mad whirl of fashionable folly, arid imagine you are having a “rest”. If this should happen to be your ideal for a holiday, I shall not be surprised if, when it is all over, you cheerfully call yourself a fool for the remainder of the year.
The real test to whether or not a holiday has been successful is this: ‘Have I had sufficient to make the prospect of a return to work pleasant and agreeable, and do I come back to business, or whatever it may be, with a new appetite for the duties that previously had almost become burdensome?’ Any other holiday, no matter where you may go or what you may spend, is not worthy of the name if you return dissatisfied, enervated, without a desire for work that is a law of life, and possessed by that generally-fed-up feeling. If this is how you feel, you may be certain that your holiday has been a successful failure.
If you come back, however, with the feeling that it good to plunge again into the mid-stream of life and business, that is evidence that you have been mentally, morally and physically strengthened and helped by the change of scenery and occupation. If you are wise, therefore, never allow your holiday to be a time of aimless idleness and silly frivolity. Plan to do something, and to fill up your time generously, to read the books you have been longing for an opportunity to devour, to see those interesting places about which you have only read, to take that physical exercise you require to stimulate the sluggish organs of your body into healthy activity. Plan to enjoy congenial companionship, and above all to open your heart to the subtle ministries of land and sea and sky, and so to regain possession of yourself again. Then you will return to the common duties of life renewed in health, restored in spirit, and thrilled with the sheer joy of living.
You need hardly be reminded that holidays have their dangers. Restraints are often removed; few may know you, and you may sometimes be in the exceedingly perilous position of being able to do what you like. Holiday times bring unfamiliar temptations as well as real pleasures, and you require being constantly on your guard. It is quite a common thing for some people to do things and to indulge in certain kinds of amusement abroad that they would soundly condemn when at home.
If you are a young person with strong convictions you may find your position difficult at times. You may be thrown into the company of people, silly and shallow, who have not your ideas about things, and who may be scornful and incredulous regarding many of the Christian sanctions to which you are accustomed, and for which you have respect. They may try to laugh you out of what they would describe as "old-fashioned notions", but you must remember amongst other things that the sanctions of the Lord's Day are just as binding at the sea-side as at home, and that you should not neglect to divide the day between rest and worship. There will be times of testing as well as opportunities of showing the kind of stuff that is in you.
I am not suggesting, of course, that you should parade your religion in any ostentatious way, or that you should make yourself objectionable, but at the same time you should make up your mind on all occasions and, no matter what company you may happen to be in, to be loyal to what you believe to be right and to Jesus Christ. It may mean a quiet but firm refusal to indulge in things of which your conscience does not approve, or it may mean going off by yourself to church when your friends in the house or hotel where you are staying go off on some Sunday excursion. You may be laughed at, called a "silly ass" or a "goose,"or it may be suggested to you that you should take a holiday from religion as well as everything else.
But never mind; stand firmly by your principles, without sign of hesitation or show of bad temper or ill feeling. You will retain thereby your own self-respect, and you will undoubtedly gain even the sneaking respect of those who would have you disregard the smile of your own conscience, and the blessing of God.
Yours sincerely
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