THE MORALITY OF FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 111, 12 May 1902, Page 2

THE MORALITY OF FOOTBALL.

The llev. C. H. Garland pleached a sermon at tbe Pitt-street Methodist Church last evening upon the "Mor-. ality of Football," the text being Timothy ii. 5, "If a man contend for games he is not crowned except he bath contended lawfully." The preacher in introducing his subject referred to the Olympian games practised by tbe ancient Greeks, and said that historians conceded that Greece owed much of her greatness to these games. The same might be said of Great Britain. There could be no doubt that athletics, more particularly football and cricket, tendecTto bind us together as a nation. Beferences to athletics \'vere freely used in the Bible, and St. Paul's writings teemed with them, especially to illustrate- in strong and emphatic language tbe game of life. Football was governed by rules, and it required a moral effort to keep to those'rules, which were based npon reason and judgment. The morality of football he considered higher than that of commercialism. Immorality entered into football when the game was indulged in to the detriment of mental culture. The preacher warned young men against too great indulgence in athletics, and urg-ed their use to keep and maintain soundness of health and body, so that soundness of mind might follow.