I am sure that these thorns play a dreadful part nowadays.
I have nothing to say against 'recreation' in its proper place.
Certain forms of recreation are needful and useful;
but it is a wretched thing when amusement becomes a vocation.
Amusement should be used to do us good "like a medicine";
it must never be used as the 'food' of the individual.
From early morning until late at night some spend their time in a round
of frivolities,
or else their very work is simply carried on to furnish them funds for
their pleasures. This is vicious.
Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions
stamped out by perpetual trifling.
Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of thought.
This is the age of excessive amusement.
Everybody craves for it, like a baby for its rattle.
In the more sober years of our fathers,
men and women had something better to live for than silly sports.
The thorns are choking the age.
-Spurgeon, "Sown Among Thorns"