{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45677/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45677","id":"gutenberg_45677","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45677","summary":null,"tags":["Amusements -- Religious aspects","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"[Illustration: Title page]\n\n\n\n\n          Popular Amusements\n\n                BY\n\n         REV. J.T. CRANE, D.D.,\n\n      _Of the Newark Conference._\n\n         With an Introduction,\n\n               BY\n\n         BISHOP E.S. JANES.\n\n\"_For the Commandment is a Lamp; and the Light is Life; and Reproofs of\nInstruction are the Way of Life._\" PROVERBS VI, 23.\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n         _CINCINNATI_:\n     HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN.\n\n         _NEW YORK_:\n     CARLTON AND LANAHAN.\n\n           1869.\n\n\n\n\nEntered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by\n\nHITCHCOCK & WALDEN,\n\nIn the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the\nSouthern District of Ohio.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n      CONTENTS.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n      Subject one of Grave Interest--Rule of Discipline--Charles Wesley\n    and the Ministers--The True Ground--Our Destiny, and on what it\n    Depends--The Sentiment of the Methodist Episcopal Church--How a\n    Minister may seek Recreation--How a Layman--Recommendation, Page 9\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n      RECREATION A GOOD THING.\n\n      City full of Boys and Girls, playing--Play not wrong--Let the\n    Children, the Youth, the Mature, and even the Aged have their times\n    of Rest and Recreation--Laughter as pious as Tears--How shall we\n    Play?--The World wants to Play with the Church, and lead us in their\n    Path--Total Separation neither Desirable nor Possible--One or the\n    other must Yield--The Church can not--Conscience Resists--Principles\n    are in the way--The World can Yield and Lose Nothing--The World\n    ought to Yield, 17\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n      TRUE RECREATION.\n\n      What is the Aim of Recreation?--RULES THAT GOVERN: 1. Our\n    Recreations must not be Immoral; 2. Not Damaging to Christian\n    Reputation; 3. Must not Interfere with Our Duty; 4. Must not Injure\n    Health; 5. Must not Waste Money; 6. Must not Waste Time; 7. Ought to\n    Improve the Mind and the Heart; 8. Ought to Impart Pleasure, Page 31\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n      THE THEATER.\n\n      Said to be a Good Place to Learn History, etc.--Some Plays \"as\n    Good as Sermons\"--Doubts--Theater always a Haunt of Evil--Must be so\n    or Fail--The Theater that tried to be \"Respectable\"--Failure, and\n    the Causes of it--Strategy and Calculation--Who must be Pleased, and\n    how--Immodest Costume an Indispensable Attraction--Circular, and\n    Reply of Actress--Birds of Prey--Traps Game for them--The fable of\n    Satan and the Monk--Theater can not be Reformed--Cage of every\n    Unclean Bird--\"Come out of her, my people,\" 47\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n      HORSE-RACING.\n\n      Horse a Noble Beast, no doubt--Races prohibited by Civil\n    Law--Revived under new name--Agricultural Fair, and what may be seen\n    thereat--Ludicrous side of things--Twenty gawky Boys with their\n    Colts--Strange Man and Horse--Science--Victory--The Effect on gawky\n    Boys--Reasons against Horse-racing--Expense--Bets--Fraud--Riot--\n    Villainy of All Sorts--How the thing is done, and the People\n    cheated--Quotation from Thomas Hughes, M.P., Page 63\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n      BASE BALL.\n\n      The Ancient and Honorable Way--Latter-day Absurdities--\"Great\n    National Game\"--Clubs; how formed--Science--Professional Players and\n    their Salaries--Expenses--The Exotics challenge the Cupids--Game\n    described--Victory--Supper--Speeches--Glowing Account in\n    Papers--Pain-killers--Bubble must Burst--Decay--Reasons against the\n    Game as now conducted--Foolish Exhibition--Bets--Cheating--Waste of\n    Money--No Good Result of any sort, 77\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n      DANCING.\n\n      \"Dances not all alike\"--Bad and Worse--\"The German\"--Mere motion\n    not wrong--The Old Gentleman and his Exercises--Imaginary Scene in\n    \"Happy Family\"--REASONS AGAINST DANCING: 1. Lacks the Elements of\n    True Recreation; 2. Has a Bad Historic Name; 3. Inconsistent with\n    Piety; 4. Leads to Undesirable Associations--Evil in many ways, Page\n    89\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n      CARDS, CHESS, AND BILLIARDS.\n\n      Cards an Old Game--Origin, Asiatic--History--Horne Tooke and\n    George III--Author confesses his Want of Knowledge--Cards the\n    Gambler's Tools--Game adds nothing to Mind or Heart--Dangerous to\n    some--Betting--Reasons against Card-playing--CHESS also\n    Ancient--Origin--Play a Laborious Nothing--Wastes Time--Wastes\n    Brain-power--Hinders Mental Culture--BILLIARDS--Big Marbles--How\n    Played--Women can never become Experts, and Why--Poor Affair\n    generally, 105\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n      NOVELS AND NOVEL-READING.\n\n      Definition of a Novel--A Vice of the Age--FOUR MAXIMS: 1. No\n    Fiction if Little Leisure; 2. Only the Best; 3. Fiction to be but\n    Small Part; 4. If any Harm results, Stop at Once--SEVEN REASONS\n    AGAINST COMMON NOVEL-READING: 1. Wastes Time; 2. Injures the\n    Intellect; 3. Unfits for Real Life; 4. Creates Overgrowth of the\n    Passions; 5. Produces Mental Intoxication; 6. Lessens the Horror of\n    Crime and Wrong; 7. Wars with all Piety--Disciplinary Rule, 121\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n      SOCIAL GATHERINGS.\n\n      No List of Recreations Furnished, and Why--One Suggestion,\n    nevertheless--The Indolent have No Claim--The Busy need\n    Recreation--The Sedentary need Air and Sunbeams--The Active want\n    Books--The Solitary require Society--Talk the Universal\n    Recreation--Social Life--Grand \"Party\"--More Excellent Way\n    suggested--What the Fitzshoddies Think--Mrs. F.'s\n    Disappointment--Mr. F. Doubts--Miss F. Trembles--The Reform\n    Unpopular--The Author Despondent in regard to it, yet Firm in the\n    Faith, Page 153\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n      APPEAL TO THE YOUNG MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH.\n\n      Word of Exhortation--REASONS WHY WE SHOULD ABSTAIN FROM ALL\n    QUESTIONABLE DIVERSIONS: 1. Our Church has always Condemned them; 2.\n    Solemn Vows bind us; 3. Offenses disturb our Pastor and our\n    Fellow-Christians; 4. Our Errors injure the Unconverted; 5. Error\n    mars Usefulness; 6. Compromise Positions hard to hold, either in\n    Argument or Practice--Fight on the Right Line, 169\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n      APPEAL TO THE CHURCH.\n\n      Lafayette's Witty Illustration of Compromises--Mr. Bright's\n    Description of Fashionable Religion--Compromise bad, even as a\n    Policy--The World despises a Timid Church--Methodism has\n    Prospered--Our Laws strict--Folly to Come Down now--How the Worldly\n    Parson angled for an Accession and caught nothing--What Mr. B.\n    said--The exact Right is the strong Position--Hold it--Let others\n    Hive the Drones--Where other Churches Stand--Testimony of the\n    Presbyterians--The Methodist Episcopal Church South--Young Men's\n    Christian Association--The Roman Catholic Church--The End. Page 189\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThe subject of which this book treats--\"Popular Amusements\"--is one of\ngrave interest to the Church and to society in general. The Discipline\nof the Methodist Episcopal Church has always required its members and\nprobationers, as an evidence of religious earnestness, to refrain from\n\"such diversions as can not be used in the name of the Lord Jesus,\" and\nalso from \"singing those songs or reading those books which do not tend\nto the knowledge or love of God.\" In the following passages of Holy\nScripture, worldly amusements or pleasures are denounced by God: \"He\nthat loveth pleasure shall be a poor man.\" \"Therefore hear now this,\nthou that art given to pleasure, that dwellest carelessly.\" The\nconsequences referred to in this quotation are stated in the following\nverses of the chapter. Being \"lovers of pleasure more than lovers of\nGod,\" is classed by Timothy as one of the worst attributes of wicked\nmen. How terrible is this statement: \"But she that liveth in pleasure is\ndead while she liveth!\" Consider, also, this Scripture precept: \"And\nwhatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.\"\nIn view of these and like Scripture utterances, how is it possible to\nbelieve that exciting, dissipating, worldly amusements are compatible\nwith spiritual life or devotional enjoyment?\n\nThe experience of multitudes corresponds with these teachings of the\nDiscipline and the Bible. Take this instance. On one occasion Mr.\nCharles Wesley was warning the people against so-called \"harmless\ndiversions,\" and declared that by them he had been kept dead to God,\nasleep in the arms of Satan, and secure in a state of damnation for\neighteen years. There were three ministers present besides Mr. Wesley.\nMr. Meriton cried out, \"And I for twenty-five!\" \"And I,\" exclaimed Mr.\nThompson, \"for thirty-five!\" \"And I,\" added Mr. Bennett, \"for about\nseventy!\" These cases of Christian ministers suggest how general and how\nbaleful is the influence of these diversions.\n\nThis evil, perhaps, is not peculiar to any clime or age. Diversions,\nindeed, change with the times. The fashionable follies of the last\ncentury are now deemed matters of wonder and derision, just as the\nfollies of our day may be laughed at a hundred years hence. But\nworldliness, fashion, and frivolity are always at work inventing\nquestionable pleasures and ingenious arguments for their defense.\nPossibly it is unreasonable to expect but one opinion as to what is\nallowable in the way of recreation. As there are various degrees of\nknowledge and piety in the Church, and various degrees of\nconscientiousness among even those who do not profess religion, there\nwill be conflicting opinions on the subject, one condemning what another\ndefends, and each wondering at the scrupulousness or the laxity of his\nneighbor. On this, as on all other subjects, Christians should judge\neach other charitably, but by the Scripture standard.\n\nThis little volume takes what I believe to be the true ground in regard\nto the diversions discussed in it--the only ground which is defensible\nin theory and safe in practice. The Methodist Episcopal Church is strong\nin numbers, in wealth, and in social position. If we maintain the strict\nmorals and the deep spirituality--and they go together--which have\nhitherto been our aim, we shall be in the years to come, in the hands of\nGod, an instrumentality of unlimited power for good. If, on the other\nhand, we become weak in our belief and lax in discipline, the members of\nthe Church fashionable and frivolous, and the ministers doubtful and\nindefinite in doctrine, and feeble in utterance, we shall lose the\nposition we have held among the Churches of the Lord Jesus Christ, and\nGod will raise up another people to take our place and our crown. But we\ntrust in God we shall never, as a Church, be moved from our old\nfoundation in doctrines or in morals. Though worldliness and unbelief\nmay continue to assail her, yet the Church is strong in that power which\novercomes the world.\n\nRecently the advocates of popular amusements have been both bold and\ninsidious. They have used the pulpit, the press, and so-called\n\"Christian Associations\" to propagate their views. In some cases they\nrecommend what are considered the less objectionable diversions to\nprevent indulgence in the more objectionable ones--on the principle \"of\ntwo evils choose the less.\" But in morals the lesser evil always tends\nto introduce the greater. The proposition, therefore, is a most\nmischievous one. To those individuals among us who have been disturbed\nin their religious convictions on this question, by the deceptive pleas\nof those who defend or advocate worldly amusements, this book will be\nfound an effective helper. In it Dr. Crane speaks the sentiments of the\nMethodist Church. We believe the position we have hitherto held on this\nsubject is Scriptural and safe, and that, rigid as the world deems it,\nour disciplinary rule is wise and needful.\n\nThese fashionable diversions are not necessary for the health of the\nbody or mind, but are harmful to both. All the recreation that any\npious, sensible person needs is provided in the variety of his duties,\nand the many and ample sources of rational enjoyment. Does the studious,\nhardworking minister need recreation? Let him find it in turning from\nthe severe study of theology to biography, or poetry, or rhetoric, or\nlogic? Does he need a still greater change? Let him take up for the time\nbeing astronomy, or geology, or history. Does he need physical as well\nas mental relaxation and change? Certainly he can find them in his\npastoral work--in visiting the sick, in instructing childhood, in\nlooking after the general interests of the Church, in walking, or\nriding, or attending to the interests of his family, or enjoying their\nsociety. Surely, here is a vast realm in which he can find rest and\nrecreation both for soul and body, and grow wiser and better all the\nwhile. Does the layman of the Church need recreation as a relief from\nthe monotonous and exhausting labors and cares that come upon him daily?\nLet him find it in gardening, in cultivating flowers, in reading, in\nmusic, in Christian activities, in domestic offices and intercourse, in\nsocial visiting, in attending instructive lectures, in attending\ndevotional meetings. These are rational, spiritual, satisfying\nenjoyments. None but the weak, who think more of conformity to the world\nthan of conformity to Christ, hanker after any other.\n\nDr. Crane has treated this subject clearly, Methodistically, and\nScripturally. The book is a timely and useful addition to the literature\nof the Church. I trust the publishers will put it in an attractive form,\nand that it will have an extensive circulation, do good to many souls,\nand bring much glory to God.\n\n     [4.15] E.S. JANES.\n\n     NEW YORK, _June 24, 1869_.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nPOPULAR AMUSEMENTS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nRECREATION A GOOD THING.\n\n     \"_And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls,\n     playing in the streets thereof._\" Zech. viii, 5.\n\n\nThe prophet thus, as with a single stroke of his pencil, paints a\nbeautiful picture of peace, plenty, and public security. In times of\nriot and wild disorder, the children are kept within doors, that they\nmay be out of the way of harm. In time of war, children may be seen in\nthe streets of the city; but they are there clinging in terror to the\nhands of their parents, and surrounded by the confusion and alarm of a\npopulation flying from the foe. When famine reigns, a few children may\nbe found in the streets; but they are the wan, emaciated victims of\nhunger, who wander from their desolate homes to beg, with tears and\noutstretched hands, for bread. If the war or the famine continue its\nravages, the number of children steadily decreases. In seasons of public\ncalamity, little children die, as the tender blossoms of Spring perish\nbeneath the volleys of untimely hail. In the prophetic picture,\ntherefore, the numbers of the children, their merry sports, and the\npublic places where they are playing, all give token of the safety and\nprosperity of a people whom the Lord protects and blesses.\n\nBut if this be so, it can not be wrong for boys and girls to play. A\ndoubt upon this point would mar the representation and destroy the force\nof the imagery. No, let the children play--not, indeed, without limit;\nnot to the neglect of study, nor of such useful labor as they ought to\nperform; not in modes that transgress Divine law, nor in the company of\nthose who will teach them corrupt language and evil deeds: still, let\nthe children play. Let them leap, and laugh, and shout. Let them have\ntheir playthings and their pets. Let them not fear the sun nor the winds\nof heaven, though their cheeks ripen like peaches in the light and the\nheat, and though faces and garments occasionally show that man still\nretains an affinity for the dust whence he was originally taken.\n\nLet the youth have their seasons of recreation. Their amusements,\nindeed, ought to be of a higher intellectual type than those of little\nchildren. Nevertheless, amusements are still lawful and expedient. Let\nthere be times when the student shall lay aside the book, and the clerk,\nthe apprentice, and the farmer's boys and girls forget their work. Let\nthe youth, rich or poor, humble or exalted, at home beneath the parental\nroof, or in the employ or under the care of strangers, have their\nperiods of rest and recreation. And if the time and the mode are wisely\nchosen, there will be no loss but a real gain to all concerned. The\nstudent will return to the lesson with a better courage and a clearer\nbrain, and the fingers which are busy with the affairs of the house, the\noffice, the shop, or the field will ply their task more nimbly.\n\nLet middle life, too, immersed, as it is, in the cares and toils of\nthis busy existence, have its hours of leisure and freedom. Brain and\nmuscles both need rest, and the burden will feel the lighter for being\noccasionally laid aside. Industry is indeed a virtue. Let every man,\nwoman, and child have something useful to do, and do it. I would not,\nfor one moment even, seem to defend idleness, or apologize for the\nfollies of the aimless devotee of shallow pleasures; yet I am persuaded\nthat not a few of our most valued workers in fields of lofty usefulness\nwould find their heads growing gray less rapidly if they could be\ninduced to take an occasional rest.\n\nAnd let the aged, also, have their recreations. It is not unbecoming\nfor them to devote an hour, now and then, to the quiet pleasures which\nsmooth the brow and wreathe the lip with smiles. In itself it is just as\npious to laugh as to weep, and there are a great many cases where it is\nwiser and better to laugh. For the old and the young there are social\nenjoyments and recreations which brighten the passing moments and leave\nno shadow behind them; which send us back to the graver employments of\nlife with a lighter heart and stronger frame. Travelers sometimes tell\nus that of all the nations of the earth the Americans have the fewest\npublic holidays. This, if true, is not much to be regretted. A public\nholiday is very apt to be a public nuisance, disturbing the peace of\nquiet people, and multiplying temptations for the young and the\nthoughtless. If there are anniversaries and days of patriotic uproar, to\nwhich gunpowder and alcohol alone can do justice, it must be confessed\nthat the multiplication of them is not desirable. Moreover, if custom\nfails to prescribe times and modes of recreation, it leaves families and\nsocieties the freer to choose for themselves.\n\nBut on what principle are we to choose our recreations? Are we at\nliberty to follow the multitude, inquiring, not for the best reason, but\nthe latest fashion? No intelligent Christian will fail to see that he\nmust be as conscientious in his play as in his work. Ever applicable,\never authoritative, the divine deposition of the unchanging principles\nof justice, safety, and right, the holy law is designed for all hours of\nthe individual life, even as it is designed for all ages of the world.\n\nThe question of amusements for religious people is one of the great\nproblems of the day. The very successes of the Gospel in our own land\nhave brought upon the Church perils which were unknown in the ages when\nthe victories of the truth were less decisive. In the Apostolic age,\nwhen the world was heathen, and God's people a little flock in the midst\nof their enemies, every man and woman was either Christian or pagan, one\nthing or the other; the Church and the world were separated by a chasm\nwide and deep, and the only feelings common to both parties were\ndistrust and aversion. Again: not very many years ago, in our own\ncommunity, there were few young people to be found among the members of\nthe various Churches. The gay multitude pursued their pleasures with a\nreckless extravagance and a giddy disregard of the realities of life\nwhich alarmed the sober-minded, and effectually repelled the\nconscientious. The Church marched in order of battle, all eyes looking\nfor the foe, and all weapons bared for conflict. The world, not always\nin the humor for direct attack, went on its own way, strong in the\nfancied strength of numbers, and sometimes tried to laugh, and sometimes\naffected to sneer at the scruples of the pious. Each was a compact\nforce, openly wearing its own uniform and arraying itself under its own\nbanner. The antagonism was universally recognized and felt.\n\nBut in our own times, and in most sections of our land, the truth has\nconquered. The world no longer carries on a fierce and open war against\nthe religion of the Bible. The Church possesses so much worth,\nintelligence, wealth, and social power, that the worldly part of the\ncommunity feel that it would not be wise for them to try to keep aloof\nfrom the pious and set up for themselves. On the contrary, the world\ndeems it policy to nestle close up to the Church, and in many cases it\nconducts itself so respectably, and is so correct in outward seeming,\nthat it takes a sharp eye to distinguish the one from the other. Not\nsetting itself in array against the truth, but rather avowing a sort of\ntheoretic belief of it, the world, after all, is unchanged. Its eyes are\nblind, its heart is hard, and its aims and motives are \"of the earth\nearthy.\" It wishes to walk by the side of the Church, and hand in hand\nwith it, but with steady pressure it draws in the direction of lax\nmorality. Not having received the heavenly anointing, it fails to see\nhow \"exceeding broad\" the Divine Law is. It is constantly pleading for a\nlarger license, a wider range of sensuous enjoyments than is consistent\nwith the true piety which transforms and saves. Thus it clings to the\nChurch, arguing, inviting, urging; and wherever to its own dull vision\nthe path ceases to be clear, it sweeps off swiftly and invariably into\nthe realms of darkness and danger.\n\nAnd the Church, too, is not in haste to separate itself wholly from\nthe large class found just outside the line of strict religious\nprofession. We admire their intelligence and amiability, their many\nworthy traits of character and conduct. Their companionship is pleasant,\nand we would like to retain it, and, therefore, we are strongly tempted,\nfor the sake of it, to make concessions on the various moral questions\nin debate between us and them. Another influence is silently and yet\npowerfully at work. Unless we consent that they shall marry in the\nChinese style--without having previously exchanged a word or even seen\neach other's faces--our young people must have opportunities to get\nacquainted and form attachments. In making their selections they like to\ntake a wide range of observation. A deal of skirmishing generally\nprecedes the final conquest. The young Church-member does not feel\ninclined to refuse the acquaintance of moral, intelligent, agreeable\nyoung people simply on the ground that they are not professors of\nreligion. The young people of the world see that if they do not keep\nnear the Church they cut themselves off from the best portions of\nsociety. Without violence no rigid lines of social separation can be\ndrawn between the Church and the general community. The two parties hold\nto each other, each inviting, pleading, trying to draw the other in its\nown direction, in the path of its own principles and tendencies. The one\nis ready to yield all that can be conceded without an abandonment of\ntruth and duty; the other, like Herod under the influence of John's\npreaching, fears, and listens, and does \"many things.\"\n\nNor is it clear that utter separation is desirable. We can be\ninstrumental in saving only those who are within our reach. How shall we\nbring others within the range of our influence, and at the same time\nkeep wholly beyond the range of theirs? How shall we lift up others and\nyet not feel their weight? If we drive from us all who have failed thus\nfar to come up to our standard, we lessen the area of our usefulness--we\nthrow away precious opportunities to do good. The Church, if faithful,\nis not imperiled by this antagonism of moral forces. It must show itself\nthe more powerful of the two, and \"overcome the world.\" Surely, if truth\nis strong, if fixed principles of action furnish a solid fulcrum on\nwhich to place our levers, we ought to move the world, and not the world\nus.\n\nIt follows, therefore, that if the young members of the Church, and the\nyoung people just outside the line of religious profession, are to unite\nin social gatherings and recreations, duty demands that we stand firm,\nwhile courtesy and reason, to say nothing of still higher motives,\nrequire that others yield. No labored argument is needed to show this.\nThe lover of frivolous pleasures can not plead that religious\nconvictions impel him to his follies. When youthful Christians fear and\nresist, saying, \"Conscience forbids,\" he can not reply, \"_My_ conscience\ncommands.\" When the Christian remonstrates, saying, \"To do this might\nimperil my soul,\" the other can not answer, \"_Not_ to do it would\nimperil mine.\" The worldly can only plead that they see no evil where\nothers see it, and that they are ready to venture where others fear to\ngo. Thus they virtually confess that they are dull in vision and hard in\nheart.\n\nAnd so we can not come down to the level to which they would invite us.\nIf they desire us to meet on common ground, we must be permitted to\nselect the place. If we yield to them, we sacrifice our principles and\nour peace. If they yield to us, they lose, at the utmost, only a little\ntemporary pleasure. Let the worldly and the gay, therefore, say no more\nabout our Puritanic notions. They see, and ought to confess, that almost\nof necessity they tend to place the standard of morals too low, and that\nwhen the Church and the world differ in regard to what is allowable and\nright, there are a thousand chances to one that the Church is right and\nthe world is wrong. If the religion of Christ laid no restrictions on us\nwhich the trifling mind and the unrenewed heart felt to be unwelcome, or\neven burdensome, we might well suspect that it was the invention of men.\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTRUE RECREATION.\n\n     \"_And let them measure the pattern._\" Ezekiel xliii, 10.\n\n\nWhat amusements, then, are rational and allowable? and to what extent\nmay we indulge in them? We desire, before we discuss specific modes of\nrecreation, to lay down certain general principles, and indicate what we\nbelieve to be the true method of reasoning on the subject, so that the\nreader, keeping these in mind, will see why we approve or condemn\nhereafter, even when, for the sake of brevity, the conclusion is given\nin few words.\n\nFirst of all, then, we inquire, What is the true design of recreation?\nThe mere pleasure of the hour is certainly not the sole object at which\nwe should aim, regardless of all other considerations. A degree of\nenjoyment may be desirable; and yet the temporary pleasure is not all.\nThe true idea of rational recreation is expressed in the very name. The\naim is to renew, restore, create again. It is to lay aside the more\nserious avocations of life for a brief space, that we may resume them\nwith new vigor. It is to make a little truce with toil and care, that we\nmay return to the battle with stouter hearts and keener weapons. We\nrest, that we may be the better prepared for work. Rational recreation\nnever loses sight of duty. It teaches us to seek, now and then, a little\nleisure, that we may be able to labor the harder and the longer; to be\ngay and merry, only that we may be the more susceptible, in its time, of\nall solemn, holy emotion. Recreation, in the true sense of the term, is\nnot only free from evil, but it is full of good intents, aiming, above\nall, to aid us in the great concerns which look beyond the horizon of\nthe present life. We shake off care, but not conscience. We do not lay\naside the service of God and take a day to ourselves, but strive to win\nthe benediction pronounced upon \"the man that feareth always.\"\n\nTo make the discussion as practical as possible, we name eight different\npoints of view from which we may consider any diversion proposed to us:\n\n1. _Our recreations should be innocent in themselves._\n\nCompared with eternal interests, present enjoyment is as dust in the\nbalance. However exhilarating or beneficial to health the advocates of\nany amusement may claim that their favorite diversion is, if there be an\nelement of wrong in it, it must be condemned without hesitation or\nreserve. If it involves any transgression of Divine law; if it leads us\nto disregard the welfare of our fellow; if the pleasure is purchased by\npain wantonly inflicted upon man, or beast, or bird, or insect; if it\ntends to render us frivolous or reckless, or in any way leaves us\nfarther from God and heaven, less conscientious, less devotional, less\ntender in heart, less active and earnest in all good works, we must\ncondemn it, no matter how fascinating it may be, no matter what may be\nthe numbers or the social position of those who favor it. Of all the\npoor excuses for sin, one of the poorest and meanest is the plea that we\ntrampled on the law of God and defied his justice for the sake of\namusement.\n\n2. _Our recreations must never be suffered to lessen our influence as\nfollowers of Christ._\n\nA good name is an element of strength. Unless those around us have\nconfidence in our sincerity, we are shorn of our moral power. No matter\nhow clear our integrity may be in our own eyes, if we fail to convince\nthe world of it; if we seem to be less careful of obligation, less\nmindful of the right than Christians should be, there will be a cloud of\ndistrust hovering about us wherever we are, and we will find ourselves\nshut out of some of the noblest fields of effort. The world watches our\nrecreations as well as our more weighty employments. We need not,\nindeed, be governed always by the reproaches of the censorious and the\ncomplaints of the morose; still, it is never safe to be indifferent to\npopular opinion. Even where we discover no evident wrong, we should not,\nfor the sake of mere momentary pleasure, give ourselves to any pursuit\nwhich bears a specious name or is surrounded by doubtful associations.\nEven in Christian communities public opinion does not tend to be\nfanatically rigid, and we may be sure that what it condemns we will find\nit safe to avoid.\n\nNor should our recreations ever be of such a character as to wound our\nfellow-Christians. It is true, you need not always be controlled by the\nviews of this or that member of the Church, who, perhaps, does not\nabound in the intelligence and wisdom which give weight to opinion. But\nwhat does your pastor think? If you and he differ, who is probably\nright? Look about you. See who they are in your community who are\nuniversally acknowledged as the real disciples of Christ, by whose\naggregate good name the Church stands in reputation. What do they think?\nWhere they doubt, you may well hesitate. Even if they should seem\nneedlessly scrupulous, you may be sure of one thing--you will not find\nit dangerous to follow their counsel.\n\nAnd you have no right to treat their admonitions with indifference. You\ncan not, without peril, go counter to their views of duty. Whatever may\nbe the abstract right or wrong of the thing in question, this evil\neffect, at least, will follow your rejection of their advice: you will\nseparate yourselves from your pious exemplars and guides; the chasm,\nhowever narrow at first, will widen with time; the society of your\nfellow-Christians will lose its charm; the social forces which helped,\nmore than you are aware of, to hold you to your duty will lose their\npower; the Tempter will excite in your heart now anger at others, now\ndoubts of yourself, and the process, unless arrested, will end in\nspiritual wreck and ruin.\n\n3. _Our recreations should never be so chosen or so pursued as to\ninterfere with the full and faithful performance of the sober duties of\nlife._\n\nChildhood and youth are not, as some fancy, a period of mere waiting, a\nsort of play spell before school begins. In regard to the success of\nafter life, it is the hour of precious opportunities which come but\nonce. It is the foundation upon which the whole future edifice is to\nrest.\n\nIf a child should never learn the things which an infant one year old\nusually knows, he would grow up in a state of idiocy. In their very\nplays, as we term them, children investigate the properties of matter,\nacquire ease and skill in managing the bones and muscles of their own\nframes, and learn the contents of the great world, which is all so new\nto them. Youth has its work, and all after excellence is connected with\nthe industry and care with which that work is done. The mind is to be\ncultured, the reason exercised, the fancy curbed, the memory stored with\ntreasure, the whole intellect disciplined and prepared for continuous,\npatient labor. In youth the avocation is to be chosen, the great\nproblems of time and eternity revolved, and the solemn journey begun. He\nthat would be wise must not dream away the golden hours in empty visions\nof what he would like to be, but rouse himself and prepare to encounter\nsoberly the great duties before him. He has not a moment to lose. He\nmust look and listen, read and remember; he must reflect, and reason,\nand judge; he must will and do wisely and well, and every day gather\nstrength for other days to come.\n\nIf, therefore, diversions are of such a nature, or are so pursued as to\ninduce an idle, dreamy, inconstant frame of mind, making it an annoyance\nand a burden to be summoned to real work in careful thinking or patient\ndoing, a resolute grapple with the plain responsibilities of ordinary\nlife, something is wrong. When the imagination has outgrown the\njudgment, and the mind revolts at reality and delights to dwell in the\nrealms of fancy, building destinies out of airy nothing, we can see\nforeshadowed, as we look into the future, only bitter disappointment and\nfailure.\n\n4. _Our recreations must promote health._\n\nHealth is the material of which efficient life is made. They who\nsquander it cut short the day which God assigned them, cloud it with\nweakness and pain, and lessen the practical results of living. To do\nthis willfully, deliberately, in the chase after mere pleasure, is not a\nsmall sin. Our Creator requires of us the wise and faithful use of the\nvarious elements of activity and power with which he has endowed us. If,\nthen, the hours spent in what we call diversion be followed by\nexhaustion; if the evening of mirth be succeeded by a day in which the\nbrow is clouded, the frame languid, the mind irritable, the whole being\ndisordered, there has been something wrong, either in the nature of the\namusement or the manner in which it was pursued. To be well and strong,\nif we may, is our duty. Our recreations should not lessen but increase\nour power to will and to do. They are designed to sharpen the tools with\nwhich we work, and if the process which we adopt mars the blade our\nmethods are bad. The value of the mode is to be estimated not merely by\nthe present pleasure, but by the power, gained by it. If the mower in\nthe meadow is enchanted with the rattling, ringing music which\naccompanies the whetting of the scythe, but at each repetition finds the\nedge duller than before, till finally he can not cut the grass at all,\nhe might as well be standing among those whom \"no man hath hired.\"\n\n5. _Our recreations should not be unduly expensive._\n\nMoney is power. It may be made to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.\nIt may be employed in teaching the ignorant and reclaiming those that\nwander. It plays an important part in all good works. He that squanders\nmoney throws away the ability to do good. He \"wastes his Lord's\nsubstance.\" In Christ's description of the day of Judgment, the stress\nis laid, not upon names, professions, and beliefs, but the tangible\nfruits of piety. We must beware, therefore, lest our self-indulgences\ntax our purse too heavily, and leave too little for good deeds. The hour\nis not far distant when the memory of one kind act will be to us the\nsource of more pleasure than the recollection of all the selfish joys of\na life-time. It is to be feared that some professors of religion, who\nlack neither opportunities nor means to do much, will make rather a poor\nshowing at the last great day.\n\n6. _Recreation should never lose sight of the value of time._\n\nTime is one of God's most precious gifts. It is the material of which\nlife is made, the field in which eternal destinies germinate, the Summer\nin which divine things grow. We have no more right to lay plans to \"kill\ntime\" than to kill ourselves. The suicide rebels against the duties\nassigned him by Providence, deserts his post, and throws from him the\nyears otherwise allotted him. The aimless, idle soul, without a purpose\nor a plan, whom no incentive can stir, and to whom life is a weariness,\nbecause there seems nothing for which to live, commits a daily suicide.\nWealth is no excuse for uselessness. When children play all their lives\nbecause their fathers worked hard from youth to old age, they take\nrather a doubtful way to honor their parents. If a man has no sober aim\nin life, no worthy object for which he is stirring, God will not hold\nhim guiltless. Genuine recreation harmonizes with all high and holy\nenterprise. It does not make us drones, living upon the stores which the\nworking bees of the hive have accumulated, but teaches us, like the son\nof Saul, weary and faint in the rapid pursuit of the foes of Israel, to\nstop for a moment to taste the honey dripping in the forest, that our\n\"eyes may brighten,\" and we press on with swifter feet. Genuine\nrecreation wastes no time, but, on the contrary, treasures up the golden\nmoments with a miser's care. Diversions indulged in beyond measure\ncease, therefore, to be recreations, and become a criminal waste of\nGod's precious gift.\n\n7. _Our recreations ought to improve the mind._\n\nThey should not, indeed, burden the mental powers; nevertheless, they\nought not to be childish and without meaning. There should always be\nenough of thought involved to keep the mind pleasantly and not\nunprofitably occupied. For this reason recreation is best pursued not\nalone, but socially. Cheerful, intelligent conversation is itself one of\nthe best of recreations. The heart is improved, the mind is roused into\nnew vigor and fruitfulness, the thoughts are wrested away from toil and\ncare, and smiles break through the gloom like sunshine bursting through\nthe rifted clouds.\n\n8. _Our recreations should be productive of genuine enjoyment._\n\nThe very idea of recreation includes that of pleasure. If it leaves us\nsad or dull it fails of its true aim. It ought to make the eye bright\nand the cheek glow. It should have an affinity for smiles, and pleasant\nwords, and mirthful thoughts which glance like the play of the northern\nAurora when the night is cloudless. It should leave memories in which\nthere is no tinge of shame or regret. We attach importance to the\ninnocent pleasure of the moment, because the benefit is derived in no\nsmall degree from the mind's release from its burdens. A company of\nschool-girls, silent and prim, taking their daily march with the\nmechanical accuracy of soldiers, lose half the value of the air and\nexercise. The merchant gains little who goes on a solitary fishing\nexcursion, and sits gazing at vacancy, with his brain full of invoices\nand sales, units and tens, while the fish run away with his line. Let\nthe young and the old seek suitable recreation and enjoy it, in a\ngenial, happy, mirthful spirit. Innocent mirth is neither unchristian\nnor undignified. If a man can not laugh, there is something the matter\nwith him. Either his morals or his liver is disordered. He needs either\nrepentance or pills. Some of earth's greatest and purest men have been\nnoted for their mirthful tendencies. Socrates often amused himself in\nplay with children. Luther loved dogs, and birds, and wit, and laughter,\nand by his rousing peals kept his lungs in good order for his\ntheological wars. Thomas Walsh, one of the best, but not the most\nhilarious of men, complained that John Wesley's wit and humor made him\nlaugh more than his conscience approved; but Mr. Walsh died in his\nyouth, while Mr. Wesley filled up the measure of eighty-eight busy,\nhappy years.\n\nThese are some of the principles which underlie the subject before us.\nIt now remains to apply these principles to specific plans and methods\nof recreation. In the scales thus constructed let us proceed to weigh\nthe various diversions and amusements which claim our suffrages. We will\nlook first at the more public and pretentious of these candidates for\nour approval.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE THEATER.\n\n     \"_Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?_\"\n     Prov. vii, 27.\n\n\nThe theater has its apologists and advocates. It is said to be a good\nplace to learn history, human nature, and all that. Some plays are\ndeclared to be \"as good as a sermon.\" Assuming this to be true, it might\nnot be out of place to inquire how often these good plays are performed,\nand how they \"draw\". What proportion does this good sort bear to the\ngeneral mass of plays nightly set before the public? Questions multiply\nas we consider the subject. If plays are as good as sermons, how happens\nit that, as a rule, those who admire plays have no love for sermons?\nMoreover, if the theater is a preacher of righteousness, or essays to be\nsuch, where are the \"gifts, grace, and usefulness\" which are the\nevidences of its call to the good work? There may be no special lack of\na certain kind of gifts, but where is the grace? Does it adorn the\ncharacter and conduct of the performers? Unless these as a class have\nbeen grievously slandered for two thousand years, we must look\nelsewhere. And where is the proof of moral and religious usefulness? It\nhas no existence. The fact is, to plead for the theater on the ground\nthat its moral influence is good, is to act a bigger farce than was ever\nput upon the stage. When a young man, who has been religiously trained,\nbegins to frequent the theater, quiet observers see that he has taken\nthe first step of a downward course; and if connected with him in\nbusiness relations, or otherwise, they govern themselves accordingly.\nWhen a young man, whose reputation has suffered by his wild and reckless\nconduct, ceases to attend the play and begins to attend Church, his true\nfriends begin to have hope in regard to him. All who have in any degree\nlooked into the matter, know that the disreputable and the vile shun the\nChurch, and crowd to the theater, while many who are plying foul trades\ndepend upon the play-house, not only to bring the victim within their\nreach, but to undermine his virtue, lull his caution to sleep, and\nprepare him to fall in the net spread for him. Build a theater where you\nwill, and straightway drinking saloons, gambling dens, and brothels\nspring up all about it and flourish under its shadow. All manner of\nvice, and villainy, and shame grows green and rank in the polluted soil\nwhich it creates.\n\nSome years ago, the owners of a certain theater in one of our great\ncities, resolving to conduct it in a \"respectable\" way, attempted to\nshut out, as far as practicable, all whose vocation was infamous. This\nthey thought would be easily effected by refusing admittance to every\n\"lady not accompanied by a gentleman.\" This simple measure accomplished\nall that was expected of it, and a great deal more. The class aimed at\nwere indeed excluded; but, alas for the proprietors! the consequent loss\nof patronage was so great that the establishment no longer paid current\nexpenses, and the owners found themselves compelled either to close\ntheir doors altogether or open them to the cattle that herd in the upper\ngalleries. The fact is plain to all who are willing to see, that the\ntheater thrives by the vice and crime of the community. It is a buzzard\nthat lives on carrion. To succeed it must be content to be the\nhunting-ground where infamy shall snare its victims, and lead them \"as\nan ox to the slaughter.\" More than this, the performances and the whole\narrangement must be adapted to the low moral level of an audience\ngathered up from the particular quarters where alone patrons can be\nfound in sufficient numbers to make the play-house a paying institution.\nA successful theater must be on good terms with the grogshop and the\nbrothel.\n\nThe whole thing is one of strategy and calculation. As the skillful\nangler puts on his hooks the bait at which the fish will bite most\neagerly--no matter what it is, worm or bug, or artificial fly--so the\ncrafty manager of a theater surveys society, and considers what plays,\nwhat style of acting, what style of dress among the actors and actresses\nwill most surely attract the crowd. He is aware that the really\nreligious portion of the community regard the Church and the theater as\nantagonists, and look upon him as one who is laboring to undo all that\nthey are trying to accomplish. He knows that many people of culture and\nhigh social position regard his profession as dishonorable and\ndegrading. These classes he leaves out of his calculation, because they\nare beyond his reach. But a great multitude remain, composed, in part,\nof the young and the heedless, fond of noise, and show, and excitement,\nand in part of the corrupt and the vile, the hungry beasts and birds of\nprey, who want victims. Among these he must find his patrons and his\nprofits. In aiming to gather them into his fold, he must gratify their\npeculiar taste. He knows that he can please them only by keeping them\nwell pleased with themselves. Will he do this by means of plays which,\nfrom the first line to the last, brand vice as infamous, and exalt\nvirtue and honor? He knows his calling better. The people who compose\nhis audiences do not come to the theater to be made ashamed of\nthemselves. They would not listen to such a play, but would go out of\nthe house, in the midst of the performances, angrily muttering that when\nthey want a sermon they will go to the Church for it. The manager must\nset forth more savory viands. He must address himself to empty minds and\ncater to animal passions. He that undertakes to feed a flock of crows\nneed not provide either the manna of the Scripture or the nectar and\nambrosia of which classic fable tells.\n\nAs the calculations of an almanac are made for the particular latitude\nwhere it is expected to sell, so all the arrangements and appliances of\nthe theater are carefully adapted to those classes of society which are\nlow both in intelligence and in morals. Tragedy, to be popular, must not\nonly deal in crime, but in loathsome, nauseous crime. Popular comedy\nmust ridicule religion, and show how much better acute and crafty\nvillainy is than simple truth and innocence. Immodesty is one of the\nattractions relied upon to draw the brutal herd. The female performers\non the stage must expose their persons in a style which would be branded\nas grossly indecent anywhere else. Let a fact be stated in illustration.\nOne of the high officers of the municipal government of London recently\nissued a circular, addressed to the proprietors and managers of the\nvarious theaters, remonstrating against the indecent costumes of the\nstage, and urging reform. What the effect of the appeal was upon the\nparties addressed does not appear; but an actress replied, in one of the\npublic journals, declaring that she is aware of all that the circular\nasserts, but affirming that she and all the female performers are\npowerless in the case, the managers demanding the immodest costume as\none of the necessities of the drama.\n\nIt is not probable that the British stage is more corrupting and\nimmoral than the American. There is not a city on the face of the globe\nwhere the theater can live unless it goes down into depths of infamy,\nand becomes the panderer of all vice and shame. It is true that a few,\nwhom the world calls moral and respectable, are sometimes found at the\nplay-house, but they are so few that play-writers and stage managers,\nhaving an eye to the financial receipts and successes, look in other\ndirections, and graduate the plot, and the sentiments, and the scenes,\nand, above all, the costume of the performers, for a lower moral level.\nNot seldom is the play itself a weak, unmeaning thing, which is intended\nto serve merely as a pretext for the shameless exhibitions deemed\nnecessary in order to fill the house.\n\nThe theater will never be reformed. The truly refined despise it, the\nwise and the good abhor it. It must find its support among the\nthoughtless, the ignorant, and the vicious. It must be indecent or die.\n\nAnd so it comes to this: immodesty is a part of the stock in trade of\nthe play-house. There must be indecent exposure, else the foul crew that\nfrequent the theater, and upon whose patronage it lives, will care\nnothing for its performances. In vain is the genius of poets and\nauthors! In vain are all the tinsel glories of the show! Even the play\nwhich is \"as good as a sermon\" will be a failure, and its lofty periods\nbe declaimed to an empty house, unless modesty and honor are sacrificed\nto gratify the lowest passions of the most debased of human kind. Where\ndid any evil invention of man ever bear upon its front the stamp of\ninfamy in plainer, deeper lines?\n\nWhy, then, should those who believe in virtue sustain, or help to\nsustain, that which can not exist at all except in alliance with vice\nand shame? How can those who believe in God and love his cause aid this\nengine of the devil? Do they know how valuable their help is, and at\nwhat a price the engineers are willing to purchase even their silence?\nWhen the infamous classes of society find themselves the only occupants\nof the theater, they will be apt to abandon it. It will not then serve\ntheir purpose. Rats can not live in an empty barn. Thieves can not live\nby robbing each other. The seller of alcohol can not prosper long by\nselling to the same set of customers. As soon as the drunkard has lost\nall, his very presence becomes hateful to the man who has ruined him. A\nwhisky-shop resembles a college, in that it needs a class of freshmen to\nreplace every class that graduate. And so with all forms of vice; they\nneed a constant supply of new victims. When one set of unfortunates have\nbeen picked to the bone others must be had.\n\nAnd thus the theater is a valuable auxiliary to certain characters,\nseeing that it brings their prey within their reach. How, then, can a\nChristian hesitate one moment in regard to duty? By what blindness, by\nwhat mode of self-delusion, can virtuous women be induced to patronize\nan institution which lives on the ruins of virtue? How can they sit\namong the spectators, and look upon wanton exhibitions and shameless\nexposures of person, such as would anywhere else crimson every modest\ncheek with shame or redden it with the consciousness of insult? How can\nthey sit among the crowd, while eager eyes are looking down wolfishly\nupon the brother, the lover, or the husband who sits by their side, and\nfoul hearts are wondering whether he ever comes to this place alone, and\nwhether he is beyond the reach of their subtle arts? How can virtuous\nwomen consent ever to set foot within the walls of a theater, when they\nknow that the very air is thick with infamy and death, and when every\none who sees them there knows that they know it?\n\nThere is an old story to this effect: An angel, flying on some errand\nof mercy, met Satan, who was dragging away a monk, clad in full\ncanonicals. The angel stopped the adversary, and demanded the release of\nthe prisoner, saying that his very robes showed that he was a holy man,\nto whom Satan could have no claim. \"But he is mine,\" was the emphatic\nreply. \"I found him on my premises; I caught him at the theater!\"\n\nEven heathen moralists and philosophers have condemned the stage as\ntending to corrupt public morals. This was the ground taken by Plato,\nSeneca, and Cicero, two thousand years ago. The early Christian writers,\nthe fathers of the Church, denounced the theater. It is safe to say that\nthe piety and intelligence of the Church have always condemned it. John\nWesley, the founder of our Church, gave his judgment in no equivocal\nterms: \"The present stage entertainments not only sap the foundation of\nall religion, but tend to drinking and debauchery of every kind, which\nare constant attendants on these entertainments.\"\n\nTruly, the play-house is no place for a follower of Christ. Like the\nBabylon of the Revelator, it is \"_the hold of every foul spirit,_ _and a\ncage of every unclean and hateful bird_.\" And so we add the warning\nuttered by \"_another voice from heaven,\" \"Come out of her, my people,\nthat ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her\nplagues_.\"\n\nEven if the plays could be so far reformed as not directly to cater to\nthe vicious and the corrupt; if the foul birds of prey that perch aloft\ncould be driven from the nests which they have occupied so long, still\nthe theater would not be a good place of resort for those who feel that\nthey possess immortal souls. The late hours, the expense of time and\nmoney, the character of the general audience, and the insensible and yet\npowerful effect of contact with them; the premature development and\novergrowth of the passions, the distaste created for the quiet pleasures\nwhich are safest and best for soul and body, the rapidity with which the\nlove of noise, show, and excitement becomes an overmastering passion,\ntoo strong to be controlled by duty, conscience, parental authority, or\nparental remonstrances and tears, conspire to render attendance at the\ntheater ruinous to many and dangerous to all. Let no Christian go to the\nplay-house even once. If the patronage of those who go but once, \"just\nto see how it looks,\" could be wholly withdrawn, all the theaters would\nfeel the loss, and some would be compelled to close their doors. Why\nshould you make even one contribution to keep in motion the remorseless\njaws which have devoured so many victims? Why should you lend your\nexample, even once, to encourage the inconsiderate and the inexperienced\nto form the habit of attending the theater? Why consent to act, even\nonce, as decoy duck, to lure many, it may be, to their destruction?\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nHORSE-RACING.\n\n     \"_And so shall be the plague of the horse._\" Zech. xiv, 15.\n\n\nThe horse is, doubtless, a noble beast; but, by some strange fatality,\nall sorts of thieves and cheats gather round him while living, as do the\nhungry crows when he is dead. Horse-racing may claim a place among\npopular amusements, since there is probably nothing, except an\nexecution, more certain to attract a crowd. In many of the States of the\nUnion horse-racing has been prohibited by law, because of the numberless\nevils connected with it, and the total absence of good. Within a few\nyears, however, the thing has been revived under another name. State and\ncounty fairs are now held for the encouragement of agriculture, and\nspecimens of various farm products are exhibited to edify the novice and\nquicken the zeal of the ambitious cultivator. Horses, of course, form a\nprominent feature of these exhibitions. But a horse can only be half\nseen till he is seen in motion, and so little \"trials of speed,\" as they\nwere delicately termed, were given just to add a little interest to the\nshow. These trials of speed usurped more and more time and space, until\nthey have in many cases swallowed up every thing else, and brought back\nthe old-style horse-race, with its crowds, excitement, villainy, and\nvice of every kind, and, in fact, every thing but the name. An\n\"Agricultural Fair\" now means a plow, a pumpkin, a pig, and two hundred\nand fifty trotting horses. These fairs are almost invariably conducted\nwith especial reference to the racing, and not unfrequently are\nengineered wholly by the jockeys themselves.\n\nIt will hardly do for us to adopt the sneering philosophy of\nDemocritus, and find nothing but matter of merriment in the sins and\nfollies of our fellow-men; nevertheless, these annual country gatherings\nhave a comic side which one must be very blind not to see. The first\nnote of preparation is the posting of immense placards, printed in as\nmany colors as ever Joseph's coat knew, and offering premiums--ten cents\nfor the best plow, five cents for the biggest pumpkin, twenty cents for\nthe fattest pig, and one thousand dollars for the horse that can trot\naround a certain circle in the shortest time. Every gawky boy who\nrejoices in the possession of a long-legged colt, reads the flaming\nproclamation with delight, and straightway redoubles his diligence in\ntraining his colt and himself for the grand occasion. When the eventful\nday comes he presents himself on the spot, sure of winning the prize,\nand of seeing his name exalted in the county paper next week. He finds\nnineteen other gawky individuals there with, nineteen other colts and\nthe same ambitious expectations. When they have paid their proportion of\nthe money which is to become the prize, and have entered in a book the\nnames of their horses--names, by the way, to devise which has cost many\nsevere mental efforts--a strange man writes the name of a horse never\nbefore heard of in that locality. The contest proceeds. The strange man,\nwho had been so still and taciturn up to this moment, suddenly discloses\namazing energy, and shows himself an adept in all that pertains to the\nimportant business in hand. He knows tricks that make the astonished\nrustics open their eyes wide with admiration and dismay. He confuses his\ncompetitors with his bewildering maneuvers, secures every advantage, and\nurges on his own nag with a clamor and an uproar which drive the others\ninto unlawful paces, or make them bolt from the track altogether. In\nshort, science distances unsophisticated nature. The strange man and the\nstrange horse sweep around the circle and rush to the goal in triumph,\nwhile the twenty are seen struggling far in the rear, a miserable\nconglomerate of dust, disappointment, and profanity. Meanwhile, the\nhalf-dozen secret confederates of the successful jockey have been\nquietly mingling with the crowd, betting with all who were willing to\nrisk their money, and, of course, winning every time. Thus the concourse\ndivide into three classes, like the notes in music; the _naturals_\nstare, the _flats_ are fleeced, the _sharps_ win. The performance being\nover, the professionals joyfully divide the spoil, praising with\ninfinite glee \"the way it was done,\" and venting their irrepressible\nhilarity in stentorian laughter and clumsy imitations of Indian\nwar-dances.\n\nThe victims return home, the wiser ones satisfied with their recent\nexperience, and determined to sell their sulkies and break their horses\nto the plow. The fools, on the other hand, are sure that now they know\nall about it. They have seen a professor of high art, and burn with\nambition to be like him. They buy little caps of the same pattern, stick\ntheir hands in their pockets as nearly as possible in his style, and\nconverse only in the phrases current in the stable. Their manners, as\nwell as their clothes, smell strong of the horse. They devote their\nwhole minds to the cause. They know more about the last race than the\nlast war, and are more familiar with the names of fast trotters than\nwith those of our great statesmen and generals. They can explain the\npedigree of some favorite nag in a more satisfactory manner than they\ncan their own, and take more pride in it. The tavern is the school where\nthey pursue their professional studies, and the sages of the bar-room\nand the philosophers of the barn are their instructors. In some cases\nidleness, low company, and drink produce their natural fruit; the\nproperty inherited from the dead or dishonestly obtained from the living\nis soon squandered, the victim graduates as hostler, and, like some\ndevotee of olden time, consecrates himself, soul and body, to the\nservice of the brute which he admires. In others, the aspirant really\nreaches the high eminence at which he aims, and becomes a first-class\ncheat, learned in horse-craft and equally wise in the art of deceiving\nmen--a restless operator in his chosen line of business, whose advent in\na neighborhood is a signal for all to be on their guard, and at whose\ndeparture people breathe more freely.\n\nThe \"Sports of the Turf,\" as they are called, are a mere compound of\nfraud and folly. Betting is the soul of horse-racing, and a thievish\ndesire to get money without earning it is the soul of betting. How many\n\"trials of speed\" would there be if, by some method which man has never\nyet discovered, betting on the results could be wholly prevented? Vice\nin all its forms--gambling, drunkenness, lying, cheating, profanity,\nrioting, and fighting--are the natural adjuncts of every race-course.\nHuman birds of prey flock to it from under the whole heavens, and gorge\nthemselves to the full. And with all this evil it has not one redeeming\nfeature. As an amusement it is essentially low and animal. If two horses\nrun a race, any body who is not an idiot knows that in all probability\none will come out ahead of the other; and who but an idiot will care\nwhich it is? What matters it whether a horse that belongs to some\nbranded swindler can go a mile in three minutes or two? Why should\npeople leave their useful employments, and assemble in thousands, from\nfar and near, merely to see one horse beat another horse? The whole\nthing is senseless.\n\nWhile there is not a single solid argument in its favor, there are\nnumerous and weighty objections against horse-racing. It involves a\nfearful waste. A race-horse is more expensive to keep than a family of\nten children. The spectators who crowd to see the race lose time and\nmoney. The betting, inseparable from the affair, opens the floodgates of\na deluge of fraud and falsehood. It fires the hearts of the ignorant and\ninexperienced with that dangerous temptation, a thirst for money which\nthey have not earned. The sudden losses and gains rouse the passions,\nand lead to collisions, fierce and furious, between losers and winners.\nThe vender of intoxicating drinks will be there, for he knows that his\nchances are best when there is most of uproar and excitement. The\nprofessional pickpocket and the gambler will be there, for they know\nthat the crowds will yield them a rich harvest of ill-gotten gain. The\npublic roads in the vicinity of the race-ground will be dangerous to\nquiet travelers, by reason of the multitude of vehicles which dash along\nfuriously, the drivers crazy with excitement and drink, and the horses\nwild with the shouting and the lash. And children will be there, their\nsensitive natures receiving impressions every moment, their eyes\nbecoming accustomed to scenes of vice, and their ears familiar with the\nvoice of passion and profanity.\n\nThe members of the Church of Christ should never be seen at such\nplaces. If one of them attending a horse-race should die there, by\ncasualty or sudden disease, would it be considered good taste to name\nthe locality in the funeral discourse? Would it figure well in the\npublished obituary? The path of duty is so plain that none need err. Let\nno one, for a day or an hour, leave the rock and plunge into this abyss\nof fraud and folly. Besides the open, visible evils which cluster about\na horse-race, there are great gulfs of villainy which few know of, and\nyet by which many suffer. Not seldom is the matter of victory and defeat\nsecretly arranged days and weeks before the race takes place, and the\nmen who make the treacherous compact win their tens of thousands by\nbetting in favor of the horse which it is agreed shall distance the\nothers. The habit of betting is a vice which speedily destroys all truth\nand honor. No amusement, so called, which lives by betting will long\nretain even the semblance of honesty. Horse-racing is certainly not an\nexception to this rule. Its whole history is black with treachery and\nfraud. No professed follower of Christ can have any thing to do with it,\neither in the way of active agency or secret encouragement, without sin.\n\nWe can not close this chapter more appropriately than by quoting the\nemphatic words of Thomas Hughes, an able member of the British\nParliament and a decided friend of the American Republic. He had seen in\nthe public journals the statement that certain capitalists of New York\nwere about to establish somewhere on the Hudson a race-ground, which\nthey hoped would, in time, rival the doubtful \"glories of Epsom and\nAscot:\"\n\n\"Heaven help you! then; for of all the cankers of our old civilization\nthere is nothing in this country approaching in unblushing meanness, in\nrascality holding its head high, to this belauded institution of the\nBritish turf.\n\n\"It is quite true that a very considerable section of our aristocracy is\non the turf, but with what result? Shall a man touch pitch and not be\ndefiled? There is not a man of them whose position and character has not\nbeen lowered by the connection, while in the majority it ends in\nbringing down their standard of morality to that of blacklegs, and\ndelivering over their estates into the grasp of Jew attorneys.\n\n\"The last notable instance among our _jeunesse doree_ is that of the\nDuke of Hamilton, who succeeded to a clear \u00a370,000 a year, some three\nyears ago, and who is now a pensioner of his creditors in the ring,\nwhile the old palace of the Douglas is at the order and disposition of\nthe celebrated Mr. Padwick. This gentleman, at his Derby dinner this\nyear, entertained three dukes, two marquises, and six earls, and I\nbelieve there was only one untitled man at the board--all of these under\nthe thumb or anxious to cultivate the esteemed favors of this 'giver of\nall good things.' Just consider for one moment what our modern system of\nbetting has brought us to. A reliable _tip_ is that which the most\nscrupulous young gentleman on the turf desires above all other earthly\nblessings before a great race; that is to say, some private information\nwhich may enable him to overreach his dearest friend or his own brother,\nif he can induce him to take the odds.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nBASE BALL.\n\n     \"_And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play._\"\n     Exodus xxxii, 6.\n\n\nBase ball may be made a very pleasant amusement, wholly unobjectionable\neither in regard to health or morals. Many of our readers well remember\nhow it used to be played by the village school-boys. Two of the best\nplayers volunteered, or were elected by acclamation, to organize the two\n\"sides.\" The leaders tossed up a bat, with a mark on one side of it, to\ndetermine the first choice. The winner looked around the circle of boys\nand made his selection; then the other leader named a boy for his side,\nand so it went on, by alternate selections, till all were enrolled. The\nbat was again tossed up, to determine who should be \"in\" first, and then\nthe play began. How they knocked the ball, and ran and threw the ball at\neach other, and fell down in their eagerness to avoid being hit, and\nlaughed and shouted, and grew hot, and red, and finally weary! No crowd\nof excited spectators were there to applaud special acts of skill, and\nthus spoil the sport; no \"scorer\" noted down in his book the number of\n\"runs\" or of \"fly-catches;\" no representative of the public press was\nthere, to prepare an extended and eloquent report, confounding simple\nreaders with his vocabulary of new terms; no body inquired which side\nwas victorious, and all were happy.\n\nAnd in these later days, if a score of young men or older men would\nprovide a basket of refreshments, and go out into the fields by\nthemselves and play two or three hours, in the ancient and honorable\nway, carelessly, hilariously, not even noticing who makes the most\n\"runs,\" they would all feel the better the next day; and the wit and\nhumor elicited on the occasion would echo in twenty home circles for\nweeks to come.\n\nBut since it attained the dignity of being our \"national game,\" base\nball has become a ponderous and elaborate affair. Rules as rigid as\nthose which govern the proceedings of the Congress of the United States\nare fixed, by general councils of men learned in the art, and goodly\nvolumes are published discussing the size, shape, and weight of balls\nand bats, and determining the proper distances between the bases.\nAssociations are formed, who assume a name, devise a uniform, and have\ninitiation fees and monthly dues. The formation of the club, the\nselection of the members, is a very serious business, involving, as it\ndoes, the fortunes of the fame of the association in its future contests\nfor championships and newspaper honors. Young men are in demand who are\nwilling to devote their whole time and mental energies to the\nacquisition of dexterity in throwing a ball or catching it. Professional\nplayers are found, who are recruited from that idle, shiftless, and yet\nambitious class of mortals who are ready to work with the energy of\ngiants one day in the week at any useless task, provided they have the\nprivilege of lounging about the other six days, boasting of their feats\nand basking in the admiration of all the little boys in the\nneighborhood. These professionals train as carefully as prize-fighters,\nand are, in fact, the same style of men drawn mild. In some cases they\nhire themselves to the club for a single exhibition game; in others,\nthey engage for the season. Their pay is ridiculously high, considering\nthe service rendered. We hear of a club that secured one player for a\nthousand dollars for the season. Another player was induced to change\nhis residence from one city to another, and was set up by his employers\nin a store, with a stock costing fifteen hundred dollars, by way of\nsecuring his valuable aid on great occasions.\n\nWhen the club is organized, there must be daily practice for the\nbenefit of the novices. This is done often to the neglect of every thing\nelse, to the sore annoyance of parents and employers, and when a good\ndegree of skill is supposed to be gained another club, fifty or five\nhundred miles away, is invited to meet in friendly contest. The\nnewspapers announce that the Exotics have challenged the Cupids, name\nthe time and the place, and express an ardent hope that the weather will\nbe propitious. The eventful day arrives; \"play is called,\" and the\ncontest proceeds with all spirit and vigor. They pitch, they bat, they\nrun, they pant, they grow red in the face, they perspire, they strain\ntheir muscles and rend their garments in superhuman effort. The scorers\nset down their marks, the reporters of the public press scratch away at\ntheir notes, the spectators applaud. Intense excitement characterizes\nthe entire performance. There is no brain power to spare on\npleasantries, no surplus breath to waste in laughter. Awkward episodes\noccur. A head is broken by an erring bat, or a finger by a ball, or two\nplayers, running with upturned faces and outstretched hands to catch the\nsame descending ball, rush together with a fearful thump, and fall\nbackward in collapse. Perhaps proceedings are still further diversified\nby the occurrence of a little fight.\n\nThe game in due time ends, and one party or the other is declared\nvictors by so many \"runs,\" and the winners and the losers adjourn to a\nhotel and refresh themselves with a supper, of which wine-bibbing\ngenerally forms a prominent feature. Speeches, too, are made by the\ntalking members of each club, expressive of the most intense admiration\nof each other's prowess, and breathing unutterable friendship. The\nreporter, who has been presented with a complimentary ticket for this\nvery purpose, takes notes of what is said and done, and the next morning\nthe newspaper lays before an admiring world the important intelligence\nthat \"the pitching of the Cupids was superb, the batting of the Exotics\nwas magnificent, the fielding of Jones and Smith elicited universal\napplause, the supper was all that an epicure could desire, and the wit\nand eloquence of Mr. Brown's speech were equaled only by the beauty and\npathos of Mr. Jenkins' reply.\" While an agitated world is laboring with\nthis startling announcement, the principal performers stay at home and\nrest, or limp wearily out to the apothecary's to make investments in\npain-killers and strengthening plasters.\n\nAnd this, forsooth, is the great National Game. It has scarce a single\nfeature of real recreation. The overwrought excitement, the excessive\nphysical exertion, the absence of mental ease and conversational freedom\ncondemn it. The publicity of the performance destroys all the good that\nmight otherwise result from it, and, instead of play, makes it a mere\nexhibition, whose aim is not rest but notoriety, and whose effect upon\nthe performer is not physical renewal but exhaustion. The game itself is\nnot in fault. In its simple forms, pursued in moderation, with right\nassociations, as a recreation, and not as an ambitious show, it can be\nheartily recommended to young men who need some active outdoor\namusement. It may thus be made a very pleasant and not unprofitable\nthing. In its preposterous form, inflated into a \"great national game,\"\nit is very laborious, very expensive in time and money, and not\naltogether safe for soul or body. It is then not an amusement, but a\npretentious and useless display, whose highest reward is the shallow\napplause of the idle and the vain.\n\nIt may be hazardous to one's reputation for sagacity to predict the\ndownfall of any fashionable thing on the ground that it lacks the basis\nof good sense; still, I will say that the modern bubble has been blown\nso big, that it seems to me that it must collapse before long. If I\nmistake not, there are already signs of decay. Many young men, whose\nnames are on the roll decline to play, and are active members of the\nclub only at the supper-table. They pay their share of the expense of\npublic games, and attend, but find it pleasant and politic to perch\nthemselves daintily on the fence, to smoke and applaud in the shade,\nwhile their hired substitutes do the hard work in the hot sun. In due\ntime the novelty of the whole thing will be gone, and then comes the\nend.\n\nBut if its having become an overgrown piece of folly were the only\ncharge which may be made against it, base ball, even as cultivated by\nthe clubs, might survive for a time. The expense is not in its favor. We\nknow of a club where the regular annual dues are twelve dollars for each\nmember. Besides this there is an initiation fee to be paid by beginners,\nand I presume extra expenses for extra occasions. The club has a hundred\nand fifty members, and the aggregate of regular dues can not be less\nthan two thousand dollars a year. No doubt there are clubs whose annual\nexpenditure amounts to three times the sum named. This certainly is a\nliberal price to pay for all the good gained.\n\nThere is, however, a much worse objection to base ball than the waste\nof money. The vices which cluster about the race-course begin to haunt\nthe ball-ground. Thievish men find that bets can be made, and money lost\nand won, at a ball match as well as at a horse-race, and the same frauds\nand stratagems are employed. Sometimes money to the amount of fifty or\neven a hundred thousand dollars is staked on the result of a single\nmatch. Men do not need to bet large sums many times before they are\nready for any trick, however infamous, which will enable them to win. We\nhave seen, in a former chapter, how a horse-race is sometimes secretly\nsold beforehand, the parties to the fraud betting accordingly, and\nwinning every thing. The same thing is not unknown, I am told, among the\nball clubs. A match is in contemplation. A club of \"champions\" challenge\nanother champion club, and all possible appliances and devices are\nemployed to attract attention, draw a crowd, and create an excitement.\nWhile the rivals are apparently burning with intense desire for victory,\nand determined to contend for it with heroic energy, a few members of\nthe clubs, without the consent or knowledge of the rest, agree so to\nmanage that the victory shall go in a certain direction, and for a share\nof the spoils thus surrender the one side to premeditated defeat, and\ncrown the other with false laurels. I have heard of one case, where a\nmatch game was played and many bets were pending, and interested parties\nsecured a given result by paying the moderate sum of three hundred\ndollars.\n\nIn fact, so many vices are beginning to gather about the \"great national\ngame,\" as some foolishly term it, that every one connected with it seems\nto be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Merchants and others, who\nemploy numbers of young men, are doubtful about members of ball clubs,\nand reject candidates who are connected with them. This looks a little\nhard, but we must remember that business men want reliable, trustworthy\nclerks, salesmen, and book-keepers. When we are trying to learn the\ncharacter of a stranger every hint is of value, and a thing about which\nso many things cluster can not be a recommendation.\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nDANCING AND BALLS.\n\n     \"_They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their\n     children dance._\" Job xxi, 11.\n\n\nLet us now turn from outdoor diversions to those amusements which do\nnot, of necessity, demand daylight and space for their cultivation.\n\nDancing is one of these; and as attempts are being made at the present\ntime to introduce it into circles whence it has hitherto been rigidly\nexcluded, we honor it with the first place in this part of the\ndiscussion, and propose to give it all due attention. It is presumed\nthat the advocates of dancing will insist, at the outset, that we shall\nmake a distinction among the various fashionable dances of the times. It\nis not probable that any reader of this volume will attempt to defend\nthe \"German,\" or round dances. It is a shameful, revolting spectacle to\nsee a young girl whirling around in the arms of a man who perhaps an\nhour ago was an utter stranger to her, her head leaning upon his breast,\nand their whole persons in closest contact. This style is positively\nimmodest, corrupting, offensive to morals, as well as to delicacy and\nrefinement. How dare a young man propose any such performance to a lady\nfor whom he has a shadow of respect? How can any young lady, who\nrespects herself, submit to it?\n\nBut cotillons and quadrilles, we are told, are different; they are\nmodest, graceful, and harmless. Doubtless there is a difference, and yet\nthey differ only as the varioloid differs from the worse disease.\n\nIt is not necessary to prove that the mere motion is sinful in order\nto condemn it; nor need we assail the personal character of all who\nplead for dancing, in one form or another, as an innocent amusement. The\nabstract possibility of its being so practiced as to render it a\nhealthful exercise may be admitted. I am acquainted with a gentleman of\nmore than three-score years and ten, whose erect form and happy face,\nruddy with health and radiant with kindness and inward peace, are\npleasant to see. Meeting him in the street one day, I asked him how he\nmanaged to be young when he was old--how he contrived to keep up the\nlife and bloom of Spring amid the chill winds and gathering clouds of\nWinter. In reply, he alluded reverently to the Divine Master, whom he\nserves in gladness of heart, as the source of all blessing, and then\nadded: \"I take care of my health. I take exercise. I rise early in the\nmorning, and among the very first things that I do I put on a pair of\nsoft slippers, go up into the attic of my house, and then go round and\nround in a circle, on a gentle run, till I am in a pleasant glow. This\nmakes me feel well and cheerful all day.\"\n\nNow, if any advocate of dancing will practice it only as our aged\nfriend practices his peculiar exercise, we bring no accusation against\nhis sanitary measures; we have no controversy with his principles or his\nperformances. We will even go so far as to confess the beauty of certain\nfancy pictures of innocent dancing in the family circle, wherein one\ndaughter presides at the piano, and the rest of the children whirl about\nin their graceful evolutions, till father and mother feel the happy\ncontagion, and, starting up, join in the mirth; and even the\nwhite-haired grandsire looks on admiringly, and keeps time with his best\nfoot, and applauds with his cane, and then calls the household to order\nfor evening prayers. We do not happen to know any \"happy family\" where\ndevotion and dancing live together on such excellent terms;\nnevertheless, extraordinary things do occur in the world, and this may\npossibly be among them.\n\nBut all this does not shake the settled conviction that it would be\nunwise to cultivate dancing of any sort as an amusement, or even to\ntolerate it. The reasons upon which this conclusion is based are\nnumerous and weighty.\n\n1. _Dancing as it is usually practiced, and will continue to be\npracticed, if at all, lacks the elements of true recreation._\n\nIt is folly to talk of sending children to dancing schools, and then\nconfine their performances to the family circle. Dancing is essentially\nan exhibition which addresses the eye of the spectator, and craves\nadmiration. It tends directly to cultivate the love of display and of\nthe praise which it elicits, a passion as avaricious in its way as the\nmiser's greed of gold. Introduce dancing generally, and of the youth who\nattain a degree of proficiency not a few will soon tire of the approval\nof the little circle, and thirst for the applause of the multitude. They\nwho imagine that they have acquired a grace and a skill which can not\nfail to win the praises of all beholders, will not be content to hide\ntheir light under the bushel of home, and soon the performances in the\nprivate parlor will be considered of no account, except as rehearsals\nfor more public displays, and the ball-room will be looked upon as the\nproper field where artistic ambition is to win its laurels.\n\nAnd in this form dancing is detrimental to soul and body. The late\nhours which it involves are a fatal objection to it. The confined\natmosphere in which it is practiced is injurious. The style of the\nrefreshments common on such occasions, and the untimely hour when they\nare taken, increase the evil. The undue excitement exhausts instead of\ninvigorating the vital powers. The sudden transitions from the heated\nball-room to the chill night air are not safe, as many an early grave\ncan testify. These things conspire to make a ball or a dancing party a\ndirect attack upon the health of those who attend it. Instead of\ninvigorating the weak, it requires vigor to endure the exhausting\nstrain. A single night thus spent will make its visible mark upon the\nface. They who escape with the least injury are languid and dull, and\nperhaps irritable, for days afterward, while some are totally unfitted\nfor their usual avocations, and require time to recover, as if from an\nattack of illness. While physical health is thus impaired or imperiled,\nthere is no promise of mental or moral improvement to compensate the\ninjury. There is no time for rational conversation, and any attempt in\nthat direction would be deemed out of place. The liveliest imagination\ncan see no moral good in the performance. The whole thing produces no\nhigher pleasure than engine-boys feel while running in search of the\nfire; and in the matter of aching heads and low spirits, it is probable\nthat those who run with the engine and those who attend the ball are\nabout alike the next day.\n\n2. _Dancing has had a historic name._\n\nThere was, indeed, in ancient times, a solemn religious ceremony,\nwhich, through the poverty of human language, was called dancing. When\nPharaoh and his host sank into the depths of the sea, while Israel stood\nsafe upon the shore, Miriam and her maidens came forth with timbrels and\nwith dances, and sang to the Lord a lofty anthem of praise and\nthanksgiving. When David brought home the ark of God he danced before\nit; but it was a strictly religious ceremony, nothing like the caperings\nand curvetings of our own day. There is no intimation whatever that\nMiriam and her maidens, or David, ever danced except on such occasions.\nPleasure dances have been almost universally held in bad repute. The\ndaughter of Herodias danced to please Herod, as he sat at the banquet,\nbewildered with wine; but the performer was one who could lightly ask\nfor the life of an innocent man and a devoted servant of God; and the\nroyal spectator was a tyrant, who could carelessly order his execution.\nIn Rome, and Athens, and Ephesus the dancing was done by the degraded\nand the vile, who employed it as a means of advertising their\nprofession. The dancers of Egypt and India at the present day are of the\nsame character.\n\nNow, I do not know that it would be right for me to denounce\nindiscriminately all who perform publicly in places of amusement in our\ncities and towns, yet it is safe for me to say that a dancing girl,\nhowever loudly her fame may be trumpeted by the newspapers, finds her\nprofessional reputation every-where a bar to her reception into good\nsociety. Why should it be so? It certainly is not because of the mere\npublicity of professional life. If it were, then Miss Dickinson and Miss\nEvans, and scores of others, would find themselves in the same\ncondemnation, instead of being honored and applauded. Why a female\npublic lecturer should be respected, and a female public dancer despised\nand shunned, I can not understand, unless there is something in dancing\nitself, or in the character of those who have made it their profession,\nthat has merited condemnation. Ladies of the highest respectability go\nto hear the lecturer, and at the close crowd around the desk to be\nintroduced to her; other ladies, certainly no more scrupulous in regard\nto their associations, go to see the dancer perform, and the next day\nwill not look at her in the street. What makes the difference? Will the\napologist for dancing explain?\n\n3. _A love for dancing parties and balls is universally deemed\ninconsistent with the seriousness and devotion which characterize a true\nChristian._\n\nDancing is regarded as the favorite diversion of the vain and the\nfrivolous. Nominal Christians may be found at balls and dancing\nassemblies, but they are persons who have no weight of Christian\ncharacter, and exert no influence in favor of religion. The world,\nunconvicted and careless, rather likes such professors of religion,\nbecause their example is an opiate wherewith to quiet an occasional pang\nof conscience. The worldly and the prayerless think more favorably of\nthemselves and of their prospects of heaven when they see that Church\nmembers resemble them so closely. But when the worldly man is convinced\nof sin, and desires to find pardon, he never sends for one of these\nunfaithful professors to give him spiritual counsel. When the wicked are\nabout to die, they do not want prayer offered at their bedside by any of\nthese fiddling, dancing, wine-bibbing, honorary members of the Church.\nThey name men and women of undoubted piety. They suspect those who can\njoin them in their follies and feel no condemnation. They do not\nestimate very highly a Christian profession which exerts so little\ncontrol over those that make it. Nay, rebuke a scorner for his sins, and\nin many cases he will seek to defend himself by a sneering allusion to\nthose very professors of religion who verily believe that they were\nmaking capital for their Church by showing that it can not be suspected\nof being \"Puritanic.\"\n\n4. _Dancing involves undesirable associations._\n\nWe bring no indiscriminate accusations against those who love to\ndance. In almost every community where it is cultivated to any great\nextent, it will not be confined to any particular class nor to any one\nmoral level. Still, if we are to tell the whole truth, it must be stated\nthat dancing prevails less as you ascend the scale of virtue,\nintelligence, and religion, and more as you go down to explore the\nrealms of ignorance and vice. However numerous and, after their fashion,\nrespectable its votaries may be, there is a line above which it never\nprevails. Like the deluge in the days of Noah, it fills the valleys\nfirst, and covers the low places; but, unlike the deluge, there are\nelevations which the swelling waters never reach, heights upon which the\ndark tide never shows even its spray. In our great cities, those\nsections which are recognized as the homes and dens of vice and\ndegradation, the very region and shadow of death, abound in\ndance-houses; and the sound of the violin and of many trampling feet\nmingles nightly with the noise of rage and blasphemy, and the hoarse\nclamor of bloody strife. Intemperance and infamy are foul birds which\nagree well in the same nest with dancing. But as you ascend the scale,\nnot only the more gross forms of vice, but the dance is left behind long\nbefore you reach the highest altitudes. The devotedly pious, the truly\npure in heart, do not dance. In all ages of the Church such spirits have\nalways kept aloof from the follies of their times, and had \"no\nfellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.\"\n\nThey who give themselves to this amusement, therefore, turn away from\nthe best examples of pure and undefiled religion, and the noblest,\nholiest fellowship within their reach. They ally themselves with the\nworldly, the thoughtless, the prayerless, the gay butterflies of fashion\nand soulless pleasure. They throw themselves among influences in the\nhighest degree unfavorable to sober views of life, and the earnest,\nthorough performance of its great duties. They voluntarily leave the\nrock and the shore of safety to launch upon a treacherous stream, the\nrippling music of whose waters will soon cease, and the bloom of whose\nflowery banks will soon disappear, and whose current, silent but swift\nand strong, bear them steadily away from light and hope down to despair,\nremorse, and ruin.\n\nDancing wastes time, wastes health, scatters serious thought,\ncompromises Christian character, leads to entangling associations with\nfrivolous minds and careless hearts. It is as sure a foe to intellectual\ngrowth as to moral progress. Young people who are famed as \"beautiful\ndancers\" are generally good for nothing else. The time that should be\ndevoted to something valuable is spent in practicing posture-making\nbefore a mirror, or a professor of the high art, who shows them how to\nstep so, and so, and so; while God calls, the Savior waits, life wanes,\nand the tremendous realities of the eternal world every moment come\nnearer. Even Cicero, the heathen moralist, affirms that \"no man in his\nsenses will dance.\" The dancing-master is the devil's drill-sergeant,\njust as the theater is the devil's church.\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nCARDS, CHESS, AND BILLIARDS.\n\n     \"_Abstain from all appearance of evil._\" 1 Thess. v, 22.\n\n\nCards are an old game--so old that it is impossible, not only to tell\nto whose ingenuity we may ascribe the useless invention, but even to\nname the land or the age in which they originated. They may be traced,\nhowever, to Asiatic sources. For many centuries the Chinese and the\nHindoos have known the game, and from them it has spread over the world.\nIt was cultivated by the Moors in Spain, and through their agency made\nits way into Italy, Germany, and the other nations of the West. In some\nEuropean countries the pastime was prohibited by law. This prohibition\nprobably grew out of the superstitions of the times, it being an article\nof popular faith that games of chance were under the control of the\ndevil, who gave success to those who sold themselves to his service. But\ncards gradually came into favor among the idle and the frivolous; and at\nlast even royalty--as royalty was in those days--did not disdain to\nindulge in them. Samuel Pepys, in his amusing and instructive diary,\nrecords that on a certain Sunday evening in February, 1667, he found\nCatherine and the Queen of Charles II playing cards with the Duchess of\nYork, and one or two more, the rooms being \"full of ladies and great\nmen.\" Addison, who wrote a little later, continually alludes to the game\nas the favorite diversion of the fashionables of his times; and such it\nseems to have continued among the gay and the thoughtless of English\ncircles, till about the beginning of the present century. The love of\nit, however, was never universal. Horne Tooke, who assailed the\ncorruptions and tyranny of the English Government during the reign of\nGeorge III, and was fined and imprisoned sundry times for his hardihood,\nwas once introduced to the sovereign, who entered into a careless\nconversation with him, and, among other things, asked him if he played\ncards. \"May it please your Majesty,\" was the witty reply, \"I do not know\na king from a knave.\"\n\nIt is said that cards are stealthily creeping up into circles from\nwhich they have hitherto been religiously excluded. And here the writer\nis constrained to confess his lack of personal knowledge of the subject\nunder discussion. He is, indeed, aware that individual cards have their\nnames, and are called kings and queens, knaves and spades; that they are\n\"shuffled\" and \"cut,\" and that a certain something is called a\n\"trick\"--doubtless very appropriately--but having no ambition to stand\nin the presence of kings of this particular dynasty, no desire to\ncultivate the acquaintance of knaves of any sort, no love of tricks of\nany kind, he remains in willing ignorance even unto this day. Two or\nthree times in the course of his life, he has seen people playing cards.\nFirst, one would lay down a piece of paper with spots on it, then\nanother player would lay down another spotted paper, and so it went on\nso long as he beheld the performance; but the process did not seem to\nhim to be attended by any particular result, nor did he learn, possibly\nbecause he did not wait and watch long enough, whether the victory\ndepended most on chance, sagacity, or mathematical calculation.\n\nBut there are facts which every body knows. Cards are the gambler's\ntools. They are a favorite diversion of the aimless and the idle; they\nhave a bad name among honest people. If, as some say, they were\nintroduced into Europe by a physician, who adopted them as a means of\ndiverting a royal patient whose intellect was shattered, we naturally\ninfer that no great amount of intelligence, or strength of intellect, is\nneeded to qualify the player. And to this inference it is not difficult\nto hang another--that the game is the fitting refuge of men and women\nwho are conscious that their talents enable them to shine better in\nsilence than in conversation. Whether, according to the rules of the\nplay, a king is any better than a knave, or a diamond than a club, I do\nnot claim to know, but I imagine that in playing, wit and intelligence\nfind little more enjoyment than do the dullest and most stupid of the\nparty.\n\nOne thing is certain, there is no true utility in the game. It\ninvigorates neither body nor mind; it adds nothing to the store of\nmental wealth; and those ignorant of it lose nothing by their lack of\nknowledge. Again, it is certain that to some minds the game is\ndangerous. They are fascinated by it, led into doubtful associations and\nevil habits, and to ruin itself. It seems that the diversion is so\nbarren of ideas, in itself deficient in interest, that it becomes\nnecessary to stake small sums of money \"just to give it a little life.\"\nThus the first step is taken in the road that leads to the gambler's\nhell, to the great joy of the demons who there watch for victims. Like\nother beasts of prey, professional gamblers can not live by devouring\neach other. Idleness must feed upon the earnings of industry or starve.\nVice must burrow into the granary which belongs to virtue. The cool and\ncalculating gambler will be delighted to see card-playing become\nfashionable among all classes of society. He knows that of those who\nbegin with playing for mere pastime, a certain proportion will be bitten\nby the mania for playing for money, and thus be brought within reach of\nhis sharp, remorseless claws.\n\nOne needs but little information in regard to card-playing to entitle\nhim to the privilege of heartily despising it. Introduced, as it would\nseem, for the express purpose of reducing mental vivacity and culture to\nthe same dead level with ignorance, it bears the semblance of an insult\nto any company in which it is proposed, wasting precious hours in a way\nwhich neither invigorates the body, nor supplies the mind with a single\nvaluable idea. I do not see how any conscientious, intelligent person\ncan deem it innocent. Fastening with a strange power upon characters of\na peculiar make, and turning them into grist for the gambler's mill, no\nprudent person will deem it safe. Indeed, the history of every gambling\nden in the great cities of our own country, as well as in other lands,\nshows that the passion for cards, and the hope of winning money by them,\noften becomes an utter overmastering infatuation, almost worthy the name\nof insanity, which renders the victim reckless of the claims of honor,\nreligion, and the tenderest affections of our nature, and drags him down\nrelentlessly to his doom. Wholly barren of good results, prodigal of the\nprecious time which God allots for nobler purposes, void of every\nelement of rational recreation, to right minds unsatisfactory and to\nsome minds unsafe, we need not wonder that the degree in which\ncard-playing has prevailed at any given period of history, is a fair\nindex of the corruption of the age. Let no professed follower of Christ\ndefile his or her hands with so suspicious a thing.\n\nCHESS claims to be a more intellectual, and even more ancient, game\nthan cards. Its history and its principles have been set forth in goodly\nvolumes. Poetry has sung its charms. The lives of its famous players\nhave been written and their methods described, and a whole library of\nits peculiar literature has grown up around it. Its admirers trace its\nhistory for five thousand years, and inform us that it originated among\nthe acute, dreaming inhabitants of India. The chess-player plumes\nhimself on the aristocratic character of his favorite amusement, as if\nit placed him above the level of common mortals.\n\nIn some points chess is less objectionable than cards. It does not\ndepend on chance, and there is little opportunity to cheat. Moreover,\nwhere the players are skillful, it requires a long while to complete a\ngame. For these reasons, as I suppose, chess has never been adopted, so\nfar as I can learn, by the professional gambler; and, therefore, its\nhistoric name and present social standing are better. Mind challenges\nmind, and skill alone wins the victory in the duel of intellect. Chess\nis not likely to become epidemic. It is so deep a game; it demands so\nmuch of time and silence for the contest; it employs so small a number\nat once, that the gay and the thoughtless, who are in most danger from\nirrational amusements, will care little for it. Still, if the reader\nneeds a hint, and is glancing along these pages in search of it, he may\nweigh the suggestions which follow.\n\nNobody who assumes to play chess at all is willing to be known as a poor\nplayer. To play well, or even respectably, involves a great deal of\nstudy and practice, and the spending of much time and mental energy;\nenough, in fact, to learn one of the dead languages. The game so taxes\nthe intellect that it can not be resorted to as a relaxation from mental\ntoil. There is no physical exercise in it, no courting of the sunlight\nand the breeze; therefore, it can not be made a good recreation for the\nsedentary. It conveys no new ideas, makes no additions to our\naccumulations of mental treasure; and, therefore, it is a poor business\nfor those who need their leisure hours for mental improvement.\n\nChess is not popularly a recreation, but a _pastime_; that is, a way\nof passing the time; and the time thus passed is wasted. Many a man,\nbewitched with chess, which has left his mind unfurnished and his heart\nuntouched, has spent over it precious days and years, which, if rightly\nimproved, would have made him intelligent, wise, and greatly useful in\nhis generation. They who fear God ought not thus to waste the golden\nmoments. If the regular duties of the day leave certain hours at our\ndisposal, these hours are too valuable to be dreamed away over a painted\nboard, and a handful of puppets. The sedentary need air and active\nexercise, which will expand the lungs, and clothe the whole frame with\nstrength. Those whose labor is chiefly that of the hands, need books and\nnewspapers. The student, the clerk, the apprentice, the daughter at\nhome, have more important \"moves\" to make than those of the chessboard,\na wiser way to employ brain power than to spend it on a laborious\nnothing, a better warfare to wage than the petty antagonisms of useless\nskill, a record to make in the Book of Life worth infinitely more than a\nlife-long shout of this world's shallow praise of checks and champions.\n\nBILLIARDS are simply big marbles, \"only this and nothing more.\"\nAuthorities on the subject inform us that the table for playing the game\nmust be twelve feet long, and six feet wide, the top being of slate,\ncovered with cloth. Around the raised edges are cushions of India\nrubber, and sundry pockets. Instead of employing his thumb and fingers\nto shoot his marble, as in the original game, the billiard player uses a\nstick. There are two sorts of sticks--a long one called a cue, and a\nshort one termed a mace. One writer confesses that the cue is the thing,\nand the only thing, for the expert to use; but advises ladies to be\ncontent with the mace, \"since to execute finely with the cue sometimes\nrequires the assumption of attitudes which are not becoming female\nattire, or to the modesty of the sex.\" Just so. By all means, let the\nladies, however ambitious, stick to the mace, even if it is \"considered\nmerely as the implement for novices.\" Perhaps we ought to condole with\nthe ladies on the distressing dilemma in which this places them. The\nmace confesses awkwardness; the cue is forbidden. They are doomed to\nremain forever novices in the higher art, or sacrifice delicacy to\nambition.\n\nBut what is the game? The expert player places his hand on the table a\nfew inches from the ball, and resting his cue upon it and bending over\nto look along the stick, studies the situation with the motionless\nattitude and fixed gaze of a hungry toad taking aim at a fly. Then with\nthe end of his stick he strikes the ball, which, if his calculations are\ncorrect, goes in a certain direction, hits another ball, and then goes\nsomewhere else. And this is all. It is true, to be able to make the ball\ngo exactly in the right direction, and stop at the right point,\nrequires, as our author declares, \"immense practice;\" yet the higher\nachievement attainable is to cause one marble to hit another, and drop\ninto a pocket.\n\nThis statement of the true character of the game is about all that\nneeds to be set forth to condemn it among intelligent, thoughtful\npeople. It has nothing in it to inform, refine, or in any way improve\nthe mind. The only mental faculties cultivated are those which judge of\ndistances, angles, and muscular forces. To aim at skill is to sacrifice\nmonths and years of valuable time to a very mean ambition. It is the\nfavorite device of the saloon and the grog-shop, the bait to entice men\nfrom their homes in the evening, and keep them till midnight, drinking,\nsmoking, and telling indecent stories. There is method and design in the\npother which the newspapers make over matches and champions, as if the\nhonor of nations were involved in the success of those who volunteer to\nrepresent them in petty contest. It is expected that the idler and the\nspendthrift will be attracted to the place; and in the crowd the seller\nof alcohol will find customers, and the swindler victims. Billiards\nfigure very low in the scale of amusements. Associated as it generally\nis with late hours, confined air, smoking and drinking, the game is\ndetrimental to health, to morals, and to mind. Kept clear of evil\nassociations, there is nothing in it to attract the intelligent and the\nthoughtful. And seeing that the righteous are generally called home when\ntheir work is done, the professor of religion, who can find nothing\nbetter to do than play billiards, need not expect to live long.\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nNOVELS AND NOVEL-READING.\n\n     \"_Of making many books there is no end._\" Eccl. xii, 12.\n\n\nWhat is a NOVEL? A recent writer thus defines it: A novel is a\nportraiture of \"something new falling within the domain of fancy or\nimagination, with its interest centering in love.\" If this be correct,\nit would seem that a novel, as such, is neither good nor bad, but is the\none or the other according to its own individual character. To portray\nsomething new is certainly not wrong if the portraiture be true, and\nthere be a good reason for the portrayal. There is a place, also, for\nfancy and imagination in the legitimate operations of the mind; nor does\nthe fact that the interest centers in love necessarily condemn it. True\nlove, such as God designed to exist among the families of men, is a\ngolden chain which binds in the best and purest friendship known on\nearth. Genuine, honest, rational love needs to be cultivated, not\nrebuked and repressed. It needs the controlling and formative influences\nof intelligence, reason, and religion, and may, therefore, be discussed\nby the press and on the platform or even in the pulpit.\n\nAnd yet novel-reading has become one of the great vices of our age.\nMultitudes care for nothing but light reading. The bookstores abound\nwith works of fiction. The records of our public libraries show that\nthere are more readers in this department than any other--perhaps more\nthan in all the rest. The literature which finds its way into the hands\nof our people, as they journey by land or water, is almost invariably\nfictitious. Our weekly periodicals, secular and religious, often have\ntheir serial story. Our Sunday school libraries have been overwhelmed by\nthe flood of weak and washy literature till scarce a vestige of sober\nhistory or real biography shows itself above the surface of the wild\nwilderness of waters. A whole generation of young people are growing up,\nto whom solid books are unknown, to whom the great historic names of the\npast are but a sound, and whose ignorance of the world of fact is poorly\ncompensated by their acquaintance with the world of dreams.\n\nIt is a rule in political economy that demand creates supply. As all\nkinds of readers addict themselves to fiction, so all sorts of writers\npress into this wide and productive field, and exhibit results of every\ndegree of badness, with now and then something of better quality. It is\nnot easy for the young to find their way through this labyrinth of good\nand evil, the good little and the evil infinite. The safest rule, in\nwhose application the fewest mistakes will be made, is that of TOTAL\nABSTINENCE. To declare that all the wild fruit of a certain forest is\npoisonous, and to prophecy the death of every one who eats a single\nberry there, may be contrary to truth; nevertheless, if nine out of ten\nof the kinds found there are deadly, and none but a well-taught observer\nis able to distinguish between the good and the evil, the warning to be\ngiven to the inexperienced is, \"Touch not, taste not.\"\n\nIn regard to novels this is often the only available rule. But if we are\nrequired to give more discriminating advice, there are four maxims which\nare plain, and, if faithfully adhered to, will, I think, be found safe.\n\n1. _If you have but little time for reading, spend none of it on works\nof fiction._\n\nYour success in life, your happiness, usefulness, and safety in the\nworld depend upon your intelligence, your good sense, your moral\ncharacter, your modes of living. What you are to be and what you are\ncapable of accomplishing will depend, in no small degree, upon what you\nknow. You require solid information. You need to learn ten thousand\nthings which are to be found in books. Your usefulness in the circles to\nwhich you belong and your position in the community are intimately\nconnected with the degree in which you improve your mind. You have much\nto do. You have no time to waste on counterfeit coin while golden\ntreasures of knowledge woo you on every side. Read your Bibles. Read\nhistory, the records of the past, and the accounts of current events.\nRead the biographies of good men and women. Read books of science. Push\nyour researches in every direction, delve in every mine that opens\nbefore you. Traverse every rich field that invites your footsteps.\nDiscipline your mind, store your memory; train your will to all high\nresolves. If your lot in life is such that little time can be given to\nintellectual culture, do not waste an hour on the idle dreams of the\nnovelists.\n\n2. _In any case read only the best works of fiction._\n\nSupposing that the time which you are able to devote to books is not\nnarrowed down to an occasional leisure hour, and you feel disposed to\nglance at the department of fiction, read only the best. Books are\ncompanions. Choose your company wisely. Where a multitude surround you,\nthe pious and the profane, the virtuous and the vile, the refined and\nthe brutish, it is madness to associate with all that come. You know\nwhat the effect upon your good name would be if you were seen walking\narm in arm with those whose very presence is dishonor. There are books\nso vile that the mere possession of them is fatal to reputation. You\nwill find people whose minds are so empty, and whose talk is so\nfrivolous, that the time spent in their society is lost. There are many\nbooks of the same sort. You will meet still other people with whom you\ncan not spend an hour without feeling that you have learned something\nworth knowing, that you have received an impulse in the direction of the\ntrue, the beautiful, and the good, and that you are wiser, purer,\nstronger because of the interview. There are books of this kind also.\nFor the same reason, then, that you keep the best company to which you\nhave access, read the best books within your reach. They will influence\nyou as certainly as will living associates.\n\nThere are some few works of fiction which are well written and true to\nnature, and which inculcate the right and condemn the wrong. If you read\nfiction at all, read these. I do not name them, because I am not willing\nto be held responsible for all the time which might possibly be spent\nover them on the plea that they are here recommended. If you do not know\nwhich they are, you will lose nothing by waiting till you are better\ninformed. As for the bad, their \"name is Legion.\"\n\n3. _In all cases let works of fiction form but a very small part of what\nyou read._\n\nRead only the best, and read only a few even of the best. Or, if you\nwant a more definite rule, read ten good, substantial works to every one\nof fiction, however good. The best works of imagination go but a little\nway in supplying the mental aliment which you need. You can not live on\nthe odor of flowers, nor build up strong bone and muscle out of rainbows\nand moonbeams. You will grow in intelligence, sense, virtue, practical\npower for good only by means of solid food. Portraitures of \"something\nnew, falling within the domain of fancy, with their interest centering\nin love,\" may please for the moment, but if you get nothing better your\nsoul will be as poor and lank as the lean kine of Pharaoh's dream.\nConfining your reading of this sort to the least objectionable of the\nclass, you must add another restriction, in order to be safe, and\nconfine the time thus spent to your leisure moments--what remains after\nyou have given due attention to better things.\n\n4. _Cease wholly to read fiction the moment you find that it begins to\nrender substantial reading distasteful, and the common duties of life\nirksome, or injure you in any way in mind or morals._\n\nThe man who has tampered with some intoxicating drug until an\nartificial want, a new, imperious appetite, has been created, is on the\nroad to ruin, so they have already done themselves a fearful wrong who\nhave indulged in the intoxications of fiction, until they are restless\nand unsatisfied without it, and unostentatious every-day life, such as\nbelongs to the vast majority of mortals, seems tame, dull, void of\ninterest, so that the mind can with difficulty be held to its\ncommon-place details and duties. And the same question may be made a\ntest in both cases. What effort will it cost to stop? Will it require a\nmighty struggle, an agony of soul, a summoning of all concentrated power\nof will? Then summon the power and form the high resolve without a\nmoment's delay, for life and death tremble in the balance. Are virtue\nand honor so far undermined that the victim is ready to take refuge in\nhypocrisy and lies, denying in public and indulging in secret? Alas! it\nis to be feared that the work of ruin is already done. At all events,\nonly one hope remains. There must be a quick and thorough reform, a\nsudden sundering of the chains which bind to the \"body of death.\" In the\nmatter of novels, are you uncertain whether the point of peril has been\nreached in your own case? Try yourself. Lay aside light reading; take up\nsome solid work, and see if you can so interest yourself in it that you\nkeep on to the end without impatience, without a temptation to hurry\nover the tiresome task. If, like the Hebrews in the wilderness, you find\nit a weary march through a dry land, where you are haunted at every step\nby the recollection of the savory flesh-pots which you have left behind\nyou, be assured that you can not escape too soon. The real question is\nwhether you are not too far gone to escape at all. Error in regard to\nthe reading of fiction is fraught with so many evils, that the rules\ngiven, stringent as they may seem, are abundantly justified.\n\nLet our young people be constantly on their guard against the mental\nenslavement which marks the confirmed novel-reader. Common novel-reading\nis a fearful evil, and against it there are arguments numerous and\nweighty, which all will do well to heed.\n\n1. _It wastes precious time._\n\nBy universal consent, works of fiction are called \"light literature;\"\nand the name is correctly applied. To produce them belongs to light\nthinkers, men and women whose purposes, principles, and convictions are\nall light--the light-weights of the world of mind and morals. How\nstrangely the name of Martin Luther, John Wesley, or George Washington\nwould sound connected with the authorship of a fanciful story whose\n\"interest centers in love!\" The names which illumine the historic page\nwith the purest light are those which it would amaze us to find\nconnected with the authorship of ordinary fiction. It is worth while to\npause and inquire why we would be surprised. Is not this the solution:\nthat men of real greatness, working in thorough earnest, under the\ninfluence of profound conviction, are too busy with the events and\nduties of the age in which they live to find time to spin out of nothing\na dream life for the amusement of idle minds?\n\nIt is evident that but little is gained by the instructions of teachers\nso inferior as are the great mass of novel-writers. Their productions\nare too easy reading to discipline the mind. They aim chiefly to amuse\nthe reader, not instruct, nor convince, nor raise him to the height of a\ngreat purpose; and, in general, the best that can be said of the best of\nthem is, that they confer pleasure without inflicting injury. But\nwhatever may be the quality, you may be sure that excess in quantity is\ninjurious. The vast majority of novel readers are young, and for them to\nsquander the precious hours is suicidal. Youth, wasted, ushers in a\nfeeble middle life and an unhappy old age. They who sow nothing in the\nSpring will lament over an Autumn which brings no fruit. Novel-reading\nis simply a diversion, a pastime, and to spend more than an occasional\nhour in diversion, however innocent it may be in itself, is a waste of\ntime, too precious to be thus thrown away.\n\n2. _Excessive light reading injures the mind._\n\nThe novelist seeks to bear his readers along without any labor on\ntheir part. They simply witness the action, and watch the unfolding of\nthe plot. The author amuses them with wit and humor; and, if he can,\nmelts them with pathos, or charms them with eloquent description. He is\nthe performer, and they are the spectators. If he is one of the best of\nhis class, they may improve a little in some branches of knowledge,\nprovided they are content to read slowly enough for the purpose. But\nhabitual novel-readers hurry on to see \"how it all comes out,\" seldom\npausing to consider the force of a figure, or the beauty of an\nexpression. Ingenious thought, keen discrimination in depicting\ncharacter, accurate descriptions of natural scenery, nice points of\nstyle, are lost in the rush of words. There is a headlong race of event\nafter event, shadows and light, storm and calm, and at last an end, a\nrapid panorama, little of which is seen distinctly while it is passing,\nand still less is remembered when it is past. The intellect does not\ngrow strong playing with straws thus, where there is no exercise of the\njudgment on what is read, no effort of the memory to retain any thing.\nThe novel-reader that does little or nothing but lounge about with a\nweak dilution of literature in hand, will soon become as soft and flabby\nin mind as in muscle, wholly incapable of lofty purposes and worthy\ndeeds.\n\n3. _Excessive light reading tends to unfit for real life._\n\nA devourer of novels seldom has an appetite for any thing else. To do\nour duty well, we must have our thoughts upon it, and our minds\ninterested in it. The heart and the hands must go together, or the hands\nwill soon tire, and do their work indifferently. What chance is there\nfor the student who indeed holds Blackstone or Wood before his dreamy\neyes, but whose thoughts are upon the unfinished romance in his desk?\nHow can the daughter at home find happiness in aiding to bear the burden\nof domestic cares, while her mind is in a whirl over some delicious\nlove-story, in which she has lost her identity in that of the\nfascinating Lady Something, with four desperate rivals for her hand, and\nthe crisis of her fate just over-leaf?\n\nWorks of fiction would be less doubtful reading if the reader, after\nfinishing the last page of the story, utterly forgot the whole, or\nremembered it only as we remember veritable history. The loss in that\ncase would be chiefly loss of time. But as things are, novel-readers\nspend many a precious hour in dreaming out clumsy little romances of\ntheir own, in which they themselves are the beautiful ladies and the\ngallant gentlemen who achieve impossibilities, suffer unutterable woe\nfor a season, and at last anchor in a boundless ocean of connubial\nbliss. Nor does it require much previous mental cultivation to enable\none to indulge in these visionary joys. The school-boy and school-girl,\nthe apprentice, the seamstress, the girl in the kitchen, can conjure up\nrosy dreams as readily as other people; and perhaps more readily, as it\nrequires but little reading of the sort to render them impatient of\ntheir lot in life, and set them to imagine something that looks higher\nand better.\n\nIn fact, the Cinderella of the old nursery story is the true type of\nthousands of our novel-readers. They live a sort of double life-one in\ntheir own proper persons, and in their real homes; the other as ideal\nlords and ladies in dream-land. Ella, sitting among her native cinders,\nis a very prosaic individual, addicted to exceedingly prosaic\nemployments, and fulfilling a destiny far removed from sublimated\nromance. But touched by the wand of the good Fairy, Ella is\ntransfigured, her coarse garments are robes of magnificence, the mice\nare prancing steeds, the pumpkin is a coach, and she rides in state, the\nadmiration of all beholders, and weds the prince triumphantly.\n\nThe modern Ella, sitting among the cinders, has indeed no good Fairy\nto confer sudden splendors upon her; but her place is well supplied by\nsundry periodicals, designed for just this style of readers. And so Ella\ninvests her six cents weekly, and reads, and dreams. According to the\nflesh, she bears an honest, humble name, busies herself with a cooking\nstove, or a noisy sewing-machine, and with all her matrimonial anglings,\nperhaps has never a nibble. In her other capacity she is the Countess of\nMoonshine, who dwells in a Castle of Spain, wears a coronet of diamonds,\nand to whom ardent lords and smitten princes make love in loftiest\neloquence; and she is blest. But, as Napoleon once observed, there is\nonly a step between the sublime and the ridiculous. At any moment the\ncoach of state may relapse into its original squash, the prancing horses\nagain become mice, the costly array turn once more to rags; and the\nCountess, sweeping in her trailing robes through the glittering crowd of\nadmiring lords and envious ladies, subside into her former simple self,\nwith the hideous onions to be peeled, or the clattering machine to be\nkept in motion.\n\nHow can the two parts of this double existence harmonize? How is it\npossible for those whose minds are thus bewildered, and who have formed\nthis inveterate habit of indulging in sentimental reverie, to engage\nheartily in the performance of commonplace duties? The inevitable result\nof excessive novel-reading is a distaste, if not an incapacity, for the\nsober thought and patient effort which are the price of success in every\nworthy path of life.\n\n4. _Excessive novel-reading creates an overgrowth of the passions._\n\nThe novel-reader naturally, and perhaps unconsciously, becomes\nidentified with the personage in the story who is nearest to what he or\nshe would like to be. With the book in his hand, and his whole soul for\nthe time being wrapped up in the exciting history, the young man ceases\nto be the apprentice, the clerk, the student, the farmer's boy, the\nplain John or Peter of his real self. He is merged in the hero of the\nstory, handsome in person, brilliant in mind, endowed with every\nexcellence, and bearing a name of at least three syllables. He becomes\nthe ardent suitor of the beautiful lady, the heiress of the immense\nestate. The burning words in which love is portrayed are his words. The\nwhole thing becomes so far a reality that it has something of the force\nof a genuine experience; and he feels happy, or grows melancholy with\nthe varying futures of his imaginary passion.\n\nNow, if Peter be a boy of fifteen, it is tolerably evident that he is\nadvancing a little too fast in his sentimental career. Like a certain\nvariety of pears described in the fruit books, there is danger of his\nbeing rotten before he is ripe. He is meditating matrimony when he has\nscarcely got beyond the limits of marbles and green apples. He looks\naround at the little girls to see which of them is the princess in\ndisguise; and soon imagines that he is desperately in love with some\nlittle damsel in the neighborhood, and seeing that in this dreadful\nworld disappointment is always possible, he begins to canvass the most\npicturesque and pathetic modes of committing suicide, in case the\nferocious uncle should interfere, as he did in the book.\n\nThe young lady is similarly affected. She fancies herself the beautiful\nheroine of the story, rich, accomplished, and, romantically, wretched.\nShe, too, begins to look about for the model lover who lays his hand\nupon his heart, lifts his tearful face toward heaven, and says pretty\nthings. She feels disdain for the plain young men of her acquaintance,\nand perhaps fixes her eyes upon some flashy stranger, whose unknown\nantecedents give her a chance to invest him with all the impossible\nperfections her romantic fancy is able to invent.\n\nNow, this state of things has its ridiculous side, but it is not\nhealthy nor safe. The effects are too serious to be passed by with a\nsmile. The inveterate habit of day-dreaming thus created absorbs the\nthoughts, destroys the mental balance, impairs sound judgment, and\nproduces tendencies which are very far from the views and feelings, aims\nand principles, on which usefulness and honor in the world depend. There\nis an overgrowth of the passions, an exaltation of marriage out of all\ndue proportion to other sources of rational happiness, an overestimate\nof beauty, wealth, and the other accidentals of human life; and a\ncorresponding underestimate of the value of piety, industry, and the\nsober virtues which are \"in the sight of God of great price.\" It is a\nvice of novelists as a class, to exalt love and matrimony above all\nelse, and thus create in susceptible youth the habit of thinking and\ndreaming of matrimony above all else. Thus the novelist literally \"turns\nthe heads\" of young people, inasmuch as he places foremost and uppermost\nthe faculty which the phrenologists locate low down in the back of the\nbrain.\n\n5. _The habit of novel-reading creates a morbid love of excitement\nsomewhat akin to the imperious thirst of the inebriate._\n\nThe victim of drugs does not love opium or alcohol because of its taste\nor smell. The effect which he covets is, in truth, a mental effect. He\nresorts to the drug that he may feel rich, powerful, exalted, and happy,\nwhile, in reality, he is \"wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,\nand naked.\" The victim of novels aims at the same thing in another way,\nby applying the bane directly to the mind itself.\n\nBut the inebriate soon finds that in order to produce the desired\neffect he must, from time to time, increase the strength of the dose. He\nadds to the quantity. Then from wine he goes on to brandy, and from that\nto absinthe, drugging his deadened brain to the verge of death, to gain,\nfrom time to time, a feeble return of the momentary joys which once a\nvery little of his chosen stimulus had power to impart. The experience\nof the confirmed novel-reader is similar. The simple tales of innocent\nlove which interest the beginner soon become commonplace. They fail to\nexcite the fancy or stir the emotions, and then something stronger must\nbe had. Quiet love and ordinary incident must give place to fierce\nrivalry and jealousy, hate, revenge, and murder.\n\nThe editors of certain periodicals belonging to this style of\nliterature seem to have decided that the public mind in general has\nreached this final stage. I confess that my knowledge of these\nperiodicals is not extensive, being confined to what is gained by a\npassing glance at windows and hand-bills, where their pictorial baits\nare thrust out to entrap buyers. The pictures which greet the eyes of\npassengers are almost invariably pictures of somebody shooting or\nstabbing somebody. The last embellishment which I have noticed, however,\nis a cut of somebody strangling the other somebody with his naked hands.\nThis is doubtless still more delightfully horrible to the admirers of\nthis style of writing, and calculated to thrill them with a new\nsensation. When the mind has become so vitiated that it turns away not\nonly from all solid reading, but even from the less objectionable works\nof fiction, to revel in nauseous descriptions of lawless passions and\nbloody deeds, and is so besotted with them that every thing else is void\nof interest, and every duty irksome, how far is it removed from some of\nthe worst evils of drunkenness or even of insanity itself? How much\nworse is the victim of alcohol or opium than the victim of mental\nintoxication?\n\n6. _The habitual reading of novels tends to lessen the reader's horror\nof crime and wickedness._\n\nCrime is seldom actually committed until the mind has become familiar\nwith the thoughts of it. The books which picture passion and crime keep\nthe readers in closest contact with evil till the horror with which they\nfirst shrank from it is gone. Moreover, these books are sometimes\nwritten to serve a special purpose. An author may be given to some sin\nwhich places him under the ban of respectable society. He grows restive\nand malicious under the frowns of the good. He writes a book in which\nhis own vice is white-washed into a sort of semi-respectability, and\nmade merely an amiable weakness, while some Church member of sounding\nprofessions, or perhaps a Christian minister, turns out to be the\nvillain of the plot. Thus in one character we see a villain bearing the\nChristian name, and in another a hidden vice united with so many shining\nqualities that the moral deformity is hidden by the splendors that are\nthrown around it. Thus the reader is trained to look suspiciously upon\nthe virtuous and smile upon the vicious. If he is tempted in the\ndirection of any particular wickedness, his memory will easily supply\nhim with some model from the books, who was given to the same thing, and\nwas a noble character, nevertheless, the admiration of all about him,\ngenerous, brave, and in the end successful and happy. The inference of\nthe tempted one is naturally this: that he too can yield and be admired,\nand in the end be happy.\n\nAside from the fictitious respectability which vice gains by being\nportrayed as not incompatible with the possession of high and generous\nqualities, needless familiarity with the idea of crime lessens the\nhorror with which we regard it. The more suicides in any community the\nmore easy it is to commit suicide, when rage and disappointment supply\nthe temptation. In communities where every man goes armed, and every eye\nis familiar with scenes of blood, small provocations lead to murder. It\nis not irrational to assume that one reason why play-actors, as a class,\ntend to low morals is because it is a part of their regular business to\npersonate immoral characters on the stage; and when the mind has become\nthoroughly imbued with the idea, and the lips familiar with the language\nof wickedness, the step from shams to reality is short and easy.\n\nThus the press becomes an apostle of unrighteousness when it lends its\npower to make the public mind familiar with all the phases of depravity.\nHe that delights to dwell upon the nauseous details is not morally safe,\nand the vice which furnishes his choice reading is the very one into\nwhich he is liable to fall. The refined and the pure shrink with\nloathing from needless contact with the things which they condemn and\nabhor. I believe that the fearful multiplication of tragic crimes in our\nown day is due, in no small degree, to two causes--one the too general\ncirculation of a corrupt literature, which familiarizes the reader with\nall that is detestable and infamous in character and conduct, the other\nthe common use of drugged liquors, which fire the brain with a wilder\nfrenzy than even that which is produced by alcohol, and drive men to\ntheir doom with a still more powerful, relentless force. In brief, the\nincreased prevalence of gross forms of wickedness is due to a general\npoisoning, mental and physical, which fills the minds and the veins of\nits victims with a more deadly venom than we have hitherto known.\n\nAn extract from a religious periodical, which comes to hand while I am\nwriting, corroborates the first part of the statement made.\n\n\"A young man--J.H.W.--committed suicide recently in Indianapolis. He\nleft a letter to his brother, in which he says: 'I believe that if I had\nnever read a novel I should now be on the high road to fortune; but,\nalas! I was allowed to read the vilest kind of novels when I was eight\nor nine years old. If good books had been furnished me, and no bad ones,\nI should have read the good books with the same zest that I did the bad.\nPersuade all persons over whom you have any influence not to read\nnovels.' The Ordinary of Newgate Prison, in his report to the Lord\nMayor, represents what a fruitful source of crime the Jack Sheppard and\nPaul Clifford style of novels has been among the youth of England.\nInquiring into the causes which brought many lads of respectable\nparentage to the city prison, he discovered that all these boys, without\none exception, had been in the habit of reading those cheap periodicals\nwhich are now published for the alleged instruction and amusement of the\nyouth of both sexes.\"\n\n7. _Excessive devotion to fictitious reading is totally at variance\nwith Scriptural piety._\n\nThis needs neither proof nor illustration. Genuine piety takes hold of\nthe heart, and draws the thoughts and the affections toward God, and\nmakes duty the source of the sweetest enjoyment. But when the novel\nusurps the place of the Bible; when secret prayer is hurried over, or\nwholly neglected, because of a burning desire to know what comes next in\nthe story; when meditation on divine things is forgotten in endless\nday-dreams of love and worldly splendor; or, worse still, when real life\nis thrown into the shade by the unreal, and made to appear mean and\ninsipid; when the action of conscience and sober reason is swept aside\nby the wild delirium of mental intoxication, what result can we look for\nsave apostasy and final ruin?\n\nWhile I contemplate these things, I confess that I am almost ready to\nrecant the former part of this chapter, and insert in the place of it a\nrigid iron rule for the guidance of all, young and old, learned and\nunlearned: TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM NOVEL-READING HENCEFORTH AND FOREVER.\nSurely, there is abundant cause for the rule of the Methodist Episcopal\nChurch, which warns all her communicants to abstain from \"reading those\nbooks which do not tend to the knowledge or love of God.\"\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nSOCIAL GATHERINGS.\n\n\"_How can one be warm alone?_\" Eccl. iv, 11.\n\n\nTime would fail me to examine the numerous and diversified amusements\npracticed in various parts of our land. Some are local; others are known\nevery-where. Some are right and wise; some are otherwise. Some are\nintellectual and refined; others are mere noisy romps. Of many of the\nolder sort the chief end was _kissing_. This latter feature may not have\nbeen particularly objectionable in little neighborhood gatherings in the\ncountry, where every body had known every body else all their lives, and\nhalf the young people in the room were cousins. The reader, however,\nwill doubtless agree in the opinion that in more general assemblies it\nis not over refined, and may well give place to something else of less\ndoubtful propriety.\n\nTo go through the whole list of these diversions, and pronounce upon\nthe merits of each, would be tedious and useless. My aim has been to\ndiscuss principles, and then, in the light of those principles, to\nexamine some of the more objectionable diversions now pleading for\npopular favor. If those principles are as plain as I take them to be, it\nwill not be difficult to apply them to any new candidate for our\nsuffrages. The reader, nevertheless, may object to an abrupt close of\nthe discussion. He may say that this series of trials and condemnations\nis not enough, and that he is now waiting to be informed in regard to\nthe recreations which are allowable and right; that having been warned\nagainst the forbidden fruit, he would now like to see the other trees,\nof which he may freely eat.\n\nThe suggestion is not without force; and yet it will require but a\nmoment's reflection to make it clear that I can not comply with it. To\nattempt to make a mere list of the names of rational recreations would,\nfor many reasons, be unwise. In some cases games and amusements are\nlocal, and to readers belonging elsewhere the mere name would convey no\ninformation. The same name is also applied to different diversions in\ndifferent localities, and, therefore, approval or censure would be\nmisunderstood and misapplied. It is evident that a simple list of\namusements to be condemned, and another list of those approved, would be\nof little service.\n\nOn the other hand, if I should attempt to escape misconstruction by\ndescribing fully the amusements condemned or approved, the whole plan of\nthis little volume would be changed, and it would become properly a Book\nof Diversions instead of a discussion of principles. That such a work\nmight be written--possibly not in vain--is not denied; but it is no part\nof my plan to write it. Nevertheless, I do not hesitate to offer a few\npractical suggestions.\n\nPermit me to say, first of all, that if any of my readers have nothing\nuseful to do--no solid purpose in life, no proper employment, nor desire\nfor any--they are counted out of this discussion. The idle, the\nfrivolous, the useless have no right to recreation. They must reform\ntheir aimless, empty lives, and by industry earn the privilege of rest\nand relaxation before they are entitled even to hold an opinion on the\nsubject. Let me add that no diversion, no amusement can impart more than\na momentary pleasure to the indolent and the listless. A degree of\nhunger alone can prepare a man fully to enjoy his food. It is the sleep\nof the laboring man that is sweet. True recreation involves the idea of\nrest; relief, pleasant change of occupation. So the active, the busy,\nthe industrious alone truly enjoy recreation. They who make amusement\ntheir only pursuit will soon find it utter weariness. For such I have\nonly pity, and for them I am not writing.\n\nBut the active and the industrious, who \"redeem the time,\" are entitled\nto their hours and modes of recreation. So far from denying it to be\ntheir privilege, I proclaim it to be their duty. The time and the manner\nmust, of course, be adapted to their varying circumstances. The\nschool-boy and school-girl need active exercise out-of-doors, in the\nlight of the sun, else they are liable to grow up colorless and\nspindling, like vegetables which have sprouted in the cellar. Every one,\nolder or younger, whose mind toils while the muscles are inactive, needs\nthe sunbeams and the breeze. They whose employment, on the contrary,\ntaxes the muscles, while the mind is comparatively inactive, require\nmodes of recreation which spur the intellect, quicken the imagination,\nand store the memory with rich treasures of thought. Those whose daily\navocation confines their thoughts to a narrow circle must find a wider\nrange elsewhere, and exercise their wings in longer flights. They who\nwork alone and in silence, need society; and those spending much of\ntheir time in a crowd will profit by an occasional hour of quiet,\nsolitary meditation. It was a curious habit of the late Dr. Archibald\nAlexander, of Princeton, to spend the hour of evening twilight alone in\nhis study, sitting in silent thought amid the deepening shadows. Who\nwill say that it was not wise? What lofty argument, what profound\nknowledge of spiritual things, what emotions of divine love and\nadoration may not have been drawn thus from the well of silence and\nquiet waiting?\n\nThe chief recreation of the world at large is _conversation_. Talking\nis the joy of the whole earth. It is one of the great employments of\nlife. Our utterances are often more important--do more good and evil\nthan our deeds. All human wisdom, knowledge, sentiment, wit, fancy, flow\nin the channel of speech. By words truth conquers, reforms progress,\nmind acts upon mind, heart reaches heart, soul converses with soul. The\nlips may utter golden speech, or drip with the poison of asps. Human\nbreath can come like the breezes of Paradise, or blast like the deadly\nsirocco of the hot desert. Aside from the deep joy of worship, and the\nhope of eternal life, there is no happiness, purer, richer, better than\nthat which springs from words. And there is little true recreation which\ndoes not make conversation one of its chief features, and rely upon it\nas its great charm.\n\nConversation implies social life. And here, in regard to social\ngatherings, I will make a suggestion which I am persuaded that my\nreaders will applaud with united voices, and, I fear, as unanimously\ndisregard in practice. Our social gatherings are apt to be too formal,\ntoo expensive, too large to secure the end which we have in view. To\ngive a \"great party\" once or twice a year, and astonish the whole\ncommunity by the splendor of the show, is rather a poor way to cultivate\ngenuine friendship. It is often a fearful undertaking to those who give\nit, and not very satisfactory to those who attend. Long and anxious\ndebate settles on the list of the invited; and when it is too late to\nremedy errors, it is discovered that somebody has been forgotten. The\nworry about the invitations, the arrangements, and the weather, is a\nfearful tax upon the time and temper for weeks beforehand; and when the\neventful evening comes the fear that all will not \"pass off smoothly\"\nkeeps the host, and especially the hostess, in a tremor of excitement,\nwhich culminates with the assembling of the company, and finds relief in\ntheir departure. Of the multitude who move uneasily from room to room,\nit often happens that the majority are little more than mere\nacquaintances of the entertainers, and of each other. Some are invited\nbecause we know them well, and love their society; others, because they\ngave an entertainment some time ago, and an invitation in return for\ntheirs is a sort of debt of honor, even when we suspect that their\ncourtesy was only a little device whereby they were aiming to get into a\nnew circle. Sometimes the invitations are extended so as to include some\nwho are almost strangers, simply because a certain number must be\nreached, or the affair will be pronounced inferior to somebody else's\nparty. There is no chance for genuine conversation; and little is heard\nsave commonplace remarks about the crowd and the heat, or inquiries in\nregard to the old gentleman with the spectacles, or the young lady with\nthe curls. Some fail to come, whose absence annoys and vexes; and others\narrive first and stay last, whose absence could have been borne without\na pang. Here is one whose sharp eyes and sharper tongue are the terror\nof the town, and who goes preying about, making mental notes of every\nsmall mishap, and every little awkward thing, and laying up ammunition\nfor a gossiping campaign. There is another, who sees that his or her\nturn to give the entertainment is not far off, and who is carefully\nestimating the extent of the preparations to be made, and calculating\nthe expenses to be incurred, in order to be equal to the rest, or, if\nambitious, to outdo them.\n\nI do not wish to visit these things with ridicule. They have some good\nfeatures, as well as defects. They are worth something, perhaps, though\nnot all that they cost. And yet there is \"a more excellent way.\" If we\ninvite at one time no larger a number than our parlors will seat, and we\nbring our friends together for a good, social, comfortable, leisurely\ntalk, there might be less of display; but would there not be more of\ngenuine enjoyment? Suppose, also, that the company be invited by\nfamilies, including the young and the old, the parents and the children,\nthe married and the unmarried. Let the grandsires draw their arm chairs\ntoward each other and pour into each other's ear-trumpets the\nreminiscences of other days, and laugh again over the old oft-repeated\nstories. Let the little children, down on the floor by their side,\ndiscourse of tops or dolls, while middle age reasons on public events,\nor discusses family matters, and the young people are gathered around\nthe piano or the book table; and as each drifts about on the social\ncurrent, the spectacles and the curls impend over the same book or\npicture, and the ear-trumpet be found gathering up the voices that\nchatter over the toys. Thus there might be true social pleasure without\nanxiety or envy, without present uneasiness, or heart-burnings\nafterward. Thus the aged would be cheered by the vivacity of youth; and\nthe gayety of youth be tempered by the wisdom of age.\n\nOr, if any one fancies doing things on a larger scale, let as many be\ninvited as the house will hold comfortably; and instead of coming at\nmidnight to stay till morning, let the company assemble early in the\nevening. And let there be music, and mirth, and laughter, and leisurely\ncomfortable interchange of ideas, discourse that carries no sting and\nleaves no wound, but fosters gentle manners and lasting friendships. If\nthe host chooses thus to manifest his hospitality, let there be a repast\nas good as need be; but excluding all that can intoxicate. Moreover,\nbefore the guests separate, let a few moments be spent in praise and\nprayer, according to the pious example of our fathers. And let midnight\nsee all the guests safe at home. Thus the morrow will not find them\njaded in body and mind, and irritable in temper, but clear in brain and\nwarm in heart, with a tendency to smile all day long over the pleasant\nrecollections of an evening thus innocently spent.\n\nI own that I am not sanguine in regard to the popularity of my\nproposed reform, especially in fashionable quarters. Young men who in\nthe language of the day are called \"fast,\" will pronounce this way of\ngiving a party decidedly \"slow.\" Mrs. Fitzshoddy sees that this mode of\nprocedure will materially lessen her chances to display her newly\nacquired splendors, and thus totally extinguish her aristocratic\nneighbor over the way, who failed to return her call five years ago.\nFitzshoddy himself has serious misgivings. He looks up at the social\nheights he would fain ascend, and shakes his head despondingly. \"That is\nnot the way them fellows does things, and you won't get among them\nunless you do as they do. They have a crowd, and a big fiddle, and a\ndance, and a long table with a wheelbarrow load of silver and things on\nit, and lots of wine, and all that. You can't invite them to a hum-drum\ntea-drinking that winds up with psalm-singing and prayer. They would\nthink it was somebody's funeral.\"\n\nMiss Arabella, too, who has of late given her whole mind to the\ndevising of gear for the outside of her head--a cunning piece of\nstrategy to divert attention from the state of things within--dreads so\nmuch conversation. \"People get to talking of things that you never heard\nof, you know, and books that you never read, and it is so embarrassing,\nyou know.\" And then she absolutely trembles when she thinks of \"Pa's\"\nbad grammar, and his habit of shaking the windows with gigantic laughter\nat his own jokes. Many, too, will admit the evils of present social\ncustoms, but be afraid to lead in innovations. Some will feel that to\nrefuse to give a grand party, after having attended a number among their\nacquaintances, will look very much like repudiation. Still, I doubt not\nthat the intelligent and the conscientious will agree that what I have\nproposed is, as it has been already styled, \"the more excellent way.\" I\nknow that it will be hard to make the giddy believe that there is much\nenjoyment to be found in these quiet ways. They want a crowd, and noise,\nand commotion. And in this they judge amiss. This crazy rush after\nexcitement defeats itself. As simple food and regular habits best\npromote health, so simple pleasures best promote genuine happiness. The\njoys of wine are not to be compared with the calm peace and self-mastery\nwhich belong to the temperate. The whirl of the dizzy dance, the wild\nexcitement of the race-course, the sensational tricks of the theater,\nthe whole circle of vices and fashionable follies are poor in their\nresults, compared with the better pleasures which arise from our nobler\nnature. They who would enjoy life wisely and well, must not heed every\nvoice which cries \"Lo, here,\" or \"Lo, there,\" but remember that \"the\nkingdom is within.\"\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nAPPEAL TO THE YOUNG MEMBERS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.\n\n     \"_I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and\n     the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked\n     one._\" I John ii, 14.\n\n\nBefore we part, will our young Christian reader \"suffer the word of\nexhortation?\" I am not unmindful of the situation in which you are\nplaced. You have associates, intelligent, agreeable in manners, and not\nimmoral, who argue stoutly in defense of their thoughtless pleasures.\nYour conscience resists, and yet you feel the effect of their\nsolicitations. You are sometimes almost ready to wish that your parents,\nyour pastor, your class-leader, and your own conscience would consent to\nyour yielding, that you might escape the pressure and feel no conflict\nbetween duty and the wishes of your gay companions. Let me call your\nattention to certain considerations, which I trust will have the effect\nto strengthen you for the right.\n\n1. _Frivolous and doubtful amusements have always been condemned by the\nDiscipline of our Church._\n\nOur General Rules do not indeed name dancing, the theater, and the\nrest. Had they done this, it might have been argued that the Discipline\nallows every folly not specified in the list. Our fathers in the Church\nwere too wise thus to attempt to war against an evil which assumes a\nthousand Protean forms. They announce a broad principle, which condemns\nall \"_such diversions as can not be used in the name of the Lord\nJesus_.\" Do you profess to be in doubt as to the true intent and meaning\nof the Rule? If you do, look at the past history of the Church. Which of\nthe founders of Methodism favored dancing? Did John Wesley? Did Fletcher\nor Clarke? Which of them favored the theater or the horse-race? Did\nHedding, or Fisk, or Olin? I challenge the apologists for dancing,\ntheaters, and races to show that a single one of the multitude of holy\nmen and women who have a name in our annals ever practiced or approved\nsuch diversions. On the contrary, there arise from their honored graves\na great cloud of witnesses against them. The devoted servants of God,\nwho shine as stars in our firmament, and whose names are \"as ointment\npoured forth,\" condemned, feared, abhorred them as utterly at war with\nthe life which they were living and the work which they were doing. Nor\nwere these the views of ignorant, morose, narrow-minded people, soured\nby disappointment, or disabled by age or disease, but of intelligent,\nhappy men and women, who served the Lord with glad hearts and went about\nwith smiling faces.\n\nOur Church traditions are unanimous in regard to these things. The\ntestimony which they bear is uniform and strong. Our Bishops and pastors\nare now unanimous in their judgment. Within the past year, Conference\nafter Conference has spoken in resolutions and pastoral addresses,\nwarning our young people on this subject. If, therefore, a young man\nhere and there among us finds that the practices into which he has\nfallen are at variance with the deliberate judgment of the Wesleys, the\nClarkes, the Asburys, and the Heddings of the past, and all the Bishops\nand pastors of the present day, I respectfully suggest that he will not\nbe liable to be convicted of excessive modesty if he should begin to\nsuspect that his ideas on the subject are wrong, nor of excessive\ncaution if he should conclude to refrain from indulgence till he is\nbetter assured that it is right and safe. Surely no one will count it a\nlight thing to disregard the teachings of a century of spiritual power\nand progress, nor to turn a careless ear to the kind and faithful\ncounsels of those who now watch for souls.\n\n2. _Every member of the Methodist Episcopal Church is bound by a solemn\npledge to abstain from all questionable diversions, such as those\nalready named._\n\nIn the form given in the Ritual for the reception of persons into the\nChurch after probation, the fourth question is in the following words:\n\n\"Will you be cheerfully governed by the Rules of the Methodist Episcopal\nChurch, hold sacred the ordinances of God, and endeavor, as much as in\nyou lies, to promote the welfare of your brethren and the advancement of\nthe Redeemer's kingdom?\"\n\nTo this question, so full of meaning, each candidate for reception must\nanswer, before God and his Church, \"I WILL.\" (Discipline, page 156.)\n\nEvery member of the Church, therefore, solemnly promises before God and\nthe people of God to be cheerfully governed by the Rules of the Church.\nOne of these Rules calls upon you to avoid \"such diversions as can not\nbe used in the name of the Lord Jesus.\" That Rule has always been\nunderstood to condemn balls and dancing, theaters, attendance at\nhorse-races, and the whole list of corrupting amusements. The logical\nchain, then, is complete. Every member of the Church is bound, in the\nmost solemn manner, by his or her own pledge, fully and publicly given,\nto abstain from balls, dancing, theater-going, and the rest.\n\nCan you, for one moment, harbor the thought of repudiating so solemn an\nobligation? The Psalmist inquires, \"_Lord, who shall abide in thy\ntabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?_\" And he thus answers his\nown question: \"_He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not_.\"\nGod honors those who are faithful to their word. He delights in the man\nwho keeps his promise, even when it is against his own temporal\ninterests to abide by it. If God counts it a dishonorable and wrong\nthing for a man to repudiate a pledge given to his fellow-man, what will\nhe think of those who repudiate a solemn public pledge made to him? If\nGod honors the integrity of the man who keeps his word when his\ninterests seem to call upon him to violate it, what will he say of those\nwho violate their word when all their interests, both temporal and\neternal, call upon them to keep it?\n\n3. _When the young people connected with the Church are drawn into\nfrivolous diversions, it is a sorrow of heart to the pastor and to all\ndevoted Christians._\n\nWill it be replied that these faithful friends of years are so narrow\nand antiquated in their notions, that no one need care what they think\nor how they feel? The matter can not be disposed of thus lightly. It is\nnot a small thing for a few young men and women, before whom real life\nlies yet untried, to set up their opinions, and blindly adhere to them,\nin opposition to the solemn judgment of the whole body of the ministry.\nIt is not a small thing to wound, deeply and wantonly, those whose\nacknowledged consistency and holy lives are the joy and crown of the\nChurch, and one of the main elements of its strength in the community.\nIt is by these, and such as they, and God working through them, that we\nhave Bibles and Sabbaths, and law and order, and civilization\nitself--all that exalts a Christian country above a heathen land. These\ndevoted followers of Christ love his Church and his people. Some of them\nhave been long in the way. They feel that they are approaching the gates\nof _the city which hath foundations_, and they are expecting daily the\nshadowy messenger that shall bid them enter. Looking to the younger\nmembers of the Church to supply the places which they will soon leave\nvacant, they may well be troubled, and shed their tears over the gloomy\nfuture, when they see youthful professors of religion given to vain and\ntrifling pleasures and frivolous pursuits, trying to break down the\ndiscipline of the Church, and strip Methodism of its beauty and its\npower, and wrest from its hands the spiritual weapons with which a\nthousand victories have been won.\n\n4. _When young Church members become giddy and fond of worldly pleasure,\nthe unconverted are encouraged to go on in their sins._\n\nThey who are yet unsaved hear the ways of wisdom described as ways of\npleasantness and peace, but they know not how to understand the\ndeclaration. They confess that it is good to have a hope of eternal\nlife, just as it is good to have a life-preserver about you when you are\ngoing to make a sea-voyage. Still, to them piety is a mystery. The deep\njoy of devotion, the glow and the rapture of praise, the blessedness of\ncommunion with God they can not comprehend. They listen, and wonder, and\nsometimes doubt and do not know what to think. But when they find that\nyoung members of the Church are just as eager as themselves after\nquestionable pleasures, they conclude that these roseate pictures of the\nhappiness of the Christian are, to say the least, overdone. When they\nsee the flock trying the fence on all sides of the fold, and stretching\ntheir heads through every opening, to nibble at the weeds outside, they\nbegin to suspect that the pasture within is not as rich as it is\nrepresented. Thus the inconsistent conduct of professed Christians who\nplunge into worldly amusements harms souls and injures a holy cause.\n\nAnd sinners, too, are inconsistent with themselves. Now they argue\nthat religion is all delusion, because, as they say, its professors are\nno better than other people; now they insist that their soulless\npursuits must be right, because even members of the Church indulge in\nthem. Thus they seek to justify their follies and their sins by the\nexample of worldly Church members. Moreover, they will endeavor to make\na little in you justify a great deal in them. Tell a sinner that he is\nnot wise in attending balls, and he will twit you with the parlor\ndancing at some well-known professor's house. Warn him against the\ntheater, and he will ask you to point out the moral difference between\nthat and the play at the museum. Tell him that the gambling den is a\ndangerous place for young men, and he will remark, with a significant\nlook, that living away from home he can not play cards in his father's\nhouse, as some do. And what professors of religion do occasionally, the\nunconverted, on the strength of their example, will claim the right to\ndo constantly and habitually. Thus the thoughtless conduct of Church\nmembers is made to increase the perils which environ the unsaved, and to\nhedge up the only way of life. To incur, or even risk, consequences like\nthese for the sake of a momentary excitement, is certainly to do the\ndevil's work for low wages.\n\n5. _If you indulge in diversions which are thus under condemnation, it\ncan not fail to lessen your religious enjoyment and mar your\nusefulness._\n\nYou may seem to yourself to be confident that your course is right,\nbut the consciousness that others, whose judgment you must respect,\nbelieve it to be wrong, brings a cloud over you. The fact that you are\ndoing what they condemn will haunt you in church, at the prayer-meeting,\nand every-where. The fact that you do this, not under any plea of\nnecessity, but for mere pastime and momentary pleasure, will not mend\nmatters. However kind and considerate the older members of the Church\nmay be in their allusions to your course, you feel that you have not\ntheir confidence fully. This will trouble you, perhaps irritate you. You\nfancy that you are looked upon coldly. You detect little instances of\nneglect. You imagine that certain expressions in sermons of your pastor\nor the prayers of your brethren were meant for you. Things get worse the\nlonger you brood over them. You are tempted first to stay away from the\nsacrament, and then to neglect the other means of grace. Some\nwell-meaning but clumsy brother pounces upon you at a most untimely\nmoment, administers a scathing rebuke, and goes on his way happy,\nblessing the Lord that there is one Christian left who has the courage\nto do his duty. Now you are really angry. You are ready to imagine that\nall the rest of the Church would talk the same way if they should speak\ntheir minds. Thus, little by little, you veer from your Christian\ncourse, the mists gather around you, the stars disappear, you fall into\nadverse currents, and, it may be, finally strike upon the rocks, and\nmake shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.\n\nWill you say that the evils depicted flow not from your conduct, but\nfrom the censoriousness of the Church? If all were silent, the result\nwould not be materially different. The Methodist Episcopal Church is\nimmovable in her position in regard to these things. If you violate her\nDiscipline, you can not shut out the thought that you are an unfaithful,\ndisloyal member of her communion. This alone will suffice to bring a\nchill and a blight upon you. The world, too, see that you are not in\naccord with your brethren--not at home in the place which you\noccupy--and this encourages them to ply their arts to lead you still\nfurther. If you resist, they remind you of your own past conduct, and\ninquire, perhaps with a sneer, whence comes this sudden tenderness of\nconscience. If others rebuke them, they refer to you, with another\nsneer, as their exemplars. Surely, the poor pleasure which springs from\nquestionable diversions is bought at too high a price when it costs us\nour consistency, the warm fellowship of Christian people, peace of\nconscience, and the power to do good.\n\n6. _In morals compromises are not only treason to truth and\nrighteousness, but compromised positions are of all the hardest to\ndefend in argument and maintain in practice._\n\nYou have acquaintances, intelligent and agreeable, but gay and\ninconsiderate, who are unwearied in their efforts to draw you into their\ncircle. Their importunities are urgent, and it taxes all your powers of\nresistance to withstand them. You grow weary of the conflict between\nduty and inclination, and wish for rest. The thought occurs to you that\nif you go a little way with your tempters they will be satisfied, and no\ngreat harm will be done.\n\nYou reason amiss. To compromise with wrong is never the end of\nconflict. You must conquer a peace. If you do not mean to make a\ncomplete surrender to the world, the flesh, and the devil, there must be\na point where the line is drawn, and the stand taken. Where will you\nplace the line? Will you try to draw it half way between right and\nwrong? If you do you will abandon a strong position for a weak one. If\nyou yield in regard to dancing in private parties, you will be invited,\nin due time, to attend a ball. If you go to see some \"moral drama\"\nperformed at the museum, you will be urged to attend the theater. And\nthe assault made on your halfway position will be just as strong, the\nconflict just as painful, and to refuse just as hard as you now find it.\nThe place of undoubted right is at once the safest to occupy and the\neasiest to maintain, and it is bad generalship to try to intrench at any\nother point. And to parley with the enemy is the next thing to a\nsurrender.\n\nFight it out, then, on this line. Life is brief, and close beyond it\nlie heaven and hell. If you take one single step in the direction of\ndanger and ruin in search of fleeting pleasures, will you think, ten\nthousand ages hence, that in this you were wise? The foolish diversions\nin which you are now importuned to join war with health, waste time,\nsquander money, mar Christian reputation, dissipate serious thought,\nhinder usefulness, attack every temporal and every eternal interest. Can\nyou persuade yourself that it is right for you, for the sake of an\nhour's feverish excitement, to tarnish your religious example, grieve\nyour fellow-believers, lay a burden upon your pastor's heart, wantonly\nthrow away your power to do good, and give new courage to the wicked?\n\nWill you still try to apologize for questionable pleasures? The entire\nboard of Bishops, the General Conference, your pastors, without an\nexception, all the deeply pious men and women of the Church, believe\nthat dancing, card-playing, going to the theater and the races are\nunwise, inexpedient, hurtful to the spiritual interests of those who\nengage in them, and damaging to the moral power of the Church of God.\nNor do they stand alone in this solemn judgment. The most intelligent\nand devoted Christians in the various Churches around us share these\nconvictions. Will you set yourself in array against whole Conferences,\nCouncils, and General Assemblies? And if you deem yourself equal in\njudgment to all combined, let me ask you another question: Is your\nconclusion as safe as theirs? They think it dangerous to dance, play\ncards, and attend the theater. Are you equally confident that it is\ndangerous _not_ to dance, _not_ to play cards, _not_ to attend the\ntheater? Is abstinence as perilous as indulgence? They fear that God\nwill not hold you guiltless if you venture into these frivolities. Are\nyou as fully persuaded that God will condemn you if you do not venture\ninto them? The danger is all on one side. Beware how you venture where\nthere is cause for hesitation. Remember, \"he that doubteth,\" and yet\ngoes on when he might safely stop, \"is damned.\"\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nAPPEAL TO THE CHURCH.\n\n     \"_And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy\n     and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the\n     clean._\" Ezekiel xliv, 23.\n\n\nOn moral and religious questions compromise is treason to the right.\nLafayette's witty and just illustration is well applied. He supposes two\nmen to get into an altercation in regard to a fact in arithmetic. \"Twice\ntwo is four,\" says the one, stoutly. \"No\", replies the other, \"twice two\nis six.\" Both are immovable, and the dispute waxes warm. A third person\napproaches, and lays a hand gently upon each. \"Gentlemen, reason is not\ninfallible. The wisest men are sometimes in error. We are all prone to\nrush to extremes. You, my friend, affirm that twice two is four. You,\nwho are equally my friend, affirm that twice two is six. Compromise,\ngentlemen, compromise. Meet each other half way. Agree to say,\nhereafter, that twice two is five.\"\n\nMen are not lacking who, even in considering points of morals and\nreligion, are ready to confess that really, after all, so far at least\nas their present information extends, twice two is somewhere about five.\nNay, in their haste to meet what they style the demands of the age, some\nare ready to compromise at five and ninety-nine hundredths. And thus,\nall the way from what St. John calls \"the camp of the saints and the\nbeloved city\" down to the place where Gog and Magog are gathering their\nhosts for battle, men are pitching their flimsy tents and raising their\nequivocal banners. It is a lamentable fact that among the chief\nobstacles to the progress of the Gospel we are compelled to count bodies\nthat claim to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet have neither the\nheart to preach his doctrines nor the courage to proclaim his law. In\nall ages there have been sects of nominal Christians, who form a part of\nthe Church of Christ in the same sense that the outside scales of a\nshell-bark hickory are a part of the tree, and who are ever ready to\ncompromise with the world and tolerate all fashionable follies. Worldly\nmen would manage the affairs of a Church in the same manner that they\nwould conduct a political campaign. The argument is, that in order to be\npopular, and grow rapidly in numbers and in wealth, the Church must lay\nas few restrictions as possible upon candidates for admission, and as\nseldom as possible come into collision with the pleasures and the\npassions of the multitude.\n\nMr. Bright, in a recent speech in the British Parliament on the\ndisestablishment of the Irish Church, gives, in a sentence or two, a\ncorrect description of this policy which we have here mentioned:\n\n\"The Right Honorable gentleman, the member from Bucks, argued very much\nin favor of the Established Church on the ground that there ought to be\nsome place into which people can get who would not readily be admitted\nany where else. The fact is, what the Right Honorable gentleman wants is\nthis: that we shall have an established Church which has no discipline,\nand that any one who will live up to what may be called a gentlemanly\nconformity to it may pass through the world as a very satisfactory sort\nof Christian.\"\n\nBut the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. This mercenary\npolicy fails by the very measures to which it resorts. When the wicked\nsee no distinction between the Church and the world they cease to\nrespect the Church. Even the hypocrite finds his occupation gone when a\nprofession of religion means nothing, just as the counterfeiter stops\nwork when the bank fails and its notes are no longer current. Thus the\ncunning of men overleaps itself. On the other hand, the Church that\nboldly joins issue with sin wins moral power with every blow, and\nsecures the respect even of the enemy. Thus they who feebly seek to save\ntheir lives lose them, while those who are ready to lose life for\nChrist's sake and the Gospel's find it.\n\nThe principle stated is of infinite importance, and we must neither\nforget it nor distrust it for an hour. All who fear God will confess\nthat we are not to withhold the truth nor compromise with sin, even if\nthe multitude desert our altars to crowd where the cross is lighter or\nits offense has wholly ceased. But is it true that worldly craft and\npolicy will fail even as a policy? Let another question answer this.\nOther things being equal among rival denominations, have not the purest\nin doctrine and the strictest in morals always been the most successful?\nChurches grow weak by lowering the standard of morals. When there is no\ndiscoverable difference between the Church and the world, the Church is\nno longer loved, or venerated, or believed. It becomes powerless to pull\ndown the strongholds of sin; it can no more stir the heart, nor rouse\nthe conscience, nor reach the mysterious depths of our nature; it ceases\nto meet the religious wants of those whose hearts God has touched, and\nmen turn away unsatisfied from its shallow waters. The scorner will be\nloud in his denunciations of religionists whose vows are but the breath\nof the moment, and whose professions mean nothing. Even the soul\nconvinced of guilt and danger will be afraid to trust to the guidance of\na Church which has in it so little of the divine, so little of the power\nof God.\n\nMethodism took at the beginning, and has held to this day, what some\nmight regard as extreme positions on the subject of slavery, worldly\namusements, and the drinking customs of the times. What is the verdict\nof history? Have we damaged ourselves by our fidelity to the right? Some\ntimid, half-convicted people have doubtless been repelled from our\ncommunion by the strictness of Methodist discipline and the boldness\nwith which we have assaulted the wrong, but who believes that the Church\nwould have grown more rapidly by compromise and cowardice? Who believes\nthat it would be wise, even according to the wisdom of this world, to\ncompromise with evil now? Zion is not \"lengthening her cords and\nstrengthening her stakes\" in a Scriptural manner when she \"stretches the\ncurtains of her tent\" to shelter dancing, card-playing, and wine-bibbing\nconverts. If these should come in crowds, offering on these conditions\nto join us, we could not receive them. To do so would be to act as madly\nas would the general who, in an enemy's country, commands his soldiers\nto throw away their arms, call in the sentinels, and level the\nintrenchments, in order to gain a few timid recruits who would not wear\nthe uniform an hour if they thought that it meant war.\n\nNor is our argument disproved by the history of modern ecclesiastical\norganizations which have been less rigid than our own Church. In an\nintelligent community, where the Bible is read, their laxity is always\nagainst them. And in those very denominations the really pious, whose\ninfluence and example are the very salt of the body, to preserve it from\nputrefaction, and without whom it would hardly be recognized as a\nreligious body at all, do not join in these questionable practices\nthemselves, nor do they advocate them in others.\n\nThe way in which the world reasons about a facile Church is well\nillustrated by a conversation which actually took place not long ago\nbetween a sort of a minister and a shrewd, irreligious rich man, whom he\nwished to get in his little fold.\n\n\"Mr. B----,\" said the clergyman, \"almost all your family have joined the\nChurch, and I think it is about time for you to do the same.\"\n\n\"O, I am not fit to join the Church. I am not at all pious, you know,\"\nwas the reply.\n\n\"But\", said the minister, \"you are aware that we are not very strict.\nOur Church does not require as much as some others.\"\n\n\"But I am not right,\" said Mr. B----. \"I sometimes get angry and swear,\nand that will not do for a member of the Church.\"\n\n\"O, well,\" answered the minister, \"you do not mean any harm by it, do\nyou? That need not hinder.\"\n\n\"But, parson, that is not all. I am in business. I trade horses, for\ninstance, and make the best bargain I can; and some people say that I\ntell lies in making my bargains.\"\n\n\"O, well,\" said the parson, \"it is right for us to take care of our\ninterests. That need not hinder you.\"\n\n\"Now, look here, parson,\" said our friend, somewhat excited, \"what good\nwill it do me to join your Church if I need not be any thing but what I\nam? I am not a Christian now, I know; but if I ever join the Church, I\nmean to be one.\"\n\nEven the world, unsaved, dim in vision, and hard in heart, has learned\nenough of the truth to despise those who are ready to sacrifice religion\nfor the sake of numbers, and the pecuniary and social strength which\nnumbers bring. If the Methodist Episcopal Church should abandon her\ntraditions, and retreat from her present high position in morals, her\napostasy would be attended by a fearful loss of religious power. If such\nan exhortation were allowable, I would call on all upon whom devolves\nthe oversight of the Church to stand firm for the strict morals of\nMethodism. There is always a difficulty in maintaining Scriptural\ndiscipline. To enforce it is often painful to the pastor. It sometimes\ndisturbs the membership and the community, interrupting friendly\nintercourse and exciting evil passions; nevertheless, we can not give up\nChurch order. The pressure can be escaped only by a complete abandonment\nof discipline. Concessions and compromises merely transfer the battle to\nanother point, where we must again fight, our forces demoralized by\ndefeat and the enemy emboldened by victory.\n\nIf there is any place which we can hold against the enemy, any line\nwhere we can muster our forces and repel invasion, it is on the\nfrontier. The king who fails to meet his foes the moment they set foot\nwithin his territory is already conquered. Drawing the line, and taking\nher stand in favor of total abstinence from all that intoxicates, the\nMethodist Episcopal Church has kept herself pure from the sin and shame\nof intemperance, and yet not one in ten thousand of her members is ever\narraigned for violation of the stringent rule. Could the Church tolerate\nwhat is called \"moderate drinking\" without being compelled to deal with\nmultitudes whom moderate drinking had led into the depths of\ndrunkenness? For the same reason it is easier to keep our young people\nfrom objectionable diversions than to discipline them for the grosser\ninconsistencies into which indulgence would speedily lead them.\n\nWill it be said that if we are so rigid our young people will leave us\nand join other communions? Be it so, if it must. They who are in haste\nto sell their membership in the Church for so poor and small a mess of\npottage can do us little good if they remain. _They go out from us\nbecause they are not of us._ A thousand dancing, wine-bibbing,\ncard-playing, theater-going Church members will not furnish one worthy\ncandidate for the Christian ministry, not one devoted class-leader, not\none pious man or woman ready for the spiritual work of the Church of\nGod. If they leave us in order to seek a more congenial home, we can\nbetter afford to lose than to keep them. The rubbing out of minus\nquantities increases the sum total. And if any other Church, so called,\nimagine that they can make their swarm the stronger by hiving our\ndrones, they are certainly welcome to try the experiment. If there be a\nnoble emulation that may justly prompt us to \"labor more abundantly\"\nthan others, and excel them if we may, in Gospel successes, we need not\nfear the rivalry of any fashionable, worldly, easy-going denomination.\nSuch as these will never \"take our crown.\" Pure doctrine, a faithful\nministry, unwavering adherence to the Divine law of morals, a devoted,\nholy, earnest laity, alone will win the prize.\n\nBut let us not flatter ourselves with the idea of a vantage-ground\nwhich no one else has the wisdom to see nor the grace to occupy. No low\ndegree of morality will suffice to place us at the head of the\nsacramental host, or even give us a position among the leaders. Others\nas well as ourselves see the beauty of holiness, and are striving to put\non the robe \"white and clean\" which is \"the righteousness of saints.\"\nAlmost every branch of the Church of Christ has taken the alarm, and, by\nits leading ministers or resolutions passed in ecclesiastical councils,\nhas spoken emphatic words of warning. It would be easy to fill scores of\npages with these utterances, coming from Churches differing widely in\ndoctrine and in usage. A few extracts, with the sources whence they\nemanate, will show us the sentiments and convictions of the general\nChurch in our whole land.\n\nThe General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church thus spoke half a\ncentury ago:\n\n\"On the fashionable though, as we believe, dangerous amusements of\ntheatrical exhibitions and dancing, we deem it necessary to make a few\nobservations. The theater we have always considered as a school of\nimmorality.... With respect to dancing, we think it necessary to observe\nthat however plausible it may appear to some, it is perhaps not the less\ndangerous on account of that plausibility.... Let it once be introduced\nand it is difficult to give it limits. It steals away precious time,\ndissipates religious impressions, and hardens the heart.\"\n\nThe General Assembly of 1865 reaffirmed the action of the session of\n1818, condemned card-playing--to which attention had been called by a\nmemorial--and \"affectionately exhorted all the members of the Church\" to\navoid \"all recreations and amusements which are calculated to impair\nspirituality, lessen Christian influence, or bring discredit upon them\nin their profession as members of a Christian Church.\"\n\nBishop M'Ilvaine, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, thus declares his\njudgment on the same subject:\n\n\"Let me now turn to two objects, in which there is no difficulty of\ndiscrimination--the theater and the dance. The only line I would draw in\nregard to these is that of entire exclusion. And yet, my brethren, I am\nwell aware how easy it is for the imagination to array both of these in\nsuch an abstract and elementary simplicity, so divested of all that\ngives them their universal character and relish, that no harm could be\ndetected in either. And the same precisely can be easily done with the\ncard-table and horse-race.\"\n\nBishop Mead, also of the Protestant Episcopal Church, thus condemns\ndancing:\n\n\"As an amusement, seeing that it is a perversion of an ancient\nreligious exercise, and has ever been discouraged by the sober-minded\nand pious of all nations, on account of its evil tendencies and\naccompaniments, we ought conscientiously to inquire whether its great\nliability to abuse, and its many acknowledged abuses, should not make us\nfrown upon it _in all its forms_. I will briefly allude to some of the\nobjections to it. When taught to the young at an early age, it is\nattended with an expense of time and money which might be far better\nemployed. It promotes the love of dress and pleasure, to which the young\nare already too prone; it tempts to vanity and love of display; it\ninduces a strong desire to enter on the amusements of the world at an\nearly period, in order to exhibit the accomplishments thus acquired, and\nto enjoy a pleasure for which a taste has been formed; it leads the\nyoung ones exactly into an opposite direction to that pointed out in the\nWord of God.\"\n\nIn their Episcopal Address of 1867, the Bishops of the Methodist\nEpiscopal Church South thus speak:\n\n\"This is no time to abate our testimony against worldliness in all its\nforms. Our Church has never faltered in its teaching or modified its\ntone in relation to dancing, theaters, the manufacture and sale of\nardent spirits, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, as demoralizing\nand fatal to godliness. Now that we are threatened with these evils\ncoming in like a flood, we renew our warning.\"\n\nIn 1866 the Young Men's Christian Association held a General Convention\nin Albany, New York. Delegates were present from all parts of the United\nStates and the British Provinces. The question of amusements was\ncarefully considered, and the conclusion reached was set forth in a\nformal resolution, thus:\n\n\"That we bear our energetic testimony against dancing, card and\nbilliard-playing, as so distinctively worldly in their associations, and\nunspiritual in their influences, as to be utterly inconsistent with our\nprofession as the disciples of Christ.\"\n\nAnd last of all, but not least in the wisdom of the sentiments uttered,\nnor in the faithfulness of its warnings, we cite the Pastoral Letter of\nthe Provincial Council of Baltimore, the voice of the Bishops of the\nRoman Catholic Church. It is dated May, 1869:\n\n\"The dangerous amusements, prominent among the evils we have to\ndeplore, and which is an evidence of the growing licentiousness of the\ntimes, may be reckoned a morbid taste for indecent publications, and the\nfrequency of immoral or positively obscene theatrical performances. No\nentertainments seem sufficient to satisfy the fast degenerating spirit\nof the age unless they be highly sensational, and calculated to gratify\nthe most prurient appetites. We can hardly say who deserve a stronger\ncondemnation, the actors who pander to the most vitiated tastes, or the\naudiences who encourage, by their presence, and applaud these grossly\nindelicate exhibitions. Both actors and spectators appear to vie with\neach in their rapid march down the slippery path of sin. We deem it\nparticularly our solemn duty to renew our warning against the modern\nfashionable dances, commonly called 'German,' or round dances, which are\nbecoming more and more the occasions of sin. These practices are so much\nthe more dangerous as most persons seem to look upon them as harmless,\nand indulge in them without any apparent remorse of conscience. But\nDivine revelation, the wisdom of antiquity, the light of reason and of\nexperience, all concur in proclaiming that this kind of entertainments\ncan not be indulged in by any virtuous persons, unless they be more than\nhuman, without detriment to their souls, or even be present to take part\nin such amusements, where the eye is dazzled by an array of fascinating\nobjects, where the senses are captivated by enchanting music, and the\nheart is swayed to and fro amid the surrounding gayety and excitement.\"\n\nWith these facts, arguments, appeals, and testimonies we leave the\nsubject to the solemn consideration of the reader, believing that the\nposition which we have taken is rational, Scriptural, and safe, \"by\nmanifestation of the truth commending\" itself \"to every man's conscience\nin the sight of God.\"\n\n\"FINALLY, BRETHREN, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE TRUE, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE\nHONEST, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE JUST, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE PURE,\nWHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT; IF\nTHERE BE ANY VIRTUE AND IF THERE BE ANY PRAISE, THINK ON THESE THINGS.\"\n\n[Illustration: decorative]\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nMaintained original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation.\n\nObvious printer errors have been corrected.","title":"Popular Amusements","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":31695}