Popular Amusements

"And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof." Zech. viii, 5.

The prophet thus, as with a single stroke of his pencil, paints a beautiful picture of peace, plenty, and public security. In times of riot and wild disorder, the children are kept within doors, that they may be out of the way of harm. In time of war, children may be seen in the streets of the city; but they are there clinging in terror to the hands of their parents, and surrounded by the confusion and alarm of a population flying from the foe. When famine reigns, a few children may be found in the streets; but they are the wan, emaciated victims of hunger, who wander from their desolate homes to beg, with tears and outstretched hands, for bread. If the war or the famine continue its ravages, the number of children steadily decreases. In seasons of public calamity, little children die, as the tender blossoms of Spring perish beneath the volleys of untimely hail. In the prophetic picture, therefore, the numbers of the children, their merry sports, and the public places where they are playing, all give token of the safety and prosperity of a people whom the Lord protects and blesses.

But if this be so, it can not be wrong for boys and girls to play. A doubt upon this point would mar the representation and destroy the force of the imagery. No, let the children play-not, indeed, without limit; not to the neglect of study, nor of such useful labor as they ought to perform; not in modes that transgress Divine law, nor in the company of those who will teach them corrupt language and evil deeds: still, let the children play. Let them leap, and laugh, and shout. Let them have their playthings and their pets. Let them not fear the sun nor the winds of heaven, though their cheeks ripen like peaches in the light and the heat, and though faces and garments occasionally show that man still retains an affinity for the dust whence he was originally taken.

Let the youth have their seasons of recreation. Their amusements, indeed, ought to be of a higher intellectual type than those of little children. Nevertheless, amusements are still lawful and expedient. Let there be times when the student shall lay aside the book, and the clerk, the apprentice, and the farmer's boys and girls forget their work. Let the youth, rich or poor, humble or exalted, at home beneath the parental roof, or in the employ or under the care of strangers, have their periods of rest and recreation. And if the time and the mode are wisely chosen, there will be no loss but a real gain to all concerned. The student will return to the lesson with a better courage and a clearer brain, and the fingers which are busy with the affairs of the house, the office, the shop, or the field will ply their task more nimbly.

Let middle life, too, immersed, as it is, in the cares and toils of this busy existence, have its hours of leisure and freedom. Brain and muscles both need rest, and the burden will feel the lighter for being occasionally laid aside. Industry is indeed a virtue. Let every man, woman, and child have something useful to do, and do it. I would not, for one moment even, seem to defend idleness, or apologize for the follies of the aimless devotee of shallow pleasures; yet I am persuaded that not a few of our most valued workers in fields of lofty usefulness would find their heads growing gray less rapidly if they could be induced to take an occasional rest.

And let the aged, also, have their recreations. It is not unbecoming for them to devote an hour, now and then, to the quiet pleasures which smooth the brow and wreathe the lip with smiles. In itself it is just as pious to laugh as to weep, and there are a great many cases where it is wiser and better to laugh. For the old and the young there are social enjoyments and recreations which brighten the passing moments and leave no shadow behind them; which send us back to the graver employments of life with a lighter heart and stronger frame. Travelers sometimes tell us that of all the nations of the earth the Americans have the fewest public holidays. This, if true, is not much to be regretted. A public holiday is very apt to be a public nuisance, disturbing the peace of quiet people, and multiplying temptations for the young and the thoughtless. If there are anniversaries and days of patriotic uproar, to which gunpowder and alcohol alone can do justice, it must be confessed that the multiplication of them is not desirable. Moreover, if custom fails to prescribe times and modes of recreation, it leaves families and societies the freer to choose for themselves.

But on what principle are we to choose our recreations? Are we at liberty to follow the multitude, inquiring, not for the best reason, but the latest fashion? No intelligent Christian will fail to see that he must be as conscientious in his play as in his work. Ever applicable, ever authoritative, the divine deposition of the unchanging principles of justice, safety, and right, the holy law is designed for all hours of the individual life, even as it is designed for all ages of the world.

The question of amusements for religious people is one of the great problems of the day. The very successes of the Gospel in our own land have brought upon the Church perils which were unknown in the ages when the victories of the truth were less decisive. In the Apostolic age, when the world was heathen, and God's people a little flock in the midst of their enemies, every man and woman was either Christian or pagan, one thing or the other; the Church and the world were separated by a chasm wide and deep, and the only feelings common to both parties were distrust and aversion. Again: not very many years ago, in our own community, there were few young people to be found among the members of the various Churches. The gay multitude pursued their pleasures with a reckless extravagance and a giddy disregard of the realities of life which alarmed the sober-minded, and effectually repelled the conscientious. The Church marched in order of battle, all eyes looking for the foe, and all weapons bared for conflict. The world, not always in the humor for direct attack, went on its own way, strong in the fancied strength of numbers, and sometimes tried to laugh, and sometimes affected to sneer at the scruples of the pious. Each was a compact force, openly wearing its own uniform and arraying itself under its own banner. The antagonism was universally recognized and felt.

But in our own times, and in most sections of our land, the truth has conquered. The world no longer carries on a fierce and open war against the religion of the Bible. The Church possesses so much worth, intelligence, wealth, and social power, that the worldly part of the community feel that it would not be wise for them to try to keep aloof from the pious and set up for themselves. On the contrary, the world deems it policy to nestle close up to the Church, and in many cases it conducts itself so respectably, and is so correct in outward seeming, that it takes a sharp eye to distinguish the one from the other. Not setting itself in array against the truth, but rather avowing a sort of theoretic belief of it, the world, after all, is unchanged. Its eyes are blind, its heart is hard, and its aims and motives are "of the earth earthy." It wishes to walk by the side of the Church, and hand in hand with it, but with steady pressure it draws in the direction of lax morality. Not having received the heavenly anointing, it fails to see how "exceeding broad" the Divine Law is. It is constantly pleading for a larger license, a wider range of sensuous enjoyments than is consistent with the true piety which transforms and saves. Thus it clings to the Church, arguing, inviting, urging; and wherever to its own dull vision the path ceases to be clear, it sweeps off swiftly and invariably into the realms of darkness and danger.

And the Church, too, is not in haste to separate itself wholly from the large class found just outside the line of strict religious profession. We admire their intelligence and amiability, their many worthy traits of character and conduct. Their companionship is pleasant, and we would like to retain it, and, therefore, we are strongly tempted, for the sake of it, to make concessions on the various moral questions in debate between us and them. Another influence is silently and yet powerfully at work. Unless we consent that they shall marry in the Chinese style-without having previously exchanged a word or even seen each other's faces-our young people must have opportunities to get acquainted and form attachments. In making their selections they like to take a wide range of observation. A deal of skirmishing generally precedes the final conquest. The young Church-member does not feel inclined to refuse the acquaintance of moral, intelligent, agreeable young people simply on the ground that they are not professors of religion. The young people of the world see that if they do not keep near the Church they cut themselves off from the best portions of society. Without violence no rigid lines of social separation can be drawn between the Church and the general community. The two parties hold to each other, each inviting, pleading, trying to draw the other in its own direction, in the path of its own principles and tendencies. The one is ready to yield all that can be conceded without an abandonment of truth and duty; the other, like Herod under the influence of John's preaching, fears, and listens, and does "many things."

Nor is it clear that utter separation is desirable. We can be instrumental in saving only those who are within our reach. How shall we bring others within the range of our influence, and at the same time keep wholly beyond the range of theirs? How shall we lift up others and yet not feel their weight? If we drive from us all who have failed thus far to come up to our standard, we lessen the area of our usefulness-we throw away precious opportunities to do good. The Church, if faithful, is not imperiled by this antagonism of moral forces. It must show itself the more powerful of the two, and "overcome the world." Surely, if truth is strong, if fixed principles of action furnish a solid fulcrum on which to place our levers, we ought to move the world, and not the world us.

It follows, therefore, that if the young members of the Church, and the young people just outside the line of religious profession, are to unite in social gatherings and recreations, duty demands that we stand firm, while courtesy and reason, to say nothing of still higher motives, require that others yield. No labored argument is needed to show this. The lover of frivolous pleasures can not plead that religious convictions impel him to his follies. When youthful Christians fear and resist, saying, "Conscience forbids," he can not reply, "My conscience commands." When the Christian remonstrates, saying, "To do this might imperil my soul," the other can not answer, "Not to do it would imperil mine." The worldly can only plead that they see no evil where others see it, and that they are ready to venture where others fear to go. Thus they virtually confess that they are dull in vision and hard in heart.

And so we can not come down to the level to which they would invite us. If they desire us to meet on common ground, we must be permitted to select the place. If we yield to them, we sacrifice our principles and our peace. If they yield to us, they lose, at the utmost, only a little temporary pleasure. Let the worldly and the gay, therefore, say no more about our Puritanic notions. They see, and ought to confess, that almost of necessity they tend to place the standard of morals too low, and that when the Church and the world differ in regard to what is allowable and right, there are a thousand chances to one that the Church is right and the world is wrong. If the religion of Christ laid no restrictions on us which the trifling mind and the unrenewed heart felt to be unwelcome, or even burdensome, we might well suspect that it was the invention of men.

"And let them measure the pattern." Ezekiel xliii, 10.

What amusements, then, are rational and allowable? and to what extent may we indulge in them? We desire, before we discuss specific modes of recreation, to lay down certain general principles, and indicate what we believe to be the true method of reasoning on the subject, so that the reader, keeping these in mind, will see why we approve or condemn hereafter, even when, for the sake of brevity, the conclusion is given in few words.

First of all, then, we inquire, What is the true design of recreation? The mere pleasure of the hour is certainly not the sole object at which we should aim, regardless of all other considerations. A degree of enjoyment may be desirable; and yet the temporary pleasure is not all. The true idea of rational recreation is expressed in the very name. The aim is to renew, restore, create again. It is to lay aside the more serious avocations of life for a brief space, that we may resume them with new vigor. It is to make a little truce with toil and care, that we may return to the battle with stouter hearts and keener weapons. We rest, that we may be the better prepared for work. Rational recreation never loses sight of duty. It teaches us to seek, now and then, a little leisure, that we may be able to labor the harder and the longer; to be gay and merry, only that we may be the more susceptible, in its time, of all solemn, holy emotion. Recreation, in the true sense of the term, is not only free from evil, but it is full of good intents, aiming, above all, to aid us in the great concerns which look beyond the horizon of the present life. We shake off care, but not conscience. We do not lay aside the service of God and take a day to ourselves, but strive to win the benediction pronounced upon "the man that feareth always."

To make the discussion as practical as possible, we name eight different points of view from which we may consider any diversion proposed to us:

1. Our recreations should be innocent in themselves.

Compared with eternal interests, present enjoyment is as dust in the balance. However exhilarating or beneficial to health the advocates of any amusement may claim that their favorite diversion is, if there be an element of wrong in it, it must be condemned without hesitation or reserve. If it involves any transgression of Divine law; if it leads us to disregard the welfare of our fellow; if the pleasure is purchased by pain wantonly inflicted upon man, or beast, or bird, or insect; if it tends to render us frivolous or reckless, or in any way leaves us farther from God and heaven, less conscientious, less devotional, less tender in heart, less active and earnest in all good works, we must condemn it, no matter how fascinating it may be, no matter what may be the numbers or the social position of those who favor it. Of all the poor excuses for sin, one of the poorest and meanest is the plea that we trampled on the law of God and defied his justice for the sake of amusement.

2. Our recreations must never be suffered to lessen our influence as followers of Christ.

A good name is an element of strength. Unless those around us have confidence in our sincerity, we are shorn of our moral power. No matter how clear our integrity may be in our own eyes, if we fail to convince the world of it; if we seem to be less careful of obligation, less mindful of the right than Christians should be, there will be a cloud of distrust hovering about us wherever we are, and we will find ourselves shut out of some of the noblest fields of effort. The world watches our recreations as well as our more weighty employments. We need not, indeed, be governed always by the reproaches of the censorious and the complaints of the morose; still, it is never safe to be indifferent to popular opinion. Even where we discover no evident wrong, we should not, for the sake of mere momentary pleasure, give ourselves to any pursuit which bears a specious name or is surrounded by doubtful associations. Even in Christian communities public opinion does not tend to be fanatically rigid, and we may be sure that what it condemns we will find it safe to avoid.

Nor should our recreations ever be of such a character as to wound our fellow-Christians. It is true, you need not always be controlled by the views of this or that member of the Church, who, perhaps, does not abound in the intelligence and wisdom which give weight to opinion. But what does your pastor think? If you and he differ, who is probably right? Look about you. See who they are in your community who are universally acknowledged as the real disciples of Christ, by whose aggregate good name the Church stands in reputation. What do they think? Where they doubt, you may well hesitate. Even if they should seem needlessly scrupulous, you may be sure of one thing-you will not find it dangerous to follow their counsel.

And you have no right to treat their admonitions with indifference. You can not, without peril, go counter to their views of duty. Whatever may be the abstract right or wrong of the thing in question, this evil effect, at least, will follow your rejection of their advice: you will separate yourselves from your pious exemplars and guides; the chasm, however narrow at first, will widen with time; the society of your fellow-Christians will lose its charm; the social forces which helped, more than you are aware of, to hold you to your duty will lose their power; the Tempter will excite in your heart now anger at others, now doubts of yourself, and the process, unless arrested, will end in spiritual wreck and ruin.

3. Our recreations should never be so chosen or so pursued as to interfere with the full and faithful performance of the sober duties of life.

Childhood and youth are not, as some fancy, a period of mere waiting, a sort of play spell before school begins. In regard to the success of after life, it is the hour of precious opportunities which come but once. It is the foundation upon which the whole future edifice is to rest.

If a child should never learn the things which an infant one year old usually knows, he would grow up in a state of idiocy. In their very plays, as we term them, children investigate the properties of matter, acquire ease and skill in managing the bones and muscles of their own frames, and learn the contents of the great world, which is all so new to them. Youth has its work, and all after excellence is connected with the industry and care with which that work is done. The mind is to be cultured, the reason exercised, the fancy curbed, the memory stored with treasure, the whole intellect disciplined and prepared for continuous, patient labor. In youth the avocation is to be chosen, the great problems of time and eternity revolved, and the solemn journey begun. He that would be wise must not dream away the golden hours in empty visions of what he would like to be, but rouse himself and prepare to encounter soberly the great duties before him. He has not a moment to lose. He must look and listen, read and remember; he must reflect, and reason, and judge; he must will and do wisely and well, and every day gather strength for other days to come.

If, therefore, diversions are of such a nature, or are so pursued as to induce an idle, dreamy, inconstant frame of mind, making it an annoyance and a burden to be summoned to real work in careful thinking or patient doing, a resolute grapple with the plain responsibilities of ordinary life, something is wrong. When the imagination has outgrown the judgment, and the mind revolts at reality and delights to dwell in the realms of fancy, building destinies out of airy nothing, we can see foreshadowed, as we look into the future, only bitter disappointment and failure.

4. Our recreations must promote health.

Health is the material of which efficient life is made. They who squander it cut short the day which God assigned them, cloud it with weakness and pain, and lessen the practical results of living. To do this willfully, deliberately, in the chase after mere pleasure, is not a small sin. Our Creator requires of us the wise and faithful use of the various elements of activity and power with which he has endowed us. If, then, the hours spent in what we call diversion be followed by exhaustion; if the evening of mirth be succeeded by a day in which the brow is clouded, the frame languid, the mind irritable, the whole being disordered, there has been something wrong, either in the nature of the amusement or the manner in which it was pursued. To be well and strong, if we may, is our duty. Our recreations should not lessen but increase our power to will and to do. They are designed to sharpen the tools with which we work, and if the process which we adopt mars the blade our methods are bad. The value of the mode is to be estimated not merely by the present pleasure, but by the power, gained by it. If the mower in the meadow is enchanted with the rattling, ringing music which accompanies the whetting of the scythe, but at each repetition finds the edge duller than before, till finally he can not cut the grass at all, he might as well be standing among those whom "no man hath hired."

5. Our recreations should not be unduly expensive.

Money is power. It may be made to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. It may be employed in teaching the ignorant and reclaiming those that wander. It plays an important part in all good works. He that squanders money throws away the ability to do good. He "wastes his Lord's substance." In Christ's description of the day of Judgment, the stress is laid, not upon names, professions, and beliefs, but the tangible fruits of piety. We must beware, therefore, lest our self-indulgences tax our purse too heavily, and leave too little for good deeds. The hour is not far distant when the memory of one kind act will be to us the source of more pleasure than the recollection of all the selfish joys of a life-time. It is to be feared that some professors of religion, who lack neither opportunities nor means to do much, will make rather a poor showing at the last great day.

6. Recreation should never lose sight of the value of time.

Time is one of God's most precious gifts. It is the material of which life is made, the field in which eternal destinies germinate, the Summer in which divine things grow. We have no more right to lay plans to "kill time" than to kill ourselves. The suicide rebels against the duties assigned him by Providence, deserts his post, and throws from him the years otherwise allotted him. The aimless, idle soul, without a purpose or a plan, whom no incentive can stir, and to whom life is a weariness, because there seems nothing for which to live, commits a daily suicide. Wealth is no excuse for uselessness. When children play all their lives because their fathers worked hard from youth to old age, they take rather a doubtful way to honor their parents. If a man has no sober aim in life, no worthy object for which he is stirring, God will not hold him guiltless. Genuine recreation harmonizes with all high and holy enterprise. It does not make us drones, living upon the stores which the working bees of the hive have accumulated, but teaches us, like the son of Saul, weary and faint in the rapid pursuit of the foes of Israel, to stop for a moment to taste the honey dripping in the forest, that our "eyes may brighten," and we press on with swifter feet. Genuine recreation wastes no time, but, on the contrary, treasures up the golden moments with a miser's care. Diversions indulged in beyond measure cease, therefore, to be recreations, and become a criminal waste of God's precious gift.

7. Our recreations ought to improve the mind.

They should not, indeed, burden the mental powers; nevertheless, they ought not to be childish and without meaning. There should always be enough of thought involved to keep the mind pleasantly and not unprofitably occupied. For this reason recreation is best pursued not alone, but socially. Cheerful, intelligent conversation is itself one of the best of recreations. The heart is improved, the mind is roused into new vigor and fruitfulness, the thoughts are wrested away from toil and care, and smiles break through the gloom like sunshine bursting through the rifted clouds.

8. Our recreations should be productive of genuine enjoyment.

The very idea of recreation includes that of pleasure. If it leaves us sad or dull it fails of its true aim. It ought to make the eye bright and the cheek glow. It should have an affinity for smiles, and pleasant words, and mirthful thoughts which glance like the play of the northern Aurora when the night is cloudless. It should leave memories in which there is no tinge of shame or regret. We attach importance to the innocent pleasure of the moment, because the benefit is derived in no small degree from the mind's release from its burdens. A company of school-girls, silent and prim, taking their daily march with the mechanical accuracy of soldiers, lose half the value of the air and exercise. The merchant gains little who goes on a solitary fishing excursion, and sits gazing at vacancy, with his brain full of invoices and sales, units and tens, while the fish run away with his line. Let the young and the old seek suitable recreation and enjoy it, in a genial, happy, mirthful spirit. Innocent mirth is neither unchristian nor undignified. If a man can not laugh, there is something the matter with him. Either his morals or his liver is disordered. He needs either repentance or pills. Some of earth's greatest and purest men have been noted for their mirthful tendencies. Socrates often amused himself in play with children. Luther loved dogs, and birds, and wit, and laughter, and by his rousing peals kept his lungs in good order for his theological wars. Thomas Walsh, one of the best, but not the most hilarious of men, complained that John Wesley's wit and humor made him laugh more than his conscience approved; but Mr. Walsh died in his youth, while Mr. Wesley filled up the measure of eighty-eight busy, happy years.

These are some of the principles which underlie the subject before us. It now remains to apply these principles to specific plans and methods of recreation. In the scales thus constructed let us proceed to weigh the various diversions and amusements which claim our suffrages. We will look first at the more public and pretentious of these candidates for our approval.

"Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?" Prov. vii, 27.

The theater has its apologists and advocates. It is said to be a good place to learn history, human nature, and all that. Some plays are declared to be "as good as a sermon." Assuming this to be true, it might not be out of place to inquire how often these good plays are performed, and how they "draw". What proportion does this good sort bear to the general mass of plays nightly set before the public? Questions multiply as we consider the subject. If plays are as good as sermons, how happens it that, as a rule, those who admire plays have no love for sermons? Moreover, if the theater is a preacher of righteousness, or essays to be such, where are the "gifts, grace, and usefulness" which are the evidences of its call to the good work? There may be no special lack of a certain kind of gifts, but where is the grace? Does it adorn the character and conduct of the performers? Unless these as a class have been grievously slandered for two thousand years, we must look elsewhere. And where is the proof of moral and religious usefulness? It has no existence. The fact is, to plead for the theater on the ground that its moral influence is good, is to act a bigger farce than was ever put upon the stage. When a young man, who has been religiously trained, begins to frequent the theater, quiet observers see that he has taken the first step of a downward course; and if connected with him in business relations, or otherwise, they govern themselves accordingly. When a young man, whose reputation has suffered by his wild and reckless conduct, ceases to attend the play and begins to attend Church, his true friends begin to have hope in regard to him. All who have in any degree looked into the matter, know that the disreputable and the vile shun the Church, and crowd to the theater, while many who are plying foul trades depend upon the play-house, not only to bring the victim within their reach, but to undermine his virtue, lull his caution to sleep, and prepare him to fall in the net spread for him. Build a theater where you will, and straightway drinking saloons, gambling dens, and brothels spring up all about it and flourish under its shadow. All manner of vice, and villainy, and shame grows green and rank in the polluted soil which it creates.

Some years ago, the owners of a certain theater in one of our great cities, resolving to conduct it in a "respectable" way, attempted to shut out, as far as practicable, all whose vocation was infamous. This they thought would be easily effected by refusing admittance to every "lady not accompanied by a gentleman." This simple measure accomplished all that was expected of it, and a great deal more. The class aimed at were indeed excluded; but, alas for the proprietors! the consequent loss of patronage was so great that the establishment no longer paid current expenses, and the owners found themselves compelled either to close their doors altogether or open them to the cattle that herd in the upper galleries. The fact is plain to all who are willing to see, that the theater thrives by the vice and crime of the community. It is a buzzard that lives on carrion. To succeed it must be content to be the hunting-ground where infamy shall snare its victims, and lead them "as an ox to the slaughter." More than this, the performances and the whole arrangement must be adapted to the low moral level of an audience gathered up from the particular quarters where alone patrons can be found in sufficient numbers to make the play-house a paying institution. A successful theater must be on good terms with the grogshop and the brothel.

The whole thing is one of strategy and calculation. As the skillful angler puts on his hooks the bait at which the fish will bite most eagerly-no matter what it is, worm or bug, or artificial fly-so the crafty manager of a theater surveys society, and considers what plays, what style of acting, what style of dress among the actors and actresses will most surely attract the crowd. He is aware that the really religious portion of the community regard the Church and the theater as antagonists, and look upon him as one who is laboring to undo all that they are trying to accomplish. He knows that many people of culture and high social position regard his profession as dishonorable and degrading. These classes he leaves out of his calculation, because they are beyond his reach. But a great multitude remain, composed, in part, of the young and the heedless, fond of noise, and show, and excitement, and in part of the corrupt and the vile, the hungry beasts and birds of prey, who want victims. Among these he must find his patrons and his profits. In aiming to gather them into his fold, he must gratify their peculiar taste. He knows that he can please them only by keeping them well pleased with themselves. Will he do this by means of plays which, from the first line to the last, brand vice as infamous, and exalt virtue and honor? He knows his calling better. The people who compose his audiences do not come to the theater to be made ashamed of themselves. They would not listen to such a play, but would go out of the house, in the midst of the performances, angrily muttering that when they want a sermon they will go to the Church for it. The manager must set forth more savory viands. He must address himself to empty minds and cater to animal passions. He that undertakes to feed a flock of crows need not provide either the manna of the Scripture or the nectar and ambrosia of which classic fable tells.

As the calculations of an almanac are made for the particular latitude where it is expected to sell, so all the arrangements and appliances of the theater are carefully adapted to those classes of society which are low both in intelligence and in morals. Tragedy, to be popular, must not only deal in crime, but in loathsome, nauseous crime. Popular comedy must ridicule religion, and show how much better acute and crafty villainy is than simple truth and innocence. Immodesty is one of the attractions relied upon to draw the brutal herd. The female performers on the stage must expose their persons in a style which would be branded as grossly indecent anywhere else. Let a fact be stated in illustration. One of the high officers of the municipal government of London recently issued a circular, addressed to the proprietors and managers of the various theaters, remonstrating against the indecent costumes of the stage, and urging reform. What the effect of the appeal was upon the parties addressed does not appear; but an actress replied, in one of the public journals, declaring that she is aware of all that the circular asserts, but affirming that she and all the female performers are powerless in the case, the managers demanding the immodest costume as one of the necessities of the drama.

It is not probable that the British stage is more corrupting and immoral than the American. There is not a city on the face of the globe where the theater can live unless it goes down into depths of infamy, and becomes the panderer of all vice and shame. It is true that a few, whom the world calls moral and respectable, are sometimes found at the play-house, but they are so few that play-writers and stage managers, having an eye to the financial receipts and successes, look in other directions, and graduate the plot, and the sentiments, and the scenes, and, above all, the costume of the performers, for a lower moral level. Not seldom is the play itself a weak, unmeaning thing, which is intended to serve merely as a pretext for the shameless exhibitions deemed necessary in order to fill the house.

The theater will never be reformed. The truly refined despise it, the wise and the good abhor it. It must find its support among the thoughtless, the ignorant, and the vicious. It must be indecent or die.

And so it comes to this: immodesty is a part of the stock in trade of the play-house. There must be indecent exposure, else the foul crew that frequent the theater, and upon whose patronage it lives, will care nothing for its performances. In vain is the genius of poets and authors! In vain are all the tinsel glories of the show! Even the play which is "as good as a sermon" will be a failure, and its lofty periods be declaimed to an empty house, unless modesty and honor are sacrificed to gratify the lowest passions of the most debased of human kind. Where did any evil invention of man ever bear upon its front the stamp of infamy in plainer, deeper lines?

Why, then, should those who believe in virtue sustain, or help to sustain, that which can not exist at all except in alliance with vice and shame? How can those who believe in God and love his cause aid this engine of the devil? Do they know how valuable their help is, and at what a price the engineers are willing to purchase even their silence? When the infamous classes of society find themselves the only occupants of the theater, they will be apt to abandon it. It will not then serve their purpose. Rats can not live in an empty barn. Thieves can not live by robbing each other. The seller of alcohol can not prosper long by selling to the same set of customers. As soon as the drunkard has lost all, his very presence becomes hateful to the man who has ruined him. A whisky-shop resembles a college, in that it needs a class of freshmen to replace every class that graduate. And so with all forms of vice; they need a constant supply of new victims. When one set of unfortunates have been picked to the bone others must be had.

And thus the theater is a valuable auxiliary to certain characters, seeing that it brings their prey within their reach. How, then, can a Christian hesitate one moment in regard to duty? By what blindness, by what mode of self-delusion, can virtuous women be induced to patronize an institution which lives on the ruins of virtue? How can they sit among the spectators, and look upon wanton exhibitions and shameless exposures of person, such as would anywhere else crimson every modest cheek with shame or redden it with the consciousness of insult? How can they sit among the crowd, while eager eyes are looking down wolfishly upon the brother, the lover, or the husband who sits by their side, and foul hearts are wondering whether he ever comes to this place alone, and whether he is beyond the reach of their subtle arts? How can virtuous women consent ever to set foot within the walls of a theater, when they know that the very air is thick with infamy and death, and when every one who sees them there knows that they know it?

There is an old story to this effect: An angel, flying on some errand of mercy, met Satan, who was dragging away a monk, clad in full canonicals. The angel stopped the adversary, and demanded the release of the prisoner, saying that his very robes showed that he was a holy man, to whom Satan could have no claim. "But he is mine," was the emphatic reply. "I found him on my premises; I caught him at the theater!"

Even heathen moralists and philosophers have condemned the stage as tending to corrupt public morals. This was the ground taken by Plato, Seneca, and Cicero, two thousand years ago. The early Christian writers, the fathers of the Church, denounced the theater. It is safe to say that the piety and intelligence of the Church have always condemned it. John Wesley, the founder of our Church, gave his judgment in no equivocal terms: "The present stage entertainments not only sap the foundation of all religion, but tend to drinking and debauchery of every kind, which are constant attendants on these entertainments."

Truly, the play-house is no place for a follower of Christ. Like the Babylon of the Revelator, it is "the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." And so we add the warning uttered by "another voice from heaven," "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

Even if the plays could be so far reformed as not directly to cater to the vicious and the corrupt; if the foul birds of prey that perch aloft could be driven from the nests which they have occupied so long, still the theater would not be a good place of resort for those who feel that they possess immortal souls. The late hours, the expense of time and money, the character of the general audience, and the insensible and yet powerful effect of contact with them; the premature development and overgrowth of the passions, the distaste created for the quiet pleasures which are safest and best for soul and body, the rapidity with which the love of noise, show, and excitement becomes an overmastering passion, too strong to be controlled by duty, conscience, parental authority, or parental remonstrances and tears, conspire to render attendance at the theater ruinous to many and dangerous to all. Let no Christian go to the play-house even once. If the patronage of those who go but once, "just to see how it looks," could be wholly withdrawn, all the theaters would feel the loss, and some would be compelled to close their doors. Why should you make even one contribution to keep in motion the remorseless jaws which have devoured so many victims? Why should you lend your example, even once, to encourage the inconsiderate and the inexperienced to form the habit of attending the theater? Why consent to act, even once, as decoy duck, to lure many, it may be, to their destruction?