paid for. Wearied and dispirited, I ofttimes return from the scene of labour, and find in the cold and heartless salutation of my host, and in the dreary solitude of my own chamber, that I am, indeed, not at home. Often and often as I sit musing away the hour that intervenes between business and sleep, and carrying out into painful contrast my lodging and my home, I involuntarily exclaim, "My friends do they now and then send, A wish or a thought after me.' יי Who can wonder that in such a situation I should occasionally pay a visit to the theatre, or the concert, and seek to forget that I am not at home, by amusements which have a tendency to drown reflection and divert my mind. Oh! give me again the pleasures of home, and I will make a cheerful surrender of all that I have adopted as their substitutes." I feel for such young persons. I too have been in their situation; I have felt all that they feel. I have wept at the contrast between being a stranger or a guest, and a happy child at home. I too have returned at night to meet the silent look, or cheerless greeting of the hostess, instead of the smiling countenance and fond expression of the mother that bore me, the father that loved me. I too have retired to my room to weep at thoughts of home. I can therefore sympathise with you. And shall I tell you how in these circumstances I alleviated my sorrows, and rendered my situation not only tolerable, but even sometimes pleasant? By the exercises and influence of true religion; by the intercourse of a holy fellowship with pious companions; and by the assistance of books. Try, do be persuaded to try, the same means: "Religion, what treasures untold More precious than silver and gold, This will find you a home, and a father and friends in every place. It will soften your banishment, and open to you springs of consolation, which shall send their precious streams into your forlorn abode. It will render you independent of the theatre, and the concert, and the ball-room. It will guard you from vices, which, where they are committed, only serve to render the recollection of home still more intolerable. It will give you an interest and a share in all the religious institutions which are formed in the congregation with which you associate, and will thus offer you a recreation in the exercise of a holy and enlightened philanthropy. In addition to this, cultivate a taste for reading. Employ your leisure hours in gaining knowledge. Thus even your situation will be rendered comparatively comfortable, and the thoughts of home will neither destroy your happiness, nor send you for consolation to the polluting sources of worldly amusement. But there are some who will reply, "I have neither taste for religion or reading, and what amusements do you recommend to me?" None at all. What! that man talk of amusement, who, by his own confession, is under the the curse of heaven's eternal law, and the wrath of heaven's incensed King? Amusement!! what, for the poor wretch who is on the brink of perdition, VOL. II. 3 66 the verge of hell, and may the next hour be lifting up his eyes in torments, and calling for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue! Diversion! what, for him who is every moment exposed to that sentence, Depart from me, accursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." What! going on to that place where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched; where there is weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and calling for amusements!! Oh monstrous inconsistency!! We have heard of prisoners dancing in their chains, but who ever heard of a poor creature asking for amusements on his way to the place of execution? This is While you your case. have no taste for religion, you are certainly under sentence of eternal death. You are every day travelling to execution. Yet you are asking for amusements! And what will be your reflections in the world of despair, to recollect that the season of hope was employed by you, not in seeking the salvation of the soul, and everlasting happiness, but in mere idle diversions, which were destroying you at the very time they amused you. Then will you learn, when the instruction will do you no good, that you voluntarily relinquished the fulness of joy which God's presence affords, and the eternal pleasures which are to be found at his right hand, for the joy of fools, which, as Solomon truly says, is but as "the crackling of thorns beneath the pot." Before you think of amusements, seek for Religion. CHAPTER XVI. On theatrical amusements. I do not hesitate for a moment, to pronounce the theatre to be one of the broadest avenues which lead to destruction; fascinating, no doubt it is, but on that account the more delusive and the more dangerous. Let a young man once acquire a taste for this species of entertainment, and yield himself up to its gratification, and he is in imminent danger of becoming a lost character, rushing upon his ruin. All the evils that can waste his property, corrupt his morals, blast his reputation, impair his health, embitter his life, and destroy his soul, lurk in the purlieus of a theatre. Vice, in every form, lives, and moves, and has its being there. Myriads have cursed the hour when they first exposed themselves to the contamination of the stage. From that fatal evening they date their destruction. Then they threw off the restraints of education, and learnt to disregard the dictates of conscience. Then their decision, hitherto oscillating between a life of virtue and of vice, was made up for the latter. But I will attempt to support by argument and facts these strong assertions. The stage cannot be defended as an amusement for the proper end of an amusement is to recreate without fatiguing or impairing the strength and spirits It should invigorate, not exhaust the bodily and mental powers; should spread an agreeable serenity over the mind, and be enjoyed at proper seasons. Is midnight the time, or the heated atmosphere of a theatre the place, or the passionate, tempestuous excitement of a deep tragedy the state of mind, that comes up to this view of the design of amusement! Certainly not. But what I wish particularly to insist upon is, the immoral and anti-christian tendency of the stage. It is an indubitable fact, that the stage has flourished most, in the most corrupt and depraved state of society; and that in proportion as sound morality, industry, and religion advance their influence, the theatre is deserted. It is equally true, that amongst the most passionate admirers, and most constant frequenters of the stage, are to be found the most dissolute and abandoned of mankind. Is it not too manifest to be denied, that piety as instinctively shrinks from the theatre, as human life does from the point of a sword or the draught of poison? Have not all those who have professed the most elevated piety and morality, borne an unvarying and uniform testimony against the stage? Even the more virtuous pagans condemned this amusement, as injurious to morals and the interests of nations. Plato, Livy, Xenophon, Cicero, Solon, Cato, Seneca, Tacitus the most venerable men of antiquity; the brightest constellation of virtue and talents which ever appeared upon the hemisphere of philosophy, have all denounced the theatre as a most abundant source of moral pollution, and assure us that both Greece and Rome had their ruin accelerated by a fatal passion for these corrupting entertainments. William Prynne, a satirical and pungent writer, who suffered many cruelties for his admirable productions in the time of Charles I, has made a catalogue of au |