thorities against the stage, which contains every name of eminence in the heathen and christian worlds: it comprehends the united testimony of the Jewish and Christian churches; the deliberate acts of fifty-four ancient and modern, general, national, provincial councils and synods, both of the Western and Eastern churches; the condemnatory sentence of seventy-one ancient Fathers, and one hundred and fifty modern Popish and Protestant authors; the hostile endeavours of philosophers and even poets; with the legislative enactments of a great number of Pagan and Christian states, nations, magistrates, emperors and princes.

The American Congress, soon after the declaration of Independence, passed the following motion:

"Whereas, true religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness,

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Resolved, That it be, and hereby is, earnestly recommended to the several states, to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof, and for the suppressing of theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gaming, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners."

Now must not this be regarded in the light of very strong presumptive evidence of the immoral tendency of the stage? Does it not approach as near as can be to the general opinion of the whole moral world?

But let us examine the average character of those productions which are represented on the stage. If we go to Tragedy, we shall find that VOL. II.

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pride, ambition, revenge, suicide, the passionate love of fame and glory, all of which Christianity is intended to extirpate from the human bosom, are inculcated by the most popular plays in this department of the drama. It is true, gross cruelty, murder, and that lawless pride, ambition, and revenge, which trample on all the rights and interests of mankind, are reprobated; but I would ask, who needs to see vice acted in order to hate it? or will its being acted for our amusement be likely to increase our hatred of it upon right principles? As to Comedy, this is a thousand times more polluting than tragedy. Love and intrigue; prodigality dressed in the garb of generosity; profaneness dignified with the name of fashionable spirit; and even seduction and adultery; these are the usual materials which the comic muse combines and adorns to please and instruct her votaries. This department of the drama is unmixed pollution. How often is some profligate rake introduced to the spectators, furnished with a few traits of frankness and generosity, to interest them by his vicious career; and who so far reconciles them all to his crimes, as to tolerate his atrocities for the sake of his openhearted, good humoured virtues. Who can wonder that young women should be prepared by such stuff for any intrigue with a bold and wily adventurer; or that young men should be encouraged to play the good-natured, heroic rake, which they have seen such a favourite with the public on the stage? Besides, how saturated are both tragedies and comedies with irreverend appeals to heaven, profane swear

ing, and all the arts of equivocation, and falsehood, and deception! What lascivious allusions are made; what impure passages are repeated! What a fatal influence must this have upon the delicacy of female modesty. Think too of a young man coming at the hour of midnight from such a scene, with his passions inflamed by every thing he has seen and every thing he has heard; and then having to pass through ranks of wretched creatures waiting to ensnare him and rob him of his virtue; does it not require extraordinary strength of principle to resist the attack?

I admit that modern plays are in some measure purified from that excessive grossness which polluted the performances of our more ancient dramatists. But who knows not that vice is more mischievous in some circles of society, in proportion as it is more refined. The arch equivoque and double entendre of modern plays," are well understood, and applied by a licentious audience; and the buzz of approbation, which is heard through the whole assembly, furnishes abundant proof that the effect is not lost." Little will go down with the public in the shape of comedy, farce, or opera, but what is pretty highly seasoned with indelicate allusions. Hence it is that even the newspaper critics, whose morality is, in general, not of the most saintly character, so often mention the too barefaced indecencies of new plays. Dramatic writers know very well how to cater for the public taste.

How many sentiments are continually uttered on the stage, how many indelicate allusions

are made, which no man who had any regard to the virtue of his sons, or the feelings of his daughters, would allow to be uttered at his table. Are not whole passages repeatedly recited, which no modest man would allow to be read before his family? Nothing but the countenance of numbers could induce many females to sit and listen to what they hear at the theatre. Were any man to be in the habit of quoting in company the words which are in constant iteration at the playhouse, would he not be regarded as a person most dangerous to the virtue of others? And yet these nauseating exhibitions are heard with pleasure, when they are heard with the multitude. Can this be friendly to modesty, to virtue, to piety! Must there not be an insensible corrosion going on under such an influence upon the fine polish of female excellence, and upon the principle of the other sex? Is this avoiding the appearance of evil? Is it in accordance with that morality which makes an unchaste feeling to be sin, and that injunction which commands us to watch the heart with all diligence?

If indeed the word of God be the standard of morals, and no one but an infidel can deny it, then the whole mass of plays must be condemn ed, and with them the whole system of the playhouse. To ask whether the theatre can be justified before the bar of Christianity, whether it is in accordance with its doctrines, precepts, example, spirit, design, is really to insult comI suppose its most passionate admirers will not try it in such a court; for that system which sums up all its morality, both in action and in motive, in that one sublime and

mon sense.

holy precept, "Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," cannot look with a tolerating eye upon the stage. The morality of the stage and of the Gospel are as diametrically opposed to each other as the east and the west. They stand thus opposed to each other :-pride to humility; ambition to moderation; revenge to forgiveness; falsehood to truth; lust to purity; profanity to piety; sensuality to spirituality. Let any man read our Lord's sermon on the Mount, or St. Paul's eighth or twelfth chapter to the Romans, and say if the play and the playhouse can be in unison with Christianity.

Then remember all the accompaniments of the stage, the fascinations of music, painting, action, oratory; and say, if when these are enlisted in the cause of fiction, they do not raise the passions above their proper tone, and thus induce a dislike to grave and serious subjects, and a distaste for all the milder and more necessary virtues of domestic life.

Add to this the company which is generally attracted to the theatre. I do not say that all who frequent the theatre are immoral; but I do affirm, that the most polluting and polluted characters of the town are sure to be there. Is it not a fact, that a person who would not wish to have his eyes and ears shocked with sights and sounds of indecency, must keep at a distance from the avenues of the stage? for these are ever crowded with the loosest characters of both sexes. Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Johnson, has a remark which strikingly illustrates and confirms what I have now advanced. "Although it is said of plays that they