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 1943 
 
Cornell University Library 
 ^'"''' ■'''' the field o, doubtful Pr 
 
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Cornell University 
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Border Lines in the 
 Field of Doubtful Practices 
 
THE WORKS OF 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
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dt «it Border Lines 
 in the Field of 
 Doubtful Practices 
 
 BY 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 AUTHOK OF " PkIENDSHIP THE MaSTBK PaSSION," " STUDIES IN OrISMTjU- 
 
 Social Life," "The Knightly Soldier," **War Mem- 
 ories OF AN Army Chaplain," Etc. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. ELevell Company 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Copyright, 1899 
 
 by 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 New York* 158 Pifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 12; North Wabash Aye. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: ai Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
Preface 
 
 Young people usually have different 
 views from old people as to popular 
 amusements and recreations, and as to the 
 better use of both time and money. Each 
 class is likely to feel that the other class is 
 mistaken, and is entertaining an erroneous 
 view of such matters in question. An old 
 saying is that "young people think old 
 ones are fools, and old- folks know young 
 ones are." While this is not wholly true, 
 it may truly be said that old persons are 
 prone to forget how life and its occupa- 
 tions looked to them while they were 
 young, and that young persons are un- 
 pleasantly conscious of this fact in all dis- 
 cussions with their seniors concerning de- 
 batable customs and practice. 
 
 This state of things is in the mind of the 
 writer of these pages, as he gives his views 
 5 
 
6 Preface 
 
 on such mooted customs as wine-drinking, 
 the use of tobacco, card-playing, theatre- 
 going, and social dancing. In every in- 
 stance he puts himself back, for a stand- 
 point, to the position which he occupied 
 while a mere youth in a community where 
 the laxer view as to all these practices gen- 
 erally prevailed. While young, he was 
 never restrained in such matters by parental 
 prohibitions, nor was he brought up in any 
 surroundings of over-stHctness, approach- 
 ing, asceticism or puritanical rigidity. Hence 
 there has been no rebound of his nature 
 from one extreme to the other. 
 
 The stand which he now takes, and in 
 these pages defends as wisest and best, was 
 the one Which he chose as a young man, 
 not only before he had any thought of ever 
 being a clergyman, but before he was even 
 a member of any Christian church. The 
 fact that some of these views have been 
 confirmed by an exceptionally wide and 
 varied experience of more than half a cen- 
 
Preface 7 
 
 tury of subsequent life and thought and ob- 
 servation, may not in itself be supposed to 
 invalidate the correctness of the view thus 
 early decided on. 
 
 In discussing these matters, the author 
 recognizes the fact that many persons whose 
 opinion he values, and to whose character 
 he looks up, take a different view from 
 himself of the subject in question, and that 
 he has no right to say that they are wholly 
 wrong and he alone is right. Therefore, 
 approaching the subject from this stand- 
 point and in this spirit, he may appeal more 
 strongly to some who are not influenced 
 by the ordinary arguments put forth by 
 those who will not admit that there is more 
 than one side to the subject. 
 
 Indeed, it is because some such presenta- 
 tion of the matter has before now influ- 
 enced favorably quite a number of young 
 persons, that the writer has put into this 
 permanent form the extended statements of 
 his views, at the urgent request of a num- 
 
8 Preface 
 
 ber of the young persons thus influenced^. 
 He will be glad if other persons are simi- 
 larly led to a final and satisfactory conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 H. C. T. 
 
 FaiLADELFHIA, 
 
 April, 1899. 
 
Contents 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Measurement of Moral Lines 
 
 • 
 
 . II 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 As TO THE Drink Question . 
 
 • 
 
 • 17 
 
 Ill 
 
 
 
 How ABOUT Tobacco ? . 
 
 . 
 
 • 43 
 
 IV 
 
 
 
 Taking Chances in Life 
 
 « 
 
 • 75 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 Which Side of the Theatre Door? 
 
 . 107 
 
 VI 
 
 
 
 Concerning the Social Dance 
 
 • 
 
 • 15s 
 
 VII 
 
 
 
 Gain of the Higher Side 
 
 • 
 
 • 179 
 
 VIII 
 
 
 
 What the World Thinks of It 
 
 • 
 
 . 191 
 
Measurement of Moral Lines 
 
Measurement of Moral Lines 
 
 Many a line in morals is like a mathe- 
 matical line; it has length, but neither 
 hssadth nor thickness. As a matter of fact, 
 such a line is not always easily perceived. 
 One can sometimes more readily locate the 
 line when at a distance from it than while 
 close upon it. A man may be within one 
 step of such a line, without knowing on 
 which side of it he stands, or perceiving 
 any decided gain in moving this way or 
 that. As, however, he advances in the one 
 direction or the other, the consciousness 
 that he is going in the right direction or in 
 the wrong grows on him, until perhaps he 
 realizes too late how much better 'it would 
 >3 
 
14 Border Lines 
 
 have been for him to have faced in the op- 
 posite direction at the beginning of his 
 march. 
 
 The more positive and important the 
 question of morals involved, the easier its 
 fixing and defining. If, indeed, there be a 
 direct command, prohibition, or approval, 
 on any given subject in the written lav^^ of 
 God or man, it ought not to be difiFicult to 
 see that the dividing line runs between the 
 thing forbidden and the thing approved. 
 But where the question involves a principle 
 not distinctly disclosed in every action 
 based on it, the matter is not so easily set- 
 tled. In such cases, the decision of each 
 individual is more likely to be made in 
 view of the extremes of practice, rather 
 than of what is evident on the first crossing 
 ,of the line separating the two tendencies 
 of conduct. This it is that makes so many 
 shadowy lines between courses of action 
 not defined by explicit command or prohi- 
 bition, which confuse and disturb conscien- 
 
Measurement of Moral Lines i^ 
 
 tious seekers of the right, and doers of 
 what they suppose to be best. 
 
 Where the right and the wrong are dearly 
 defined, it is comparatively easy to know 
 what one ought to do^ or ought not to do. 
 But where one must choose for himself be- 
 tween two courses of permissible conduct, 
 in view of their manifest tendencies sever- 
 ally, and yet where good men in the com- 
 munity differ widely as to which course is 
 the better, it is not always easy for one to 
 know and to do what is best. The young 
 and the doubting need help at such points 
 in their decidings. 
 
 Border lines, or lines on the border, be- 
 tween practices popular and allowable yet 
 possibly harmful, and the course that is cer- 
 tainly safest and best, all things considered, 
 are worthy of careful consideration by 
 those who must decide these things for 
 themselves, or who would help others to 
 decide them. Whoever has had experi- 
 ence in the effort to settle such questions, 
 
i6 Border Lines 
 
 ought to be ready to lay before others the 
 considerations which have had weight with 
 himself, or which he has found to have 
 weight with others. What has influenced 
 him may help others to arrive at a right 
 decisioa 
 
As to the Drink Question 
 
As to the Drink Question 
 
 One of the first practical questions that a 
 young man has to meet, as he begins to act 
 for himself or as he considers how to act in 
 the world as it is, and where good men dif- 
 fer widely in opinion and in practice, is the 
 question what he had better drink, and 
 what he had better abstain from drinking. 
 This is a matter where the line of absolute 
 right and of true expediency is not clear to 
 all, and where, therefore, the borders on 
 either side of that line are debatable ground 
 in the minds of many. 
 
 This is not a new question. It was raised 
 early in the history of the race, according to 
 the sacred record. When the world be- 
 came so corrupt that God swept the race of 
 man from the face of the earth, save a single 
 19 
 
20 Border Lines 
 
 human family which he preserved from the 
 Deluge in an ark of safety, in order to bridge 
 over the chasm of destruction, Noah, godly 
 patriarch as he was, began his new life in 
 the renovated world by planting a vineyard 
 and making wine of the grapes. " He 
 drank of the wine, and was drunken." 
 That was the beginning, or the new be- 
 ginning, after the Deluge, of intoxication- 
 intoxication not from adulterated liquors or 
 any miserable substitute for the best drink 
 of that kind available, but from pure home- 
 made wine. Our old ancestor Noah was 
 shamefully drunk on home-made liquor, 
 and from his day to ours the question has 
 been an open one, among his descendants, 
 whether it is safer and better to let alone 
 even the purest intoxicating liquors, or to fol- 
 low his example so far as to make wine, or to 
 drink wine after it is made, without drinking 
 so much as to be drunken as he was. On 
 which side of the line between the moderate 
 use of alcoholic liquors and abstinence is it 
 
As to the Drink Question 21 
 
 wise to take one's stand, when the opposite 
 borders are so near each other ? 
 
 h must be admitted, to begin with, that 
 the Bible does not explicitly forbid, in so 
 many words, the use of wine or strong 
 drink, ahhough it does prohibit their use by 
 certain persons at certain times, or under 
 certain circumstances. It will, perhaps, 
 just here be claimed by some literalist, that 
 in the Old Testament at least there is a 
 specific prohibition in the words: 
 
 " Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, 
 When it giveth its color in the cup. 
 When it goeth down smoothly : 
 At the last it biteth like a serpent. 
 And stingeth like an adder." 
 
 Yet will any fair-minded reader of the 
 Bible seriously claim that this proverbial in- 
 junction is to be taken as an absolute pro- 
 hibition of wine under any and all circum- 
 stances ? If so, what will he do with the 
 other injunction in the same book of 
 Proverbs: "Give . . . wine unto the bitter 
 
22 Border Lines 
 
 in soul"? "Bread," "wine," and "oil" 
 are together named by the Psalmist as God's 
 good gifts to man. There can, it is true, be 
 no question that there is an inspired caution 
 in the injunction in Proverbs against wine, 
 in view of its recognized dangers; but it can 
 no more be claimed that it is a positive 
 command to all for always than is the in- 
 junction in the same book of Proverbs: 
 "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider 
 her ways, and be wise." If, indeed, the 
 first-named proverb be taken as a command 
 to be observed in absolute literalness, it 
 might be met by simply shutting one's eyes 
 while drinking, or by using white wines 
 and champagne, or, again, by using brandy, 
 rum, and whiskey. This merely shows the 
 absurdity of pivoting one's belief as to 
 Bible commands on the letter of a single 
 text capable of being construed in several 
 different ways. 
 
 In the New Testament, not only is there 
 no positive prohibition of any wine-drink- 
 
As to the Drink Question 23 
 
 ing, but it is asserted that Jesus Christ came 
 " eating and drinking" like others, and that 
 he even made wine for others to drink. 
 This certainly shows that the use of wine is 
 not in itself a sin, that is, it is not a sin per 
 se. Yet the dangers of wine-drinking are 
 referred to and cautioned against in several 
 places in the New Testament. Some per- 
 haps would claim that the example of Jesus 
 Christ as to wine-drinking is obligatory on 
 all of his disciples. Yet why is it so in 
 that thing, any more than in his being "a 
 carpenter," or in his being without a home 
 in which to lay his head, or in his wearing 
 an Oriental costume ? A century ago, one 
 Lord George Gordon showed his sense of 
 the duty of imitating Jesus Christ— follow- 
 ing his example literally— by becoming a 
 Jew in religion, and attaching himself to a 
 synagogue, because "the example of Christ 
 ... we were scrupulously to follow in 
 every respect," and as Jesus " conformed to 
 Jewish customs, opinions, and manners, so 
 
24 Border Lines 
 
 we were bound to imitate his example in 
 these things." This, to be sure, seems ri- 
 diculous, yet why more so than the claim 
 put forth by some Christians of to-day that 
 they drink wine as a beverage for the ex- 
 press purpose of being so far like Jesus 
 Christ ? 
 
 One thing is certain : The Bible no more 
 forbids total abstinence to any man than it 
 forbids wine-drinking to all; and it does 
 command and commend abstinence in cer- 
 tain cases. Wine-drinking, even in moder- 
 ation, was forbidden to the priests of God 
 when they were to enter upon their holiest 
 services ; and to him who would consecrate 
 himself for a season, or for a lifetime, as a 
 sacred Nazirite, the command was explicit: 
 "He shall separate himself from wine and 
 strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar of 
 wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither 
 shall he drink, any liquor of grapes, nor eat 
 fresh grapes or dried. All the days of his 
 consecration shall he eat nothing that is 
 
As to the Drink Question 25 
 
 made of the gfapevine, from the kernels 
 even to the husk." That seems pretty near 
 to total abstinence. It would be called ultra 
 carefulness, or "fanaticism," by some per- 
 sons. Yet it seemed to work very well in 
 some cases. Samson, the strongest man 
 known to the world, and John the Baptist, 
 the greatest of all those born of woman, 
 under the old dispensation, were Nazirite 
 abstainers. So far there is evidence that 
 the use of wine was perilous, and that ab- 
 stinence from wine was consistent with the 
 highest consecration, the greatest physical 
 strength, and the grandest spiritual attain- 
 ments, on the part of the abstainer. There- 
 fore the question of our personal duty, as 
 to the use or the rejection of wine as a bev- 
 erage, is at least an open one in the light of 
 present Christian expediency. 
 
 If, indeed, the duty were laid of God 
 upon every Christian to use intoxicating 
 drinks as a beverage, whether he wants 
 them or not, then we should have no alter- 
 
26 Border Lines 
 
 native but to go forward and take the risks. 
 It will, however, be admitted by the most 
 zealous advocates of moderate drinking, 
 that no specific command in the Bible en- 
 joins such drinking on everybody ; and that 
 the Christian liberty of the Bible includes 
 the liberty of letting liquor alone, if we find 
 that it is not a safe thing for ourselves, 
 apart from the question of our personal ex- 
 ample to others. This being the case, it is 
 well for us to weigh carefully the excep- 
 tional risks of wine-drinking, to persons of 
 our peculiar characteristics and temperament 
 and circumstances, as illustrated in the 
 course of those who have gone before us in 
 the path of life we are treading, and then 
 to decide as to the claims on ourselves of 
 total abstinence for our own sakes. 
 
 On what ground can a man claim, in 
 view of the example of others, that he may 
 count himself fairly safe in the moderate 
 use of intoxicating beverages? Does he 
 reckon on his brain-power, and his intellec- 
 
As to the Drink Question 27 
 
 tual attainments and vigor? Men vastly 
 superior to himself in that very sphere, 
 have— as he cannot but know— been often 
 overcome by intemperance, when they pur- 
 posed only moderation. Indeed, it is di- 
 rectly affirmed, by high medical authority, 
 that brain-workers are peculiarly liable to be 
 swept into intemperance if they venture on 
 the use of alcoholic stimulants. And the 
 world of intellect is full of instances of 
 ruined genius through an inability to resist 
 the temptations of excess in drink. 
 
 Is it the power of his own strong will 
 that one rests on for his control of appetite, 
 as he ventures on a limited indulgence in 
 this line? Before his very eyes, men of 
 more strongly marked will power than he 
 would think of claiming as his own have 
 been openly proved incapable of moderation 
 in drinking, when they departed from the 
 bounds of abstinence. There are well- 
 known historic examples, in our own land 
 and day, of men of iron will and of pre- 
 
28 Border Lines 
 
 eminent determination found helpless in a 
 struggle with the foe which this man thinks 
 can be safely grappled by himself. If, in- 
 deed, two Americans were named as per- 
 haps more distinguished for their indomit- 
 able will than any other Americans of their 
 generation, it would be found that both of 
 them were compelled to admit their inability 
 to find safety except in abstinence. 
 
 One perhaps, however, rests on God's 
 grace to sustain him, if he deliberately in- 
 curs a special risk without a commandment 
 thereto. He must surely admit, or at all 
 events his friends must admit for him, that 
 men who have seemed even purer, holier, 
 more godly, and more reliant on Divine 
 help, than himself, have become drunkards, 
 even within the limits of the present gen- 
 eration. The Christian abstainer, who 
 stands firmly on a place of assured safety 
 even at the temple's pinnacle, may well 
 shrink from tempting God by yielding 
 his foothold there, in the hope that holy 
 
As to the Drink Question 29 
 
 angels will be sent to bear him up in 
 his mid-air flight toward the drunkard's 
 Gehenna. 
 
 A few illustrative instances out of the 
 sphere of the writer's personal observation, 
 in religious circles merely, may add empha- 
 sis to the general truth here declared. His 
 earlier recollections are of a distinguished 
 New York pastor, who had been honored 
 by the foremost academic degrees known 
 to scholars or divines, and who had attained 
 to exceptional prominence in the councils of 
 the Presbyterian Church. That man was 
 quite sure that temperance, and not absti- 
 nence, was the thing for him ; but his dis- 
 grace from intoxication was an appalling 
 fact to the writer, who saw something of 
 the sorrow and shame it brought to the peo- 
 ple of God whose loved pastor he had been. 
 
 Later, the writer knew of a Methodist 
 clergyman who, as a stirring evangelist, 
 was blessed in winning souls to the Savr 
 iour, and whose praise was in .the churches 
 
30 Border Lines 
 
 far and near, but who did not feel it his 
 duty to be a total abstainer. He therefore 
 staggered in and from his high position, 
 and found a level with those who were 
 overcome with drink. 
 
 Again it was a distinguished Baptist doc- 
 tor of divinity who thought himself above 
 the necessity of abstinence, but who found 
 himself not above the danger of intemper- 
 ance. It was not long before he was seen 
 by the writer reeling through the public 
 streets, a hopeless victim of strong drink. 
 
 Then it was one of the more brilliant of 
 the young Congregational ministers of the 
 writer's acquaintance who was confident 
 that moderation was better than abstinence. 
 While not yet in middle life he was found 
 in the very gutter by his parishioners, be- 
 fore he even thought he was overstepping 
 the bounds of strictest prudence. 
 
 An Episcopal clergyman of the writer's 
 acquaintance, who could not suffer himself 
 to suppose that total abstinence was the 
 
As to the Drink Question 31 
 
 only safe ground of conduct, was again and 
 again intoxicated among his people. He 
 was given one new charge after another by 
 his bishop, in the hope of his reform, but in 
 each case he gave way to his appetite, 
 which he was powerless to resist. 
 
 In another case the writer knew of a 
 prominent Lutheran clergyman who was 
 for years an abstainer, but who began to 
 drink beer on the advice of his physician. 
 He drank more and more until it deadened 
 his best intellectual powers. He left the 
 pulpit, and the last the writer heard of him 
 he was a sodden drunkard going from 
 friend to friend begging money for drink. 
 
 The writer became quite attached to a 
 young Roman Catholic priest because of 
 his frank, manly ways, his genial spirit, and 
 his unflinching patriotism. But he was sad- 
 dened to see the priest go down, step by step, 
 from moderate drinking to intoxication, 
 until he was silenced by his good bishop. 
 
 These are only a few representative cases, 
 
32 Border Lines 
 
 among very many, of the fall of clergy- 
 men, under the writer's personal observa- 
 tion, because of moderate drinking being 
 looked upon as reasonably safe for a man in 
 the Christian ministry. Men of this specific 
 class are named, not because they are pecul- 
 iarly liable to fall, but because they would 
 be counted safest in the struggle for self- 
 control. 
 
 Alcoholic stimulants and narcotics stand 
 quite by themselves as to their tendency in 
 ordinary use, in that their using increases 
 the desire for their use. In this they differ 
 from food and drink generally. They fail 
 to satisfy. The more one has of them, the 
 more one wants of them. Special power 
 of self-control is demanded of one who 
 would use them in moderation ; and as the 
 demand for increased strength grows, the 
 amount of strength is lessened by every 
 added indulgence. In this, drinking is a 
 greater danger than gluttony or any such 
 indulgence of appetite. 
 
As to the Drink Question 33 
 
 In the ranks of the laity, the writer has 
 seen yet more frequent illustrations of the 
 perils of liquor-using under the most favor- 
 able circumstances. Men of strong will, of 
 large brain, of refinement and culture, of 
 mature judgment, of high Christian attain- 
 ments ; ladies in the choicest social circle, 
 active in the church and in the Sunday- 
 school; young persons and older, of both 
 sexes, — he has seen going down to the 
 drunkard's life and grave; not here and 
 there a solitary case, but in so many in- 
 stances as to make him stand appalled at 
 the fearful risks in the use of intoxicants, 
 and to cause him to forswear everything 
 that can intoxicate, or that leads to a love 
 of intoxicants, because of the possible fear- 
 ful consequences to himself, as apart from 
 the question of his example before 
 others. 
 
 The very youth who first enlisted the 
 writer's efforts in the mission-school work, 
 and who was thus instrumental in shaping 
 
34 Border Lines 
 
 the writer's life-course, a youth who con- 
 nected himself with the same church as the 
 writer during the same season of religious 
 interest, died of delirium-tremens, in his 
 own mother's home, before he was yet 
 twenty-five years old. He was willing to 
 take the risks of the use of liquors, — and he 
 did so. 
 
 Of other young people who took their 
 Christian stand at the season of religious in- 
 terest above referred to, two were subse- 
 quently united in marriage. Both con- 
 tinued active in Christian work. They had 
 a lovely home, a home of wealth and re- 
 finement. When they had already passed 
 middle life, the husband and father in that 
 home laughed at a friend's suggestion that 
 there was danger in the moderate use of 
 wine at his family table — in the exercise of 
 his "Christian liberty." Within five years 
 from the time of that rejected warning, that 
 husband was compelled to place his lovely 
 wife in an institution for the treatment of 
 
As to the Drink Question 35 
 
 drunkards, and in two years more he was 
 compelled to give up his prominent busi- 
 ness position because of his reputation as 
 a hopeless slave of drink. 
 
 And so the writer might go on indefi- 
 nitely in his personal reminiscences in this 
 direction. Indeed, out of an exceptionally 
 wide and varied acquaintance throughout 
 this country. East, West, North, and South, 
 he can say unhesitatingly, that he never yet 
 knew a single family circle, where he was 
 acquainted with its membership to the ex- 
 tent of only one remove from the centre, in 
 which there was not, or had not been, at 
 least one victim of intemperance. If, how- 
 ever, your circle of family relatives has no 
 such sad record, there is just one way by 
 which you can make sure of not being 
 yourself the first victim of intemperance 
 there; and that is by letting intoxicants 
 wholly alone — in the exercise of your 
 "Christian liberty," And there is no other 
 sure way. 
 
36 Border Lines 
 
 John B. Gough suggests that even though 
 there is no prohibition in the Bible of a 
 man's going into a powder magazine with 
 a lighted candle or match, there are few 
 men who would care to take that risk un- 
 necessarily, simply because it is not posi- 
 tively forbidden. What can be done is one 
 thing; what it is best to do is another thing. 
 To take an illustration, for example, out of 
 another sphere. Granted that there be no 
 sin in the thing itself, in the making of 
 one's home, with one's family, in a house 
 where poisonous sewer-gases find their way 
 through the drain-pipes into the living- 
 rooms ; granted, also, that some dwellers in 
 that house have remained alive, while others 
 died from the poison-laden atmosphere, — 
 would it be wise or right to seek a home 
 there for one's self, or one's loved ones, 
 with the risk involved, while another house 
 of like advantages, that is wholly free from 
 such perils, is open to one's choice ? Who 
 would claim this ? 
 
As to the Drink Question 37 
 
 There is no sound basis for the frequent 
 assertion that wine as a beverage is a safe 
 and natural drink in vjne-growing coun- 
 tries,, or that it is necessary there because 
 of the water of the region being an unsafe 
 drink. Neither is it true that wine or 
 other alcoholic drinks are necessary to the 
 fullest measure of health in any climate, 
 especially in exhausting extremes of heat 
 or cold. 
 
 It was in a land of the vine that Noah be- 
 came shamefully drunk on native wine, and 
 again that Samson gained his remarkable 
 degree of strength without it. Drunken- 
 ness prevails in wine-growing countries, as 
 truly as the bloated faces of the beer-drinker, 
 or the surly ill-nature of the cider-drinking 
 sot, are to be found in the region of the 
 brewery and the cider-mill. In France and 
 Switzerland, in recent years, the govern- 
 ment has been necessitated to take positive 
 action for the checking of intemperance in 
 wine-producing regions. Who can believe 
 
38 Border Lines 
 
 that the drink that God gives in the springs 
 and streams of a country for the dwellers 
 therein, is not as safe for ordinary use as a 
 manufactured drink that can intoxicate ? 
 
 The writer has been in the continents of 
 Europe, Asia, Africa and America, in various 
 experiences and in many trying circum- 
 stances, but he has never found it necessary 
 to use wine or other alcoholic drinks as a 
 beverage, or, indeed, any substitute for the 
 water of the region, unless at times it was 
 some mineral water that could be easily ob- 
 tained. In this his experience has been like 
 thousands of others. 
 
 Explorers in tropical regions, or in arctic 
 ones, have uniformly found, like Stanley and 
 Greeley and Nansen, that alcoholic drinks 
 are not safe in comparison with water. 
 Why then should one claim that wine or 
 strong drinks are, in certain climates, neces- 
 sary as a beverage ? 
 
 The author was for three years in army 
 life in the American Civil War, camping 
 
As to the Drink Question 39 
 
 and campaigning in heat and in cold, in wet 
 and in dry, in woods and in swamps, on 
 clayey roads and on sandy beaches, yet he 
 never found it necessary, nor deemed it 
 safe, to use or to give to others alcoholic 
 drinks as a common beverage or as an 
 ordinary strengthener. Administering alco- 
 holic liquids to a person sinking from loss 
 of blood or from the sudden shock of a 
 wound, was a thing quite by itself, more in 
 the nature of surgery than of medicine. 
 That is another matter. Thousands of men 
 in the army pursued the practice of the 
 writer, and thousands did differently. 
 
 Several years after the war the writer 
 called at the office of the Surgeon-Gerteral 
 of the United States Army in Washington 
 to see a former chief medical officer of the 
 division to which he had been attached- 
 That ofificer was now engaged in the com- 
 pilation of medical and surgical statistics of 
 the war. After a few minutes of conversa- 
 tion, the surgeon said to the writer: 
 
4© Border Lines 
 
 "Chaplain, you look very well after all 
 our campaigning together. I know of the 
 exposure you had in service; how came 
 you to stand it so well ? " 
 
 "Well, Colonel, it is not for me, a lay- 
 man, to give my opinion to you, an author- 
 ity in your profession ; but as you ask me 
 that question, I will tell you plainly what I 
 think. When you surgeons prescribed 
 quinine and whiskey for us regularly, 
 I took the quinine, and didn't take the 
 whiskey." 
 
 The medical officer turned in his chair, 
 and replied: 
 
 " If you had told me that in war time. 
 Chaplain, I'd have laughed at you. But 
 now I quite agree with you. As I have sat 
 here and examined reports from regiments 
 and hospitals in different portions of the 
 army, comparing those where whiskey was 
 used freely with those where it was not, I 
 have seen such a difference In the percent- 
 age of sickness and death in favor of the 
 
As to the Drink Question 41 
 
 non-use of whiskey, that I only wonder 
 how so many soldiers lived through our 
 treatment of them." 
 
 This testimony had all the more force, in 
 view of the fact that that medical officer 
 was very far from being an abstainer 
 formerly or at that time. He spoke out his 
 convictions as a scientific observer, without 
 reference to his personal preferences. 
 
 It is evident that alcoholic beverages are 
 not a necessity in any country or climate, 
 while they may be an injury to their user 
 anywhere even in moderation, and are sure 
 to be harmful in excess. Hence one's 
 decision as to his personal use of them be- 
 comes an important question for considera- 
 tion. Even though the Bible does not ex- 
 plicitly command total abstinence as the 
 duty of all, the Bible leaves it to every 
 child of God to be a total abstainer if he 
 wishes to be ; therefore it is for the Chris- 
 tian believer to do that which he sees and 
 knows to be best and safest to do. 
 
42 Border Lines 
 
 Looking around him, every man sees that 
 better men than himself have become 
 drunkards through attempting to be moder- 
 ate drinkers, and that there is no certainty 
 that he will not drink to excess if he drinks 
 at all, while he is perfectly safe so long as 
 he remains a total abstainer — as he is priv- 
 ileged to remain. Every man sees, more- 
 over, that his example in this matter is sure 
 to influence some who are obviously weaker 
 than himself; therefore that, if he drinks at 
 all, he may lead these persons to drink to 
 excess. Having, then, the choice between 
 drinking and abstaining, and knowing that 
 by drinking he imperils himself and im- 
 perils others, while by abstaining he secures 
 safety for himself, and sets a safe example 
 to others, why should any man be in doubt 
 as to his personal duty ? 
 
How About Tobacco? 
 
How About Tobacco? 
 
 If tobacco-using is a good thing, it is wd 
 to have that fact known by young persons, 
 as well as by those who would influence 
 them. If tobacco-using is not a good thing, 
 it is well to have that fact understood by 
 young and old. What is to be said fairly 
 on either side of this question ? 
 
 There are certainly some things to be said 
 in favor of using tobacco. That cannot be 
 denied. To begin with, it is very fashion- 
 able. It prevails in what is called "good 
 society." The man who never uses to- 
 bacco is liable to be an exception in almost 
 any community. Good men indulge in this 
 habit— Christian men, Christian ministers, 
 and eminent Jews, as well as men dis- 
 tinguished and successful in almost every 
 branch of professional and business life. 
 
 45 
 
46 Border Lines 
 
 Then there is a social attractiveness about 
 the habit. Lovers ^f tobacco find a certain 
 companionship in a good cigar, and a charm 
 in companionship over a good cigar, vi'hich 
 they think is not to be found elsevi'here. 
 The young man who does not smoke is 
 liable to shut himself out from this means 
 of social enjoyment; he cannot follow the 
 example of some of the best men of the 
 community; he cannot share the peculiar 
 enjoyment of his tobacco-loving companion. 
 These inducements to tobacco-using 
 should not be lost sight of. They are 
 sufficient to lead a majority of young men 
 to form the habit and to cling to it. They 
 are not without weight with many thinking 
 parents. Mothers do not always want 
 their sons to be different from other peo- 
 ple's sons. They are satisfied to have them 
 follow the example of so good men as their 
 fathers or their pastors. As it is not un- 
 mistakably a question of morals, they can- 
 not have it in their hearts to insist that their 
 
How About Tobacco? 47 
 
 sons shall refrain from doing "what all the 
 other fellows do." They "don't want to 
 be rigid and puritanical, you know." These 
 inducements to tobacco-using are widely 
 recognized and widely prevail. 
 
 But there are some very positive ob- 
 jections to tobacco-using, aside from any 
 debatable question of morals. One of 
 these objections is its uncleanliness. Ab- 
 solute cleanliness or purity of person is 
 impossible to a tobacco-user. The fra- 
 grance of a good cigar while burning is 
 attractive to those who use tobacco, and to 
 many who do not. But no one — literally 
 no one — admires the stench which remains 
 in the hair and clothing, and which befouls 
 the breath of the tobacco-user, after the 
 more delicate aroma of the weed has passed 
 away. A tobacco-user is invariably more 
 or less offensive in his person to nostrils not 
 deadened by constant familiarity with the 
 same fetid odor. He is rarely conscious of 
 the fact. He has no idea that his entrance 
 
48 Border Lines 
 
 into a room fouls the air, and that his very 
 presence in a car, or his passing on the 
 street, is notified to refined senses by his 
 impurity of person. He little thinks of the 
 diminished attractiveness of his presence to 
 mother or wife, to sister or friend, through 
 his impregnation with offensive odors — 
 unless, indeed, these loved ones have been 
 brought by his habit to know no difference 
 between fragrant and foul odors. 
 
 Many a sleeping-car berth is hopelessly 
 befouled by the contact of its blankets with 
 the stench-impregnated bodies of its for- 
 mer fashionable occupants. There are 
 passengers who habitually, or often, travel 
 only in the daytime, so as to avoid passing a 
 night in a tobacco-reeking "palace car." 
 It would, indeed, be a good business enter- 
 prise to run extra sleeping-cars with a pro- 
 Tision that no tobacco-user could enter them, 
 with a double price to be charged to those 
 who are willing to pay for personal purity. 
 
 As to the discomfort to wives through 
 
How About Tobacco? 49 
 
 smoking husbands, wives themselves know 
 as others cannot. The wife of a distin- 
 guished scientific professor hearing a gentle- 
 man speak of his non-use of tobacco, asked 
 him, " Do you never smoke, or use tobacco 
 in any form ? " And on his saying that he did 
 not, she added out of her home experiences, 
 "Your wife doesn't know how much she 
 has to be grateful for. Her house needn't 
 always be like a pig-sty. " Of course, that 
 was an extravagant comparison, and its 
 reference to the "pig-sty" was, perhaps, 
 to its atmosphere, and not to its actual filth, 
 but it illustrated what many a wife feels as 
 to the inevitable residuum of stale tobacco 
 smoke in her house. 
 
 In any event, every tobacco-user is in a 
 greater or less degree offensive by his per- 
 sonal uncleanliness to many whom he 
 meets, if not to those whom he holds 
 dearest. Most tobacco-using clergymen 
 would be astonished if they knew to how 
 many in their congregation their stench of 
 
50 Border Lines 
 
 person renders them offensive; how many 
 housekeepers open their doors and windows 
 to air the rooms after the pastor's social 
 call; how many persons shrink from the 
 nauseating odors of the tobacco-perfumed 
 study, when desiring religious counsel. 
 
 For be it remembered that it is not his 
 person alone which the user of tobacco 
 renders offensive; his smoking-room and 
 his whple house suffer similarly. Curtains, 
 carpets, furniture, pictures, and books, all 
 reek alike with the foul residuum of stale 
 tobacco smoke. There is no such thing as 
 a clean room where tobacco is used. Said 
 a gentleman recently, "1 had a smoking 
 clergyman at my house for some weeks. 
 He smoked in the room which he used as a 
 study. He has been away from us now 
 five months. We have done everything in 
 our power to cleanse that room ; but on a 
 damp day, when the air is heavy, the smell 
 of old tobacco smoke is distinctly per- 
 ceptible there." 
 
How About Tobacco? 51 
 
 An instance might be named where a re- 
 fined lady was for weeks in her sick-room 
 and greatly desired spiritual converse with 
 her pastor, a distinguished city clergyman, 
 yet had to deprive herself of that privilege 
 because of his tobacco-using. She said, 
 " If he should come into this room, the odor 
 of stale tobacco might overpower me. In 
 any event, I should be annoyed by it for 
 days afterward." Such instances are more 
 frequent than tobacco-using clergymen sus- 
 pect. In one case at least a prominent col- 
 lege pastor was practically shut out from 
 usefulness as a spiritual guide of the 
 choicest students by the bad name of his 
 " smokehouse study." His unsavory repu- 
 tation finally caused his leaving that field. 
 
 Indeed, if there were no other objection to 
 ^obacco-using than its defilement of his per- 
 son and his surroundings, the really pure and 
 the nobly proud young man would abhor 
 it, as lowering his plane of personal living 
 by its essential uncleanliness; and he would 
 
52, Border Lines 
 
 feel that its fashionableness, its companion- 
 ableness, and the delights of its indulgence, 
 were quite too dearly purchased as its in- 
 evitable cost of rendering him offensive to 
 persons of highest refinement and keenest 
 sensibilities. And the pure and proud 
 mother who appreciates this side of the 
 case would feel that it must not be that her 
 darling boy should lose his purity of person 
 and become an offense to all delicate nos- 
 trils. Indeed, there are young men whose 
 purity is obviously such that they could not 
 be tobacco-users ; and there are mothers also 
 of such pride and purity that they would 
 almost as soon see their boys in the grave 
 as on the level of uncleanliness with the 
 average tobacco-smoker. 
 
 There is force in the suggestion of Mr. 
 Moody on this point. When some one 
 asked him if the Bible had anything to say 
 on the subject of tobacco, he replied that the 
 only text that seemed to him to apply was, 
 " He which is filthy, let him be filthy still." 
 
How About Tobacco? 5*3 
 
 An eminent Baptist clergyman, the Rev, 
 Dr. P. S. Henson, well known in Richmond, 
 in Philadelphia, in Chicago, and elsewhere, 
 has given his personal experience in the line 
 of the above-stated truths, and such testi- 
 mony may have more weight with some 
 than mere general assertions. Dr. Henson 
 says he was brought up on a tobacco 
 plantation, and, after sundry nauseating 
 protests of nature, became a smoker at 
 about twelve years of age. He continued 
 the practice until it became an inveterate 
 habit. At length he decided to break him- 
 self free from the chains which bound him, 
 whatever might be the cost. 
 
 " Foi- a long time," he says, " I had been 
 in trouble on account of my tobacco. It 
 was not domestic, because blessed with the 
 most patient of wives. Nor was it phys- 
 ical, because blessed with a body of ex- 
 traordinary toughness of fibre. But I had 
 trouble of conscience, which for a Christian 
 is of all trouble the very worst. First of all 
 
54 Border Lines 
 
 there was a sense of personal defilement, of 
 which I could not quite divest myself. It 
 is nowhere said in the Scriptures, as many 
 suppose, that ' cleanliness is next to godli- 
 ness; ' but it is said, ' Be ye clean that bear 
 the vessels of the Lord ; ' and the conscious- 
 ness of carrying about with me, and the 
 prospect of leaving behind me, other fra- 
 grance than that of simple piety, was not a 
 particularly savory reflection. I had no- 
 ticed, too, that in this regard tobacco-users, 
 as a rule, did not improve as age grew on; 
 and the possibility of coming to such a pass 
 of palpable filthiness as some old fellows 
 . . . did sometimes disquiet me, 
 
 "And along with this came the con- 
 viction that tobacco-using was against 
 nature, and seeing that God is the God of 
 nature as well as grace, I could not help 
 feeling that in running against nature I was 
 running against not //, but Him ; and this, I 
 was persuaded, was not a thing to be safely 
 done; for however slowly Qo^'s mills dq 
 
How About Tobacco? 55 
 
 grind, they grind exceeding small, and, 
 sooner or later, as sure as we live, they will 
 grind exactly all. As a consequence, there 
 were texts in the Bible, and not a few of 
 them, which, while not difficult in them- 
 selves, perhaps were very difficult for me, 
 and so I dared not preach from them, lest I 
 should convict myself and stand convicted 
 in the presence of my people. I could not 
 urge them to 'lay apart all filthiness and 
 superfluity of naughtiness ' if the traces of 
 such superfluity were discoverable in my 
 breath and on my body. I could not insist 
 that they should 'keep the body under,' if 
 my body kept me under. I could not ring 
 out the cry of conscious Christian freedom, 
 if I myself was a slave to a fleshly lust war- 
 ring against the soul." 
 
 Then came the struggle of the slave for 
 liberty, "My whole system," says Dr. 
 Henson, "having so long been accustomed 
 to the use of a narcotic, my body having so 
 long been saturated with it through and 
 
56 Border Lines 
 
 through, my brain having so long been de- 
 pendent upon its artificial stimulation, it 
 was just a question, and one of exceeding 
 gravity, it seemed to me, as to the possible 
 consequences of so sudden and complete 
 a revolution in the whole habits of my life. 
 But having first solemnly decided that it 
 was the Christian thing, at least for me, to 
 do, then there was nothing left but to do it, 
 trusting Him, for whose sake I did it, to 
 take care of all the consequences. And He 
 did, in the most surprising and beautiful 
 way." 
 
 It cannot be expected that old tobacco- 
 users generally will have the desire, the 
 readiness, or the courage, to be free, like Dr. 
 Henson, from this bondage. But young 
 men and boys, at least, may be prompted 
 by his warning and example to keep free, 
 or to break free from the slavery while they 
 can. 
 
 Of course, tobacco-users generally are in- 
 capacitated by their use of tobacco to com- 
 
How About Tobacco? 57 
 
 prehend the full effects of stale tobacco 
 smoke on their persons and clothing and 
 surrounding atmosphere. A man who 
 always has onions one meal a day is not the 
 one to detect first the smell of onions in 
 another's breath. So well understood is 
 this fact in practical life, that one who wants 
 to eat onions on an occasion is likely to 
 agree with his partner to do the same thing 
 at that time, so that neither will be able to 
 detect the smell of onions. Physicians are, 
 on this account, perhaps the most sensible 
 ^nd careful tobacco-users in the community. 
 Understanding, as they do, the pervasive 
 influence of tobacco odors in a sick-room, 
 many of them are more cautious than 
 others as to the time when, and the place 
 where, and the clothing in which, they 
 smoke their cigars or pipes. But even this 
 only goes to show the danger incurred of 
 making one's self offensive by tobacco- 
 using. 
 A tobacco-smoker cannot have so keen 
 
^8 Border Lines 
 
 a scent or taste as one who never uses 
 tobacco, other things being equal. The 
 fumes of hot smoke have, of course, an ef- 
 fect on the lips and tongue and throat and 
 nostrils similar in kind, if not in measure, 
 to that of hot smoke on pork or beef in a 
 smokehouse. The fashionable smoker, 
 vk'ho has been "curing "the inside of his 
 mouth for a few years by this smoke 
 treatment, cannot possibly know the more 
 delicate odors or tastes of "good things" 
 eaten or drunk. Even the epicure is in- 
 capacitated for judging accurately the finer 
 grades of wines and other fashionable 
 liquors, or terrapin or fresh mushrooms 
 and such dishes, as well as more substan- 
 tial food, by applying them to the smoked- 
 ham-like coats of his mouth and palate. 
 
 This may be doubted by the man whose 
 organs of taste and smell are in a meas- 
 ure deadened by tobacco-using; but it will 
 not be questioned by any experts who have 
 money at stake on the issue. Tea-im- 
 
How About Tobacco? 55 
 
 porters, and tea-brokers, for example, em- 
 ploy expert "tasters" to pass on tea sam- 
 ples in order to arrive at their relative flavor 
 and value. Such men in some instances 
 receive very high salaries, equalling many 
 college presidents and governors of states, 
 and they must be careful to prove them- 
 selves worth their salary. One of these ex- 
 perts being asked about this matter said 
 that it would be impossible to be a good 
 taster and a cigar-smoker. He must choose 
 between giving up his cigars or his busi- 
 ness position. And that looked reason- 
 able. 
 
 What does a tobacco-smoker know about 
 the fragrance of wildflowers or of new- 
 mown hay and other delicate odors, in his 
 country rides or walks in summer days, 
 while his cigar fumes fill his nostrils.? 
 What enjoyment can even his lady com- 
 panions have in these, as he ruthlessly puffs 
 away at his cigar while on the seat before 
 them on a drive, or as he joins them while 
 
6o Border Lines 
 
 smoking, in a wallcing-party ? How many 
 good things are lost to a cigar-smoker and 
 his companions in consequence of his 
 smoking, even when such smoking seems a 
 comfort or a necessity to himself. 
 
 A positive objection to tobacco-using is, 
 in fact, its benumbing influence on the 
 nerves and sensibilities, especially of a boy 
 or a young man. Tobacco is a narcotic, 
 even though at first it seems to act as a 
 stimulant. Its ultimate effect is rather to 
 quiet than to stimulate the nerves. In do- 
 ing this it tends to allay anxiety and dis- 
 comfort. It makes its user measurably 
 contented with his condition and attain- 
 ments. This may, at first glance, seem to 
 be an advantage, as preventing restlessness 
 and worry. Indeed, the use of tobacco is 
 advocated on this very ground, and the ar- 
 gument is made, that the lower classes in 
 the community who can never hope to 
 better their condition are kept in content- 
 ment by their pipes and cigars. But the 
 
How About Tobacco? 61 
 
 average American youth needs all the 
 nerves and all the brain-power he pos- 
 sesses to enable him to knovk' his place and 
 to fill it. He ought not to have his sensibil- 
 ities deadened. He ought not to be satisfied 
 with his present attainments. If he has 
 failed in his day's work, or in his day's 
 hunting for work, he ought not to take an 
 opiate or a narcotic, and lull his sensibili- 
 ties to rest over his failure. He ought to 
 face the facts with unclouded vision and 
 tense nerves, and determine on better things 
 for to-morrow. 
 
 Put two young men of the same ability 
 side by side in a struggle to find occupa- 
 tion, or to make progress in study or busi- 
 ness, and if one deadens his nerves by to- 
 bacco while the other is always awake in 
 waking hours, the wide-awake young man 
 will soon be ahead of the other. There are, 
 in fact, many large business establishments 
 where a young man who does not use to- 
 bacco is always chosen in preference to one 
 
62 Border Lines 
 
 who does, on the score of his increased 
 ambition and quickness and practical effi- 
 ciency through having his nerves and sensi- 
 bilities on the alert. 
 
 The higher the intellectual and moral 
 plane of the young man, the greater the 
 evil from this benumbing influence of to- 
 bacco, for the more he needs strong impel- 
 lings to carry him forward to his best ac- 
 complishment. When others are satisfied 
 with him, a young man has least right to 
 be satisfied with himself. His ideal ought 
 to be higher than theirs. When it does not 
 seem necessary that he should work for a 
 living, or work to keep ahead of his compan- 
 ions, he ought to be keenly -alive to the 
 necessity of working to do something worth 
 living for, and to enable him to keep ahead 
 of himself. 
 
 Dr. Jay W. Server, director of physical 
 culture in Yale University, has made care- 
 ful experiments in the study of the effects 
 of tobacco, as based on the examination 
 
How About Tobacco? 63 
 
 and comparison of thousands of students, 
 in a series of years. He speaks positively 
 as to these efTects in retarding growth and 
 in affecting health. Moreover, he declares 
 that "the matter is of the highest impor- 
 tance as related not only to growth but to 
 morals and character." He has found that 
 while only about five per cent, of the 
 students of highest scholarship in that 
 University use tobacco in any form, more 
 than sixty per cent, of those who get no 
 appointment, as a result of their standing 
 in their studies, are tobacco-users. Yet he 
 is frank to say that " this does not mean that 
 mental decrepitude follows the use of to- 
 bacco, for we may read the results in an- 
 other way ; namely, the kind of mind that 
 permits its possessor to become addicted to 
 a habit that is primarily offensive and de- 
 teriorating is the kind of mind that will be 
 graded low on general intellectual tests." 
 
 In other words, it would seem from Dr. 
 Seaver's facts and conclusions that it is an 
 
64 Border Lines 
 
 open question whether the men who stand 
 highest in University studies attain their 
 superiority because of their non-use of to- 
 bacco, or are merely non-users of tobacco 
 because they are of the sort who are above 
 using tobacco on any consideration. There 
 are other experienced university and col- 
 lege professors who practically agree with 
 Dr. Seaver in his conclusions. Every to- 
 bacco-using young man must, therefore, 
 decide for himself, whether he is kept from 
 a higher intellectual stand by the use of to- 
 bacco, or is a user of tobacco because he is 
 a man of the lower intellectual order. 
 
 At the best, tobacco-using, by smoking 
 cigars or pipe, is an unnatural practice. It 
 cannot be justified or excused as in the 
 line of a natural appetite or desire, like eat- 
 ing, or drinking, or many a personal practice 
 liable to abuse through excess or perverted 
 indulgence. Even in the first instance and 
 in the most moderate degree it is an ab- 
 normal treatment of the human system, to 
 
How About Tobacco^ 65 
 
 which a person has to be tempted, and 
 often by persistent endeavors to overcome 
 nature's objections, by one who is already 
 under the influence of this unnatural prac- 
 tice. 
 
 Most boys who smoke began this prac- 
 tice in imitation of older persons whom 
 they desired to be like, and not because it 
 was in itself a desirable practice. Indeed, it 
 was this fact that first caused the author to 
 decline to use tobacco. He saw that his 
 young companions generally began to 
 smoke in order to seem manly. In view 
 of this, he determined not to attempt 
 smoking until he was so old that no one 
 could say he did it to have an older look. 
 Before he reached that age, he had other 
 good reasons for not beginning. 
 
 For a person, young or old, to set fire to 
 a narcotic, like tobacco, or belladonna, or 
 hasheesh, or opium, and then take into the 
 nasal passages, through the mouth, its 
 heated fumes, so as to bring their exciting 
 
66 Border Lines 
 
 or deadening influence to bear directly on 
 the brain, can never be called a natural 
 treatment of the human system, however it 
 may be justified on an occasion by a phy- 
 sician in the treatment of a diseased patient. 
 Such an unnatural practice is sure to have 
 its deleterious effects sooner or later, how- 
 ever long one may live on in spite of it. 
 
 To a youth or boy, of the age of many a 
 cigar or cigarette smoker to be seen in the 
 streets or playgrounds of to-day, these 
 narcotic fumes are only and wholly per- 
 nicious. They tend to stunt the intellect, 
 to dwarf the manhood, to sap the sources 
 of strength and life. The number of youths 
 who really die because of tobacco-using is 
 not to be measured by the recorded causes 
 of deaths in our bills of mortality, because 
 the system is often broken down by to- 
 bacco before the attack of the disease 
 which is the immediate occasion of death, 
 when it might otherwise have been over- 
 come. 
 
How About Tobacco? 67 
 
 A prominent physician in New England, 
 who had earlier seen much service as an 
 army surgeon, said on this point to the 
 writer: "I often have to report the cause 
 of death as ' pneumonia,' or 'typhoid fever,' 
 'or 'heart failure,' or some other form of 
 disease, when I see unmistakably that the 
 young man had, because of smoking, no 
 reserve of vital strength with which to meet 
 that acut^ disorder which he ought to have 
 been able to battle successfully. Tobacco 
 kills a great many more young men than it 
 is ever charged with." And the older men 
 who are killed by tobacco-cancers in the 
 lips and throat are those who made a 
 longer fight with this unnatural and need- 
 less enemy. 
 
 And yet another objection to the habit of 
 using tobacco is the bondage into which it 
 brings a man. It is not merely that the 
 habit itself is fastened on him so that, in 
 most cases, he cannot get away from it if 
 he would; but it is that he is bound and 
 
68 Border Lines 
 
 limited by it in his daily life, so that h«i 
 must find time and place for it however he 
 is circumstanced; and in meeting this 
 necessity he is often compelled to choose 
 between putting himself in the worst com- 
 pany and in the most disagreeable places, 
 or he must make himself bad company, 
 and the place where he is disagreeable. 
 
 It takes time to smoke a cigar, and still 
 more time to smoke three or four or five 
 cigars. It is not always that a man can 
 smoke in the presence of ladies, or in the 
 common apartments of the home where he 
 finds himself. If he is a guest where there 
 is no smell of stale tobacco in the house, he 
 needs to leave pleasant companionships and 
 go out of doors to enjoy his cigar, or be 
 made uncomfortable by its lack. If he is at 
 a hotel, or on a railroad train, he must seek 
 the place of tobacco-users, which is often a 
 filthy apartment where are sure to be found 
 the vilest occupants of the establishment, 
 whoever else is there. And as he is wait- 
 
How About Tobacco? 69 
 
 ing in a line leading up to the ticket, office, 
 or to the gate entrance to the place of out- 
 going cars, or sitting on the chairs of a pre- 
 ferred platform while watching a proces- 
 sion on some gala day, even a supposed 
 gentlemanly tobacco smoker is liable to be 
 pulfmg his cigar smoke into the face of a 
 refined woman or a non-smoking gentleman 
 near him in the line or on the platform in 
 apparent utter unconsciousness of his ob- 
 noxious conduct — he is so used to it, and 
 has so little thought of the comforts and 
 preferences of others. 
 
 If tobacco-using were otherwise desir- 
 able, it would be indeed a pity that it 
 forced a decent Christian man into the 
 atmosphere and associations of the average 
 railway smoking-car, or steamer smokingr 
 room, and necessitated his remaining there, 
 on a level for the time being, in his tastes 
 and pursuits, with those who are there 
 assembled. If a refined and sensible 
 mother had no other inducement to strug- 
 
70 Border Lines 
 
 gle and pray in dead earnest to keep her 
 loved boy from the love of tobacco, she 
 could find it in her desire to shield him 
 from smoking-car and public smoking- 
 room influences and companionships. The 
 tobacco-user is in bondage by his habit to 
 evil associations which he might otherwise 
 avoid; and the necessity is, by that habit, 
 upon him, of often separating himself 
 from the influences of the purest and most 
 refining society, and of havirtg in their 
 stead influences which, as far as they go, 
 are polluting and debasing. 
 
 Tobacco-using holds back many young 
 men of wealth and intellect and good moral 
 character from doing as well as they can 
 do — doing a great deal better and a great 
 deal more than they do do. They sit and 
 smoke, and think how much they have 
 done, and how much they intend to do, 
 and how pleasant it is to live without doing 
 all the time, and — ^they take another cigar, 
 and are more than satisfied with doing 
 
How About Tobacco? 71 
 
 nothing more. There is a deal of truth in 
 the suggestion of George Trask, the veteran 
 opposer of tobacco, that "a good cigar is 
 the most satisfying thing in the world," 
 that "a young man while he is smoking 
 doesn't even want salvation." 
 
 There are multitudes of boys and young 
 men all about us who are sure to be kept 
 permanently upon a lower plane of per- 
 formance and attainment, because of their 
 lack of ambition and unrest and determined 
 energy through the quieting and becalming 
 influence of tobacco on their nerves and 
 sensibilities, when they ought to be wide 
 awake to their duty and their lack, and 
 be struggling for success as for their lives. 
 If there were no other reason why a 
 fond mother should train her boy never 
 to use tobacco, it is enough that by 
 keeping him from its use she gives him 
 a start ahead in comparison with his com- 
 panions who do use it, and helps him to 
 save all his nerves and sensibilities and 
 
72 Border Lines 
 
 all his energies in their fullest and fairest 
 play. 
 
 It is not an easy matter for a tobacco-user 
 to break away from the bondage of his 
 habit. Many a man has tried the experi- 
 ment and failed. A boy ten years old said, 
 seriously, to the writer, when the folly of 
 tobacco-using was in discussion, "I wish I 
 hadn't begun to smoke, but it's too late for 
 me now to break off." That measured that 
 boy's strength! 
 
 But, on the other hand, many a man has 
 had the courage and the power to break 
 away from his bondage, in this matter, 
 when he was already more than fifty years 
 old; and he has thereby gained in character 
 and practical eificiency, as a man among 
 men. The Rev. Dr. Henson is merely an 
 example of what can be done by a man 
 who will do what he feels he ought to do. 
 Two instances of this sort have recently 
 come to the knowledge of the writer, as 
 showing the possible as well as the desir- 
 
How About Tobacco? 73 
 
 able. In both cases it was a Christian lay- 
 man who found that his habit of tobacco- 
 using made him offensive to those whom 
 he desired to influence for good, and stood 
 in the way of his being a helper to others. 
 In both cases the child of God sought God's 
 help in the struggle to overcome the habit 
 that had so long held him captive, and was 
 given, by faith, the victory. 
 
 These considerations, be it remembered, 
 are apart, not only from any debatable 
 question of morals, but from any question 
 of the effect of tobacco on the health, or of 
 its propriety on the score of expensiveness. 
 These touch only the question of its de- 
 sirableness. Granted, for argument's sake, 
 that it would be right for boys to use 
 tobacco if they wanted to. Granted that it 
 would not be likely to prove injurious to 
 their health. Granted that they could well 
 afford to gratify their inclination in its cost. 
 Is it desirable for them to form this habit, 
 when its indulgence would inevitably de- 
 
74 Border Lines 
 
 stroy their personal purity and cleanliness, 
 would make them measurably offensive to 
 the more refined and sensitive of those who 
 are about them, would tend to deaden their 
 sensibilities, and to diminish and limit their 
 nervous force and activity, and would bring 
 them into a bondage which shuts them 
 away from much that is refining and ele- 
 vating, and surrounds them with influences 
 which are deteriorating, and companion- 
 ships which are objectionable? If not, 
 then now is the time for considering this 
 thing and deciding what to do about it. 
 
Taking Chances in Life 
 
Taking Chances in Life 
 
 There is a sense in which "chance" 
 enters into all the happenings of life. Yet 
 it is important to understand at the start 
 what "chance" is and what it is not, in 
 order to discern the true place of chance or 
 chances in one's proper plans and move- 
 ments in the world. 
 
 A "chance" is that which falls, which 
 befalls, which happens, which comes, as 
 apart from all which is properly included in 
 the preparations and anticipations of one's 
 course. The etymology of the word 
 "chance" is the same as that of "acci- 
 dent." If, therefore, the word be used as 
 indicating a possibility of occurrences be- 
 yond human foresight, it is right to employ 
 it as concerning every plan of life; for 
 the possible is always an added element in 
 77 
 
78 Border Lines 
 
 the calculation of the probable — as beyond 
 the assured. 
 
 Napoleon as a military commander de- 
 clared that, in every great battle, there is a 
 time when the best laid plans of the most 
 sagacious commander are of no avail in 
 comparison with unlooked-for circum- 
 stances and unforeseen forces whjch are 
 the happenings of the hour. In this sense 
 "it is the unexpected which happens," and 
 which has to be looked out for. 
 
 It was this way before our day and be- 
 fore Napoleon's day. The doubter and 
 cynic, represented in Ecclesiastes as grop- 
 ing toward the light, thought for a while that 
 chance had more to do with success than 
 wisdom and skill " I returned, and saw 
 under the sun," he says, "that the race is 
 not to the swift, nor the battle to the 
 strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor 
 yet riches to men of understanding, nor 
 yet favor to men of skill; but time and 
 chance happeneth to them all." 
 
Taking Chances in Life 79 
 
 In a true and proper sense, therefore, a 
 man has to take his chances in life. Occur- 
 rences which he could not have anticipated 
 will meet him in his progress, and he must 
 do as best he can in view of them, when 
 they appear. But there is another sense in 
 which the word "chance" is employed 
 which is wholly unjustifiable, yet in which 
 it is more often used than in its correct 
 sense. "Chance" in the sense of "luck" 
 is not a factor in life, and it ought not to be 
 recognized as existing among things which 
 are or which may be. Counting on it, in 
 this sense, is inevitably harmful both in 
 fact and in tendency. 
 
 Chance as an unforeseen happening is a 
 great reality. Chance as causeless luck, or 
 as a favoring or non-favoring fortune, is an 
 absurdity — or worse. That which falls or 
 befalls, which occurs or comes to pass, 
 must have had a starting place and a start- 
 ing cause. Even Voltaire declared : "Chance 
 [in the sense of luck] is void of sense; noth- 
 
8o Border Lines 
 
 ing can exist without a cause." Counting 
 the chances, or risking the chances, is there- 
 fore wise or foolish, helpful or harmful, ac- 
 cording as it is intended or is understood. 
 
 He who recognizes the unfailing super- 
 vision and control of all the forces of na- 
 ture, and of all the courses of history, by 
 the wise and loving sovereignty of Him in 
 whom "we live and move, and have our 
 being," realizes that all chance and happen- 
 ing and accident are subject to both the 
 knowledge and the consent of God, and 
 that the falling of every leaf and the turn- 
 ing of every card or die, happen alike by 
 God's will and favor. 
 
 One of the proverbs supposed to have 
 been selected by Solomon says: 
 
 " The lot is cast into the lap; 
 But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord," 
 
 And lest it should be thought that it is 
 only in the disposition of larger and more 
 important matters that the Lord condescends 
 
Taking Chances in Life 8i 
 
 to have a part, a greater than Solomon 
 adds: "Are not two sparrows sold for a 
 farthing? and not one of them shall fall 
 [shall chance to drop] on the ground with- 
 out your Father: but the very hairs of your 
 head are all numbered [each separate hair 
 having its place in God's knowledge]. Fear 
 not therefore; ye [and all your interests, 
 great and small] are of more value than 
 many sparrows." In this light it is that 
 every chance, or accident, or happening, is 
 a special, or a particular, providence, a 
 signal exercise of God's directing power. 
 To count the chances in this light is to con- 
 sider what God is likely to do for us per- 
 sonally out of his love for us, and out of 
 his love for truth and right. 
 
 To this day, in the East, the casting of 
 the lot into the lap is the approved mode of 
 ascertaining the decision of the Lord con- 
 cerning any matter of difference; for the 
 idea of God's superintending providence in 
 things large and small is of universal prev- 
 
82 Border Lines 
 
 alence among Orientals. When noisy and 
 violent discussion has failed to bring about 
 an agreement as to the apportioning of the 
 loads to their camels, or as to the division 
 of bakhsheesh received by them, the excited 
 Arabs will squat on the ground together, 
 and will cast the lot into their laps, by the 
 use of rude dice or of marked pebbles, 
 accepting the decision as the voice of God; 
 and so now, as in the days of Solomon, 
 
 " The lot causeth contentions to cease. 
 And parteth between the mighty." 
 
 Nor is this practice entirely unknown in 
 our Christian countries of the West. An 
 amicable division of property, where both 
 parties are desirous only of that which is 
 right and fair, is often arrived at by lot in 
 one form or another; and this with the feel- 
 ing that the decision is thus referred to the 
 Lord, because the point in dispute is beyond 
 the wisdom of the parties at issue. 
 
 If this idea of chance and lot were to 
 prevail, how different would be all counting 
 
Taking Chances in Life 83 
 
 of the chances, and all uses of the lot! In 
 the risks of business, in the dangers of 
 travel, in the perils of disease, in the possi- 
 bilities of gain or of amusement, the 
 thought would be, What does God plan 
 for me? What is to be God's ordering? 
 How can I learn God's decision ? Yet any 
 other idea than this, of chance or luck, is in 
 itself godless, and is in its tendency destruc- 
 tive of sound faith and of wise works. 
 There is literally no exception to this 
 principle — in the sphere of labor or of rec- 
 reation, among old or young. 
 
 Just here is the chief objection to all 
 games of chance whatsoever. It can hardly 
 be said, on the one hand, that the shuffling 
 of cards or the rattling of dice, in the gam- 
 bling-room, the parlor, or the nursery, is 
 intended, or can be construed, as a reverent 
 appeal to God for his intervention between 
 the contestants. On the other hand, it 
 must be admitted that it is injurious to 
 one's spiritual nature and to one's mental 
 
84 Border Lines 
 
 fibre to indulge the feeling that there is any 
 such thing in the universe as bald luck, or 
 as causeless chance, on which one can de- 
 pend for success — in labor or in recreation. 
 Obviously, there is a deadening of the sense 
 of dependence on divine guidance and sup- 
 port through any such vicious sentiment. 
 
 Moreover, it tends to lessen one's energy, 
 and to diminish his reliance on his own 
 honest exertions, if the conviction grows 
 on him that his luck may at any moment 
 counterbalance the gain of his best endeav- 
 ors, or the loss through his shiftless neglect. 
 To cast the lot into the lap — or anywhere 
 else — as is usually done, with the thought 
 that the whole disposing thereof is not 
 specifically of the Lord, is not only to ig- 
 nore God as the cause of all happenings, 
 but it is to put luck into the place of God, 
 and so far to cultivate the belief that luck, 
 and not God, is our dependence in the affairs 
 of life. 
 
 The fact must be recognized, however, 
 
Taking Chances in Life 85 
 
 that very many excellent persons see no 
 harm in card-playing, or in similar games 
 of chance, and deem it unwise and ill- 
 judged in others to object to them. There 
 is no lack of examples of their constant use 
 among Christians of all denominations, and 
 in every profession and occupation of life, 
 including clergymen and teachers, and par- 
 ents who are willing that their children 
 should, like themselves, enjoy card-playing 
 in their homes or with friends outside. It 
 cannot, therefore, fairly be claimed that 
 card-playing and other games of chance are 
 indulged in only by those who entertain 
 laxer views as to morals in conduct. 
 
 Perhaps the popular agreement for the 
 use of cards, as in whist or euchre, will be 
 recognized as forcibly presented in this let- 
 ter of inquiry from an intelligent clergy- 
 man in Iowa, received by the writer of 
 these pages : 
 
 "In my home, in the early days, I was 
 taught that card-playing was dangerous t(? 
 
86 Border Lines 
 
 good morals, and not conducive to a 
 healthy and vigorous Christian experience. 
 For many years I have continued under that 
 impression. Having now children of my 
 own to teach, and other children committed 
 to my care, I am anxious that my views in 
 this direction shall be clear and consistent. 
 "The 'best people' where I live play 
 cards, and teach their children to play them. 
 Many of these are Christian people. In 
 earnest conversation with one of these a 
 short time since, I gained these facts : In 
 the early years he lived in New York State, 
 and was taught in the home that cards were 
 dangerous. He was not permitted to use 
 them. He came West, became a Christian, 
 and for sixteen years has played cards in 
 every conceivable place, has never received 
 injury thereby himself, nor seen any evil 
 growing out of the game to others. He 
 looks back upon his early training as wrong, 
 declares that he was 'defrauded of his 
 rights' in his youth, and that any Christian, 
 
Taking Chances in Life 87 
 
 or any church, that takes the position that 
 card-playing is wrong or dangerous talces a 
 position that is 'senseless and ahogether 
 indefensible.' 
 
 "Gamblers, he assured me, no longer 
 use cards, as other and better ways of gam- 
 bling have taken their place. That he was 
 not afraid of cards, I might know from the 
 fact that he had them in his home, and him- 
 self had taught his boys how to play them. 
 I do not wish to be behind the times and 
 hold fast to my old-fogy notions that ought 
 to be abandoned, and so I seek counsel 
 from you. Have cards been regenerated ? 
 Is it true that ' nine-tenths of the members 
 of the Christian Church use them, and ad- 
 vocate their use ' ? Is it safe for me to give 
 them to my boys, and teach them how to 
 use them ? A new and extremely fascina- 
 ting game, ' Progressive Euchre,' is booming 
 in many places, am I borrowing trouble in 
 being anxious concerning its introduction 
 here?" 
 
88 Border Lines 
 
 That whist and euchre and other games 
 with cards are games of chance, cannot 
 properly be denied. That a measure of 
 skill can be shown in them is true, and that 
 there are "good players" and "poor play- 
 ers " is unmistakable. Yet, in the long run, 
 the element of chance is the chief factor in 
 these games, and this it is that gives zest in 
 their playing. The question as to the ele- 
 ment of chance in such games has been 
 again and again tested by experiment, and 
 practically always with the same result. 
 
 Awhile ago, the experiment on an ex- 
 tended scale, was made in this way. Skilled 
 players were pitted against skilled players. 
 Again, • skilled players were pitted against 
 unskilled players. Yet again, unskilled 
 players were pitted against unskilled play- 
 ers. In a large series of games, say a thou- 
 sand in number, it was found that the per- 
 centage of games won, in the one case and 
 in the other, by the one sort of players or 
 the other, did not materially differ. Chance, 
 
Taking Chances in Life 89 
 
 rather than skill, was the determining factor. 
 Whatever prominence, therefore, is to be ac- 
 corded to skill in card-playing, these games 
 must be reckoned as games of chance. 
 
 Gamblers have not generally abandoned 
 the use of cards, even though they have 
 supplemented their use with dice and vari- 
 ous other devices. Neither have churches 
 generally, as yet, agreed to insist on card- 
 playing as a test of good and regular stand- 
 ing in their membership. The expediency 
 of card-playing may, therefore, properly be 
 considered apart from the preferences of 
 professional gamblers, or the practice of 
 one-tenth or nine-tenths of church-mem- 
 bers. East or West. 
 
 The primary and most obvious objection 
 to card-playing is, as has been already 
 stated, the fact that it is chance playing; 
 that it gives prominence, to chance, or 
 "luck," as a large element in success or 
 failure. One of the, most important prac- 
 tical truths to impress on the mind of every 
 
go Border Lines 
 
 child is, tliat he has to depend — under God 
 — on his own honest exertions for getting 
 on and getting up in the world. One of 
 the most injurious ideas — always injurious, 
 if not absolutely fatal — in the mind of every 
 child is, that it is " luck " which is to carry 
 him along in life, and that he is individually 
 lucky, or unlucky, in comparison with his 
 fellows. 
 
 A difference at this point is a vital differ- 
 ence i|p every crisis time of one's exist- 
 ence; and all life is but a long series of 
 crisis times. It shows itself in a boy's or 
 a girl's plays, studies, work. It shows it- 
 self in a young person's setting out in the 
 world; in his choice of occupation, or in 
 his decision concerning different offers of 
 employment. It shows itself in a man's 
 conduct of business, or in his labors in the 
 line of his profession; it affects him in all 
 his ideas of investments and money-mak- 
 ing. 
 
 There can, indeed, hardly be named a 
 
Taking Chances in Life 91 
 
 single dividing line of equal moment, in its 
 practical bearings on all the affairs of one's 
 personal life, with that which separates the 
 two questions : Am I to succeed in life by 
 the blessing of God on my own endeavors ? 
 or am I to succeed in life by my luck ? In 
 view of the magnitude of this principle, it 
 behooves every Christian parent to train his 
 children to have a care to be on the right 
 side of the division; and to this end all 
 games and conversations, as well as all 
 study and work, should tend. 
 
 There are minor games of chance which 
 help along in the wrong way in the house- 
 hold; but none of these are to be compared, 
 in prominence and popularity, in the home 
 circle, with cards. For centuries, playing- 
 cards have been a chief agency in training 
 the young to give a large place to " luck " 
 in all their calculations of life; and the play- 
 ing of cards has been more effective in the 
 direction of promoting a dependence on 
 " luck" thari all the wise words of parents 
 
92 Border Lines 
 
 and teachers who approved of card-playing 
 could have in the opposite direction. The 
 love of stock-gambling and of grain-cor- 
 ners and of margin-buying and of specula- 
 tions generally, is a natural outgrowth of 
 the principle of card-playing. Indeed, the 
 common talk about both the speculations 
 and the card-playing, as "not wholly de- 
 pendent on chance," has as much basis in 
 the one case as in the other. Whatever 
 part knowledge, or experience, or skill, may 
 have in determining the issue, in either the 
 one sphere or the other, it is "luck" or 
 chance which really decides the case. 
 
 Very early in life a child learns, from his 
 accustomed games, to expect success as a 
 result of his care and skill, or as a conse- 
 quence of his favoring luck, and this in- 
 evitably affects, more or less sensibly, all 
 his course in life. If on the one hand his 
 games are such as jack-straws and hop- 
 scotch, or, on the other hand, such as cards 
 and dice, he is sure to feel the influence and 
 
Taking Chances In Life 93 
 
 tendency of these amusements and recrea- 
 tions respectively. 
 
 As showing that the objection to card- 
 playing is not wholly a result of defective 
 education, nor yet a mere prejudice result- 
 ing from early puritanic teachings and prac- 
 tice, the writer of these pages will say that 
 he was accustomed to play cards in his 
 youth, without any prohibition on the sub- 
 ject from his parents. Wholly from his 
 own observation of the effects of card-play- 
 ing on those who indialged in it among the 
 "best people" of his acquaintance, he 
 abandoned it while yet not even a nominal 
 church-member, and while a large majority 
 of his companions continued in the prac- 
 tice. From that time to this, all his obser- 
 vation and experience in varied spheres of 
 life have confirmed his conviction that the 
 influence and tendency of card-playing are 
 not to be approved, even in the best home 
 circles and under the most favorable condi- 
 tions. Yet the writer is aware that many 
 
94 Border Lines 
 
 among the best and most intelligent of his 
 acquaintances think quite differently, and 
 entertain opinions opposed to his, as based 
 on their observations and experience. 
 
 One objection to card-playing is its liabil- 
 ity to engross attention and to occupy time 
 unduly. In this all games of chance differ 
 from all games of skill. As in the case of 
 wine and tobacco so in games of chance, 
 the use tends to the abuse. One does not 
 necessarily tire of the pastime when he has 
 reached a reasonable limit, as he does in 
 games of skill or in ordinary employments. 
 While there are those who habitually exer- 
 cise self-control, and who will not exceed 
 certain hours in such pastime, the tendency 
 is in the other direction, and has to be rec- 
 ognized as a positive danger to the young. 
 
 Any person who has observed this thing 
 for years in varied spheres cannot have a 
 doubt as to the facts. In students' rooms, 
 in summer and winter hotels, in long jour- 
 neys on railroad trains, in the saloons and 
 
Taking Chances in Life 95 
 
 smoking-rooms of ocean steamers, in army 
 camps, in war prisons, in social clubhouses, 
 in all such places, those who play cards and 
 rattle dice never tire of the occupation, as 
 of ordinary employments. Having been at 
 it five days and evenings, or five weeks or 
 months, they are just as ready to be at it 
 again on the sixth as they were to begin it 
 on the first. If indeed card-playing be only 
 a harmless recreation, it must be admitted 
 that there are few card players, though 
 there are some, who do not give more time 
 to it than they ought to devote to any rec- 
 reation, and that there is a strong tempta- 
 tion, and a positive tendency in the game, 
 to do this. 
 
 Moreover, because chance prevails in card- 
 playing, card-playing naturally tends to an 
 increased interest in a share in ventures 
 where there is positive profit or loss at 
 stake in the result. Sp manifest is this 
 tendency in card-playing, that many a 
 social club prohibits card-playing in its club- 
 
96 Border Lines 
 
 house, lest gambling should accompany 
 it; and this in clubs where the managers 
 permit card-playing freely in their own 
 homes. 
 
 Raffling in connection with charitable 
 fairs, and with benevolent undertakings, 
 is a common form of gambling approved 
 by many, and which has most pernicious 
 results. This must be considered in any 
 examination of the evil tendency of the ele- 
 ment of chance in the affairs of life. Raf- 
 fling is a form of lottery which does not 
 differ materially from the grosser forms of 
 that evil, securing blanks to most, and 
 prizes to a few, and ensuring disappoint- 
 ment to many, with an increased desire on 
 the part of all to try another chance. 
 
 The writer of these pages has had occa- 
 sion to observe the evil results of raffling for 
 many years, and on many persons of his 
 acquaintance. In his early ^ears it was a 
 far more common practice than now. Not 
 only in church fairs, but in various enter- 
 
Taking Chances in Life 97 
 
 prises in the community, and in the dispos- 
 ing of cattle, and horses, and houses, and 
 jewelry, it was a popular mode of exciting 
 and indulging a desire to venture one's luck 
 and take his chances. 
 
 A single illustration may be given as 
 showing what he has seen to be its inevi- 
 table tendency. A young man of his ac- 
 quaintance who was an active member of 
 a prominent church, and who had recently 
 married a lovely Christian young woman, 
 took a ticket in a raffle at a church fair and 
 won the first prize. He was delighted. 
 Many of his friends envied him. His 
 mother, however, told him that she feared 
 that his success would lead him to value 
 luck rather than skill. He laughed at her 
 fears, and thought himself in no danger. 
 He tried in other raffles. He drew prize 
 after prize. He was called a wonderfully 
 lucky fellow. Finally he drew as a prize a 
 fine horse. No one kriew, however, of the 
 many blanks he had drawn meantime. He 
 
98 Border Lines 
 
 seemed, at the same time, to be prosperous 
 n business. 
 
 But one day his place of business was 
 closed. It was found that in order to ob- 
 tain ready money for tickets in raffles he 
 had mortgaged his entire stock of goods, 
 and then had forged the name of his father- 
 in-law to promissory notes, and now was 
 a fugitive from justice, deserting his home 
 and family. His mother's fears proved to 
 be not wholly groundless. Nor does his 
 case stand alone. In its nature it is typical 
 of many another in the sphere of the writ- 
 er's observation. 
 
 There are those who do not see that there 
 is any essential evil in games of chance, nor 
 even in risking small amounts on the issue 
 of a game, or of a raffle or other form of 
 tottery. A prominent bishop of the Church 
 of England said publicly awhile ago that 
 he could see no necessary harm in gam- 
 bling or betting. He was sure that there 
 was no command in the Bible against it. 
 
Taking Chances in Life 99 
 
 So far as that is concerned, there is no 
 command in the Bible against eating green 
 apples in cholera times, or of trying to feed 
 a hyena with peanuts out of one's open 
 hand. 
 
 A Christian woman in Mississippi, some 
 years ago, stated the case, with some of its 
 difficulties, in these words to the writer of 
 these pages :- 
 
 " 1 think that all Christian workers are, 
 at times, puzzled to give a satisfactory an- 
 swer to the question so frequently coming 
 to them, at least in this section of the coun- 
 try: 'What, after all, is really wrong in 
 gambling, or in buying lottery tickets ? ' A 
 young man asks me to lay the following 
 case before you, only with a sincere desire 
 to use your answer for the benefit of oth- 
 ers; for he, long ago, settled the question 
 for himself: 'Suppose I feel need of recrea- 
 tion, and find myself in possession of five 
 dollars, which I have an absolute right to 
 use in that way, all other claims upon me 
 
100 Border Lines 
 
 having been settled to the full extent. I 
 can go to the opera, I may spend it in thea- 
 tres, in concerts, in drives, go on an excur- 
 sion, subscribe for a magazine, or buy 
 books. Suppose I conclude that it will af- 
 ford me more enjoyment to risk just that 
 sum at the gambling-table or in lottery 
 tickets, — why not ? ' 
 
 "Again, a schoolgirl of fifteen came to me 
 in this way : ' You say that one great rea- 
 son why the lottery is wrong is, that a man 
 tries to get money for which he has given 
 no equivalent. Now, suppose a man in- 
 sures his life for ;$5,ooo, pays one premium, 
 and dies, — wherein does that differ from 
 the lottery? He gave no equivalent for 
 the |i5,ooo his family enjoy.' Another 
 chimed in : ' Yes, and if he paid a number 
 of years, he was like a man who buys a 
 good many lottery tickets before he wins a 
 prize.' Still another added: 'I don't see 
 the difference. In the life insurance they 
 all throw in, and the one who dies first 
 
Taking Chances in Life loi 
 
 gets the prize; and it is the same with the 
 lottery or at cards, — they all put in money, 
 and are willing that one shall get it.' You 
 know that we are next door to the great 
 Louisiana plague-spot [this was before the 
 strong arm of the National Government had 
 removed that], and its cancer roots are 
 spreading on all sides; and even the chil- 
 dren buy tickets, and are primed with soph- 
 istries in its defense. And the corruption 
 will not stop with its next-door neighbors, 
 either." 
 
 The main evil in gambling in any form, 
 is, as has repeatedly been said, in its intro- 
 duction of the idea of "chance" or "luck" 
 as a factor in human affairs, as over against 
 the idea of a fitting reward of intelligent 
 and persistent personal endeavor. It is 
 well for a child to learn at the beginning of 
 life that his success or failure depends, un- 
 der God, upon his knowledge and skill and 
 labor and fidelity, in whatever sphere of 
 endeavor he is exerting himself. It is ill 
 
102 Border Lines 
 
 for a child to gain the idea, from his amuse- 
 ments or from his more serious occupations, 
 that there is such a thing as good luck or 
 bad luck in the universe, and that he may 
 be a gainer or loser therefrom. And that 
 which is true of the child, so far, is true of 
 the man; he is helped by every experience 
 of the value of honest and faithful personal 
 service in one direction or in another ; he is 
 harmed by every experience that tends to 
 cultivate a reliance upon blind chance, or 
 luck, as a means of gain or attainment. 
 
 On this point the teachings of sound rea- 
 son and the testimony of the ages are 
 agreed. Gambling in any form whatsoever 
 is at variance with sound business princi- 
 ples, and its tendency must inevitably be 
 always pernicious. In the progress of cen- 
 turies, gambling has come to be an out- 
 lawed occupation under the best govern- 
 ments of the world, — civil governments, 
 military governments, school and family 
 governments. It is forbidden in the better 
 
Taking Chances in Life 103 
 
 regulated social clubs of the more civilized 
 cities of Europe and America. Where it is 
 still tolerated, it is seen as a moral " plague 
 spot," bringing indolence, unnatural excite- 
 ment, despair, and death, as its concomi- 
 tants. 
 
 The difference between a reliance on 
 chance or luck, and a recognition of the 
 uncertainties of the future in ordinary busi- 
 ness enterprises, would seem to be one that 
 a child could understand, and that a man 
 ought to be ashamed to ignore. Planning 
 for the future, and guessing at the future, 
 are not one and the same thing. A man 
 who buys a stock of goods in the reason- 
 able expectation of selling them, has to 
 take the risks of the future; and this he 
 may do legitimately. A man who bets as 
 to the outcome of another man's invest- 
 ment takes what he calls the " chance of 
 the future " ; but in so doing he does not do 
 a legitimate business. Life insurance, or 
 fire insurance, is not in the realm of'gam- 
 
104 Border Lines 
 
 bling; it Is in the realm of a legitimate and 
 well-understood estimating of the risks of 
 the future by the company that insures. 
 This distinction ought to be clear to both 
 young and old in Mississippi and in Massa- 
 chusetts. It will be, if they stop to look at 
 it intelligently. 
 
 As to the question of public opinion and 
 of the common practice of church-members 
 generally, nothing more can now be said in 
 favor of card-playing than could have been 
 said, early in the century, in favor of lot- 
 teries, as also of distilleries, , and other 
 means of money-getting now generally 
 condemned. Many a church building in 
 New England was erected by money raised 
 for the purpose by virtue of a special act 
 of the Legislature. A fine public library 
 building in a Western state was pointed 
 out to the writer as built by funds raised 
 through a lottery, or raffle, organized for 
 that specific purpose. The added fact was 
 mentioned that five suicides were an inci- 
 
Taking Chances in Life 105 
 
 dental result of the drawing of blanks in 
 that benevolent lottery. 
 
 Gambling in its various forms, such as 
 betting, and raffling, and the lottery, has 
 been under discussion for many years, and 
 the conseosus of the world's best opinion 
 is practically against it. It is ostracized in 
 all choicer social, civil, and military circles. 
 A man who is known to be a gambler is 
 counted as below the better standards in 
 the community in which he moves, and by 
 which he is measured. The world's prog- 
 ress is manifestly away from gambling as 
 a permissible practice. It is no longer a 
 "border-line" practice; it is clearly well 
 over the line of debatable customs. But 
 the use of cards, without the accompani- 
 ment of gambling, is still deemed as on the 
 border; this is why its discussion has a 
 place here. 
 
 Card-playing does, or does not, tend to 
 promote a measure of reliance on chance, 
 or luck, in the affairs of ordinary life, and 
 
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 to the spending of time unreasonably in 
 such playing. This does or does not tempt 
 a young person also to try his chances in 
 one way and another in raffles, or lotteries, 
 or betting, or other forms of gambling. 
 As a man is convinced concerning this 
 tendency and temptation, he will want to 
 conform his individual action, and his ex- 
 ample before those who look up to him, to 
 that course which he honestly believes to 
 be the best one. 
 
Which Side of the Theatre Door? 
 
Which Side of the Theatre Door? 
 
 One of the strongest claims made for the 
 theatre as an institution by its wiser and 
 more earnest advocates or defenders is, that 
 it exists for the display of dramatic repre- 
 sentations, in which representation there is 
 nothing essentially evil, while, on the other 
 hand, it may if rightly used be made a 
 powerful means of uplifting popular 
 thought and action. In view of this truth, 
 it is said to be better to endeavor to elevate 
 and purify the theatre by Christian coopera- 
 tion and guidance, than for Christians to 
 stand wholly aloof from it while it is sure 
 to exist. 
 
 It is further affirmed that a large portion 
 of our best secular literature is an out- 
 growth of the theatre, and that this litera- 
 ture is one of the results of that institution 
 109 
 
I lo Border Lines 
 
 and must be taken into account in any 
 proper estimate of its influence. While its 
 friends admit tiiat tliere is a measure of evil 
 as well as of good in tiie composition of 
 this agency and of its resultant influence, 
 as of every other human instrumentality, 
 they insist that it ought to be reviewed with 
 discrimination rather than with unqualified 
 censure. This is plausible on the face of it, 
 but how does it bear the test of examina- 
 tion, historically? 
 
 Before this examination, however, it is 
 well to recognize the fact that dramatic 
 literature is not rrecessarily dependent on 
 the exhibition of the drama, closely as they 
 have been associated in the passing ages. 
 Many a drama in form has been written, 
 that has never been acted. Many an ap- 
 preciative lover of dramatic literature has 
 never witnessed a representation of a drama 
 on the theatre stage. There are lovers and 
 students of Shakespeare's plays who will 
 not witness their acting, simply because 
 
Which Side of the Door? in 
 
 they are unwilling to have their standard 
 and ideals of the great poet's work lowered 
 by the performances of professional actors. 
 Hepce a discussion of the theatre as an in- 
 stitution does not necessarily involve the 
 drama as a literary production; nor does 
 condemnation of the former necessarily 
 carry with it even a reflection on the latter. 
 
 The theatre had its origin and its early 
 history as a religious agency. This was 
 the case in ancient Egypt and Greece and 
 Rome, before the days of Christianity. 
 "The spectacular purpose was . . . a reli- 
 gious one. . . . The muse of tragedy 
 gazed from her mask on all orders of her 
 native realm, gathered as for a festive lit- 
 urgy, an ovation of aestheticism heightened 
 by an enthusiasm of religion which knew 
 no sects to divide, no puritanism to es- 
 trange." It was thus when the drama was 
 so prominent in the worship of Bacchus as 
 a pagan god. 
 
 So it was for centuries in the history of 
 
112 Border Lines 
 
 the Christian Church. Throughout Europe 
 the drama was chiefly in illustration of the 
 Christian "mysteries," and the Bible story 
 or the many legends of the saints supplied 
 the main theme of the tragedy and comedy 
 of the theatre. As a careful reviewer of its 
 history has said of the stage in Europe gen- 
 erally : "From the fall of the Roman Em- 
 pire to the end of the thirteenth century, 
 Latin continued to be the exclusive dra- 
 matic vehicle. Thus the drama had scanty 
 interest for the common people, and re- 
 mained either a didactic form of worship, 
 or, as in the case of Hrostvitha and the 
 extant plays of Terence, an amusement of 
 the learned leisure of the cloister." 
 
 What, on the whole, was the influence 
 of the theatre as an agency of sound in- 
 struction and of innocent amusement, while 
 under the best of human influences as a rec- 
 ognized and sanctioned religious agency ? 
 Look to the testimony of its intelligent con- 
 temporary observers, in different succeeding 
 
Which Side of the Door? 113 
 
 ages. Of the great classic writers, Plato 
 and Aristotle and Ovid and Juvenal and 
 Tacitus, and others, wrote strongly against 
 it, — not merely against its incidental evils 
 and abuses, but against its influence and 
 tendency as an institution. And gradually 
 the theatre came under condemnation in 
 the Jewish and Christian world, even while 
 it was still, in a sense, under religious 
 control. 
 
 More than two centuries and a half ago, 
 a published list of "authorities against the 
 stage" included "the united testimony of 
 the Jewish and Christian Churches ; the de- 
 liberate acts of fifty-four ancient and mod- 
 ern general, national, and provincial councils 
 and synods, both of the Eastern and West- 
 ern Churches; the condemnatory sentence 
 of seventy-one ancient fathers, and one 
 hundred and fifty (then) modern Catholic 
 and Protestant writers." And down to the 
 present day, it must be admitted by the 
 most enthusiastic admirers of the theatre 
 
114 Border Lines 
 
 that there are many intelligent Christian 
 persons who stand opposed to the theatre 
 in its entirety, as well as in its more objec- 
 tionable characteristics. What is the under- 
 lying reason for all this? Why is it that 
 the theatre came under condemnation while 
 it was in religious control, and fails of uni- 
 versal approval now that it is wholly on its 
 own merits as an applicant for public favor ? 
 The objections more commonly urge4 
 against the theatre are, that its exciting ex- 
 hibit of the grosser passions; its deaden= 
 ing influence through the display of unreal 
 crime and suffering and sorrow, and of 
 simulated emotions; its fascinations and 
 temptings by means of scenic effect and of 
 inevitable accessories and accompaniments, 
 — are dangerous and harmful to the purest- 
 minded spectators, and tend to the perma- 
 nent injury of those who are most suscep- 
 tible to influences of evil. Nor are these 
 objections unworthy of the most serious 
 consideration by the Christian moralist. 
 
Which Side of the Door? 115 
 
 Yet, as they have been questioned or quali- 
 fied, or counted as exceptional and partial, 
 or as possibly remediable, by intelligent 
 Christian advocates of the theatre, it is well 
 to look back of them all, or below them all, 
 in order to recognize a radical and sweep- 
 ing objection to the institution of the theatre 
 at its best, in the inadmissibility of the very 
 profession of a dramatic actor as right and 
 proper, under any circumstances. 
 
 This chief and all-prevailing objection to 
 the theatre is, that the profession of an 
 actor is in and of itself unnatural, baleful, 
 and radically and universally wrong; and 
 that because this is so no change of con- 
 trolling influences can make the institution 
 which depends on and represents that pro- 
 fession an agency of substantial good, or 
 worthy of Christian countenance and sup- 
 port. On the face of it, the profession of 
 an actor stands all by itself in demanding 
 of its votary that his main purpose and 
 endeavor shall be to seem what he is not, 
 
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 to appear something else than his real self; 
 and herein lies the essential and irremedia- 
 ble evil of this profession. 
 
 The very terms "hypocrisy " and "play- 
 ing a part on the stage" are identical in 
 their earlier signification. " Hypocrite " is, 
 in both its Greek and Latin forms, a desig- 
 nation of an actor in the theatre. Yet it 
 does not, by any means, follow from this 
 that every "actor" in the theatfe is a 
 "hypocrite" in the ordinary sense of this 
 latter term, as applied to one's moral char- 
 acter and personal sincerity of motive and 
 conduct. It does follow, however, that the 
 stigma attaching to the terms "hypocrite" 
 or "actor" is a natural outgrowth of the 
 universal conviction that in everything and 
 always it is better for a man to be true to 
 himself, to do his own work in the world, 
 and to fill his own place, than for him to 
 play a part, to strive to be another than his 
 own self, and to seek to seem what in real- 
 ity he is not. And this universal conviction 
 
Which Side of the Dopr? 117 
 
 stands, in opposition to the life-profession 
 of a dramatic actor, whatever toler?ince may 
 be conceded to occasional and purely ex- 
 ceptional amateur acting. 
 
 An actor may, indeed, have a great deal 
 of personality. It is, in fact, hardly possi- 
 ble for one to be a successful actor without 
 a large degree of personality; as it is also 
 true that rare ability, and sometimes com- 
 manding genius, enters into the power of 
 the successful actor. But all this personal- 
 ity, all this ability, all this genius, must be 
 devoted to giving the actor the appearance 
 of another self than his own in the profes- 
 sion to which he has consecrated his best 
 powers; and this course inevitably tends to 
 the limiting and cramping of his personal- 
 ity, and to the unworthy employment and 
 fettering of his genius and ability. 
 
 That which might have been a power for 
 good in creation, or in original perform- 
 ance, is given wholly to imitation or sim- 
 ulation; and this too, more commonlyj in 
 
1 1 8 Border Lines 
 
 the sphere of the lower nature rather than 
 of the higher, or at all events in the lower 
 as well as in the higher; for the essential 
 requirements of dramatic action call for the 
 portrayal of the more violent and unworthy 
 passions, rather than of the gentler and 
 worthier virtues. A man who is, perhaps, 
 at heart a good and a true man, and who 
 has exceptional capabilities of good, de- 
 votes himself to seeming a bad man, and to 
 exhibiting the semblance of the vilest pas- 
 sions or of the most abhorrent crimes. How 
 can such a course fail of injury to a noble 
 nature ? Even if it in no degree lowers the 
 tone of that nature, it inevitably restrains 
 it within limitations all unworthy of its 
 powers and destiny. 
 
 It is a well-known fact in medical science, 
 that the persistent simulation of disease tends 
 to produce the disorder simulated ; that the 
 human system, in fact, comes to adapt it- 
 self in large measure to the will-pressure 
 which is yut upon it by its indweller. If 
 
Which Side of the Door? 119 
 
 this be true with the physical system, how 
 much truer with the more keenly sensitive 
 and more quickly responsive moral nature. 
 Let a pure man, or a pure woman, deliber- 
 ately plan and repeatedly endeavor to think 
 and feel and seem to act as if impure, or 
 even as if dallying with temptation and 
 weighing the possible gains of impurity 
 and crime, — and can it be that impurity 
 and crime will continue to have the same 
 abhorrence of mien to such a person, as 
 if their very semblance had been counted 
 ever abhorrent? No! no! if such persons 
 remain pure and virtuous, — as many 
 actors and actresses have remained, to their 
 lasting credit — it is in spite of their im- 
 proper profession, and not as an illustration 
 of its natural and ordinary tendency. 
 
 In his merging of his personality in sim- 
 ulation as a very essential of his profession, 
 or of his " art," the actor's profession or art 
 differs from that of any other. There is 
 nothing like it in the true mission, or in the 
 
120 Border Lines 
 
 best work, of any honest or reputable pro- 
 fession. There is nothing akin to it in any 
 other approved sphere of art. A man may 
 describe evil or portray it in literature, in 
 poetry, in music, in painting, in sculpture, 
 without putting himself into that exhibit 
 of evil, without merging his personality in 
 another personality; but in the art of the 
 actor he who would portray the tyrant, 
 the murderer, the adulterer, the seducer, or 
 the betrayer of a sacred trust, must, in order 
 to be the best actor, strive to think and feel 
 and speak and act as if| he were himself this 
 very evil-doer. Shakespeare himself seems 
 to recognize the essential unworthiness of 
 such an art when he makes Hamlet say : 
 
 " Is it not monstrous that this player here, 
 But in a fiction, in a dream of passion. 
 Could force his soul so to his own conceit 
 That from her working all his visage wann'd, 
 Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, 
 A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 
 With forms to his conceit ? and all for nothing ! " 
 
Which Side of the Door? 121 
 
 Ah incidental confirmation of this truth is 
 given in the intelligent testimony of the dis- 
 tinguished Hungarian traveller, Arminius 
 Vambery, who journeyed through various 
 Oriental countries under the guise of an 
 Oriental. In his story, as given anev^^ in 
 English, he says of the effect on one's self 
 of such a life of simulation as he led so 
 successfully: "That double-facedness in 
 which a man lives, thoroughly aware of his 
 real nature in spite of his outward disguise, 
 cannot be maintained very long with im- 
 punity. The constant concealment of his 
 own sentiments, the absorbing work of his 
 assimilation to the utmost of elements quite 
 foreign, produce their slow and silent but 
 sure effect in altering the man himself in 
 course of time, whether he wishes it or no. 
 In vain does the disguised traveller inwardly 
 rebel against the influences and impressions 
 which are wearing away his real self. The 
 impressions of the past lose more and mere 
 their hold on him until they fade away, 
 
122 Border Lines 
 
 leaving the traveller hopelessly struggling in 
 the toils of his own fiction, and the role he 
 has assumed soon becomes second nature 
 with him." The fact that Vambery recog- 
 nized so clearly the tendency of his life of 
 simulation, was a help to him in his re- 
 covery of his real self. The fact that many 
 an actor does not perceive the tendency of 
 his life of simulation stands in the way of 
 his ever recovering his real self. He re- 
 mains an unconscious actor to the end — as 
 often is shown in his ordinary photographs 
 on exhibition. 
 
 An English writer some time since com- 
 puted that Mr. (now Sir) Henry Irving had 
 committed at least fifteen thousand murders 
 on the stage, while Mr. Barry Sullivan had 
 added at least two thousand more stage 
 murders than this to his list; that Mr. 
 Charles Wyndham had been divorced from 
 twenty-eight hundred wives — on the stage; 
 that Mrs. Bancroft had in the same public 
 place been "foully betrayed or abducted" 
 
Which Side of the Door? 123 
 
 thirty-two hundred times; that Miss Ada 
 Cavendish had been "betrayed, deserted, or 
 abducted," fifty-six hundred times; and so 
 on, along the list of popular actors. 
 
 Can any intelligent person, any person of 
 refined sensibilities or with a fair knowl- 
 edge of psychological laws and influences, 
 believe for one moment that the deliberate 
 and purposed indulgence in simulated evil 
 to any such extent has had no effect in 
 deadening the moral nature of the actor to 
 the enormity of the offenses simulated, or 
 dallied with ? Would it. be in any degree 
 strange if those who have thus simulated 
 deep emotions in so many different char- 
 acters with different persons at different 
 times, were to look with more leniency on 
 a corresponding change in their closest per- 
 sonal relations with others in actual life. 
 After an engagement of a hundred days, or 
 a thousand, with one company, or with one 
 partner, would it seem every way unnatural 
 to seek another engagement for another 
 
124 Border Lines 
 
 like time ? Even if this never did happen, 
 it would seem as if it might. 
 
 To be a good actor, (and surely the actor's 
 profession is to be seen at its best in the 
 persons of its greatest representatives, not 
 in its poorer,) the real self must be merged 
 or lost in the simulated self during all the 
 time of acting — whether before the public 
 or in preparatory rehearsals. The good 
 self of the actor's personality must for the 
 time being be lost in the evil self of the 
 character acted. And what an effect is 
 this! The greater the actor the completer 
 the transference of self, and the profounder 
 the evil! Hear Charlotte Bronte's graphic 
 but terrible description of the peerless 
 Rachel's acting in the part of Phedre : 
 "For awhile — a long while — 1 thought it 
 was only a woman, though a unique 
 woman, who moved in might and grace 
 before this multitude. By and by I recog- 
 nized my mistake. Behold ! I found upon 
 her something neither of woman nor of man ; 
 
Which Side of the Door? 125 
 
 in each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil 
 forces bore her through the tragedy, kept 
 up her feeble strength — for she was but a 
 frail creature; and as the action rose and the 
 stir deepened, how wildly they shook her 
 with the passion of the pit! They wrote 
 Hell on her straight, haughty brow. They 
 turned her voice to the note of torment. 
 They writhed her regal face to a demoniac 
 mask. Hate and Murder and Madness in- 
 carnate she stood." 
 
 And this is a woman's tribute of praise 
 for a woman's rarest success in the art and 
 profession of an actor. Would any true 
 and pure woman intelligently crave the 
 power of such a hellish transformation of 
 self as this ? crave it for herself, or for one 
 whom she loved and honored? Can any 
 true and pure man or woman intelligently 
 approve as a life-profession the actor's en- 
 deavor, after such power of transformation 
 hellward ? 
 
 Even if truly noble characters are, in ex- 
 
126 Border Lines 
 
 ceptional instances, represented by leading 
 actors of the stage, it may be said unquali- 
 fiedly that rarely, if ever, has an eminent 
 actor or actress, in modern times, made or 
 rested a reputation on the portrayal of a 
 truly noble character (not including in this 
 estimate, of course, the exceptional remnant 
 of the original religious drama in the Pas- 
 sion Play of Ober Ammergau). If a man or 
 woman tries at one time to seem better and 
 at another time to seem worse than his or 
 her real self, the tendency of such acting as 
 a whole must inevitably be toward the 
 lower rather than toward the higher stand- 
 ard, — since it is always easier to go down 
 hill than to go up. If in the Passion Play, 
 for example, the same man were to as- 
 sume in alternation the diverse char- 
 .acters of Jesus and Judas, the effect of his 
 acting would be more likely to give a show 
 of Judas than of Jesus in his face and bear- 
 ing, if not, indeed, in his character. 
 Is there wonder, then, that all along 
 
Which Side of the Door? 127 
 
 through the ages there have been indica- 
 tions of well-founded hostility to, and an 
 abhorrence of, the profession of an actor, 
 even among those who themselves ap- 
 proved and sustained the theatre itself ? 
 
 Among the ancient Spartans, only an alien 
 or a slave could be degraded to an actor's 
 profession. Solon denounced that profes- 
 sion in ancient Greece, as "tending, by its 
 simulation of false character, and by its com- 
 pression of sentiment not genuine or sin- 
 cere, to corrupt the integrity of human 
 dealings." Under the Roman Repubhc, he 
 who pursued the profession of an actor 
 "became in the eye of the law infamis 
 (disreputable) and incapable of holding any 
 honorable office." Under the Roman Em- 
 pire also the legal ban was still upon the 
 actor, as satirized by Tertullian, when he 
 said: " What perversity ! They love whom 
 they abuse ; they depreciate whom they ap- 
 prove; they magnify the art; they mark 
 with infamy the artist. What a condemna- 
 
128 Border Lines 
 
 tion, that one should be vilified on ac- 
 count of those things through which he is 
 held to win merit. Aye, and what a con- 
 fession of the evil of the thing it is, that its 
 doers, even when most accepted, are not 
 left without the mark of infamy." And so 
 with only varying degrees of difficulty, down 
 to the present day, the professional actor, 
 even when most honored as an actor, has 
 had to struggle for a full moral recognition 
 as worthy according to his personal worth. 
 A favorite mode of meeting objections to 
 the modern theatre is by the rejoinder that 
 the objector, in the pulpit, at the editorial 
 desk, or in the chair of ethics, is not him- 
 self a theatre-goer, and therefore is in- 
 competent to pass upon the nature and 
 influence of the agency on which he com- 
 ments. If indeed the chief objection to the 
 theatre be that its tendency is to lessen the 
 mental and moral sensibilities of the actor 
 and of its ordinary frequenter, the question 
 might well be asked. How long must an 
 
Which Side of the Door? iig 
 
 observer be under this benumbing influence 
 before he shall become most competent to 
 pass on it ? But waiving that question, it 
 ought to be admitted by all that the testi- 
 mony of experienced and skilled dramatic 
 critics, of prominent theatre managers, and 
 of veteran actors, cannot be called that of 
 unintelligent or hostile observers and critics 
 of this profession. 
 
 Mr. Clement Scott, a leading theatrical 
 critic of the London Press, prominent also 
 as an author and as a traveller, was asked, 
 when he had been more than twenty years 
 a close observer of the theatre and actors in 
 that metropolis, to give his matured views 
 of the stage as a place for a pure-minded 
 girl to make a livelihood and to pursue 
 dramatic art, and his answer was: "A 
 woman may take a header into a whirlpool 
 and be miraculously saved — but then she 
 may be drowned. If a girl knows how to 
 take care of herself, she can go anywhere ; 
 but 1 should be sorry to expose modesty to 
 
130 Border Lines 
 
 the shock of that worst kind of temptation, 
 a frivolous disregard of womanly purity. 
 One out of a hundred may be safe; but then 
 she must hear things that she had better not 
 listen to, and witness things she had better 
 not see. In every class of life women are 
 exposed to danger and temptations, but far 
 more in the theatre than elsewhere. All 
 honor and praise to them when they brave 
 it out." That view of the case, by a 
 trained and competent observer, was hardly 
 calculated to induce a lover of his fellows, 
 to give any more encouragement than he 
 was compelled to, to a profession with such 
 exceptional risks to character in it. 
 
 For this adverse criticism Mr. Scott was 
 naturally severely censured by actors and 
 their friends, but a number of years later he 
 renewed his extended comments after ma- 
 turer study and reflection, and his conclu- 
 sions were in no degree more favorable to 
 the profession he knew so much about. 
 
 "Stage life," said Mr. Scott, "according 
 
Which Side of the Door? 131 
 
 to my experience, has a tendency to deaden 
 the finer feelings, to crush the inner nature 
 of men and women, and to substitute artifi- 
 ciality and hoUowness for sincerity and 
 truth ; and, mind you, I speak from an inti- 
 mate experience of the stage, extending 
 over thirty-seven years." He speaks as if 
 he knew something about his subject. He 
 cannot be sneered at as judging without 
 due knowledge. 
 
 "It is nearly impossible for a woman to 
 remain pure who adopts the stage as a pro- 
 fession. Everything is against her. The 
 freedom of life, of speech, of gesture, which 
 is the rule behind the curtain, renders it al- 
 most impossible for a woman to preserve 
 that simplicity of manner which is, after all, 
 her greatest charm. The whole life is arti- 
 ficial and unnatural to the last degree, and 
 therefore an unhealthy life tq live. 
 
 " But what is infinitely more ^o be de- 
 plored is that a woman who endeavors to 
 keep her purity is almost of necessity fore- 
 
132 Border Lines 
 
 doomed to failure in her career. It is an 
 awful thing to say, and it is still more ter- 
 rible that it is true, but no one who knows 
 the life of the green room will dare deny it. " 
 
 While admitting that, in spite of all these 
 difficulties and degrees, there are men and 
 women who live pure lives even with such 
 surroundings, Mr. Scott says that this 
 "does not remove the great temptations 
 from the weaker brethren." He adds: "I 
 am not a canting prig or a Pharisee who 
 makes broad his phylacteries, and says, 
 ' Thank God, I am not as other men are.' 
 The temptation of the stage is, and has 
 been, quite as bad for me as for any one 
 else, if not worse. It would disorder any 
 life and shipwreck any temperament, how- 
 ever religious, to have your whole mind 
 devoted to the showy and alluring for 
 thirty-seven years." 
 
 A few years ago, in a symposium on the 
 "Moral Influence of the Drama" in the 
 North American Review, there were papers 
 
Which Side of the Door? 133 
 
 from such well-known friends of the thea- 
 tre as the veteran actor John Gilbert, the ex- 
 perienced and successful theatre manager 
 A. M. Palmer, and the distinguished author 
 and dramatic critic William Winter. They 
 surely will be accepted by friends of the 
 theatre as men who are competent to de- 
 fend it. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert said: "I believe the present 
 condition of the drama, both from a moral 
 and an artistic point of view, to be a subject 
 for regret. A large number of our theatres 
 are managed by speculators who have no 
 love for true art, and who, in the produc- 
 tion of attractions, consider only the ques- 
 tion of dollars and cents. With that class 
 it seems to matter little whether a play has 
 any literary merit; it is sufficient if it is 
 'sensational' and full of 'startling situa- 
 tions.' Many of the plays that have been 
 adapted from the French are open to the 
 severest criticism on the ground of im- 
 morality. I say, as an actor, without any 
 
134 Border Lines 
 
 hesitation, that such plays have a very bad 
 influence on nearly all people, especially on 
 the young. Some argue that, even in these 
 productions, vice is punished in the end; 
 but when a play is filled with amorous in- 
 trigue, and fairly bristles with conjugal in- 
 Sdelity, when, in short, all the characters 
 are infamous, there is no question in my 
 mind but that its influence is bad." 
 
 Mr. Palmer, while of the opinion that, as 
 a whole, the theatre of to-day is a decided 
 improvement over that of former days, 
 seemed to agree with Mr. Gilbert in the 
 idea that the plays now in vogue are in- 
 ferior to those of a former generation, and 
 that the former generation of theatre-goers 
 was an improvement on this one. While 
 "the French authors write the best plays," 
 and Victorien Sardou is "the greatest dram- 
 atist of our age," it is still true, as he views 
 it, that "the most competent critics pro- 
 nounce the French of Dumas and Sardou 
 as vastly inferior to that of Voltaire and the 
 
Which Side of the Door? 135 
 
 writers of the time of Louis XV.'" "Per- 
 haps," said Mr. Palmer, suggestively, "the 
 cause of this decadence is to be found in 
 the public taste." 
 
 As to the subject-matter of modern plays 
 generally, Mr. Palmer affirmed: "The chief 
 themes of the theatre are now, as they 
 have ever been, the passions of men : ambi- 
 tion leading to murder ; jealousy leading to 
 murder; lust leading to adultery and to 
 death; anger leading to madness." And, 
 as if in explanation of this fact, Mr. Winter 
 added: "Christian ethics on the stage 
 would be as inappropriate as Mr. Owen's 
 Solon Shingle in the pulpit. . . . The 
 worst mistake ever made by the stage, and 
 the most offensive attitude ever assumed by 
 it, are seen when — as in " Camille " and two 
 or three similar plays — it tries to deal with 
 what is really the function of the church, — 
 the consequence of sin in the human soul. 
 And here it makes a disastrous and mourn- 
 ful failure." 
 
136 Border Lines 
 
 At a more recent date, Sir Henry Irving 
 wrote an article in The Forum in which he 
 attempted to show that theatrical acting is 
 not in itself "degrading," as has been 
 claimed by some eminent actors — not by 
 poorly informed preachers. This very 
 effort by such an eminent representative 
 of the stage shows the importance attach- 
 ing to the testimony of such competent wit- 
 nesses as he attempts to refute. Sir Heni'y 
 speaks of "the curious perversity which 
 has prompted some distinguished artists to 
 decry the art of acting," and cites in this 
 line the examples of William Charles Mac- 
 ready, and Fanny Kemble. Macready 
 would not permit his children to attend 
 the theatre, because he so well knew its 
 influence and tendency. He confessed 
 that he felt the degrading influence of his 
 art when he availed himself of his real 
 grief over the recent death of his daughter, 
 to give force to his simulating, before an 
 audience, a father's grief over a dead child. 
 
Which Side of the Door? 137 
 
 Fanny Kemble found acting "repulsive " 
 to her best nature, "because it quenched 
 the springs of natural emotion," She said 
 of the actor's occupation, "a business 
 which is incessant excitement and factitious 
 emotion seems to me unworthy of man ; a 
 business which is public exhibition is un- 
 worthy of a woman." As to her personal 
 experience she testified: "Never have I 
 presented myself before an audience with- 
 out a shrinking feeling of reluctance, or 
 withdrawn from their presence without 
 thinking the excitement I had undergone 
 unhealthy and the personal exhibition 
 odious." 
 
 It would seem as if this testimony from 
 such actors were entitled to respect; but 
 the strange thing about it is, that Mr. Irving, 
 having had no such sensitiveness to be 
 overcome or to be blunted, simply censures 
 those who confess to it; and he cannot see 
 why this imitation of real feeling on a stage 
 should be any more debasing in its effect 
 
138 Border Lines 
 
 on the actor than the analysis and formal 
 representation of such feelings by a novelist 
 or a poet in his writings. Yet the poet or 
 the novelist merely describes the feelings 
 which he would exhibit in his characters. 
 He tells by his pen how those characters 
 feel. But the actor simulates in his own 
 person the feelings of love or of lust, of 
 anger or of hatred, of ennobling or debasing 
 sentiments, striving to feel, or to look and 
 act as if he felt, these emotions ; and in so 
 doing he degrades his best nature, and 
 lessens his responsive power to the in- 
 fluence of noble sentiments brought to bear 
 upon him in the actual experiences of life. 
 The dramatic author exercises his person- 
 ality in the creation of a character; but the 
 actor gives his personality to the mere 
 imitation of a character created by the 
 dramatist. 
 
 Mr. E. S. Willard, an actor standing high 
 in his profession, in an interview with a 
 representative of the Philadelphia Times, 
 
Which Side of the Door? 139 
 
 gave his testimony as to the subjective in- 
 fluence of simulating the emotions and 
 passions of others on the theatre stage : 
 
 "When I was playing 'Jim the Pen- 
 man ' in London, I developed on the fourth 
 or fifth night a decided pain in the region 
 of my heart. You remember that Jim the 
 Penman dies of heart disease, and through- 
 out the play is conscious that he may be 
 suddenly carried off at any moment by this 
 remorseless affection. There can be no 
 doubt that a man in such a position would 
 develop a morbid mental sensitiveness to 
 the existence, or even the imagined existence, 
 of any symptom apparently foretelling a 
 crisis. This might reveal itself in an ap- 
 prehensive cast of the eye or twitch of the 
 muscles of the face, and to a conscientious 
 actor would unquestionably afford one of 
 the most important and difficult subjects of 
 study. The relations between imagined 
 heart disease, as in such a case, and the real 
 disease which not impossibly, it seems to 
 
140 Border Lines 
 
 me, might actually be developed from ex- 
 cess of apprehension, form a curious and 
 interesting field of study, into which the 
 actor can scarcely avoid following the 
 specig.list to some extent." 
 
 Referring to his experience in simulating 
 the life and character of an evil-doer, he 
 said: "Villains? Oh, yes! I have played 
 villains for years. During the long run of a 
 play, if my r61e is that of an accomplished 
 villain, I think my face off the stage does 
 show traces of, perhaps suggestions of, the 
 diabolical channels in which my thoughts 
 are trained so constantly to run." Yet, of 
 course, Mr. Willard does not for one mo- 
 ment admit that this permitting the emo- 
 tions to run in "diabolical channels" until 
 the very expression of the face shows signs 
 of it, has any tendency to lead him in 
 similar courses of action! A man would 
 hardly be the best judge as to the tendency 
 of such a course in his own personality. 
 Yet his admission, as far as it goes, has a 
 
Which Side of the Door? 141 
 
 value as confirming the opinions of those 
 who as outsiders consider the principle in- 
 volved and operative in a prolonged course 
 of simulation. 
 
 There certainly is no need of any fancy 
 sketch, on the part of men who are not 
 theatre-goers, in order to make a case 
 against the modern theatre, when such 
 admissions as these are made by those who 
 are attempting its formal defense. A seeker 
 of instruction would have to be pretty 
 badly off, who went to the theatre to learn 
 lessons of godliness or personal purity, or 
 to find the best influences under which to 
 bring himself, if what such experts as these 
 have to say about it be accepted as true. 
 
 As the chief objection, after all, to the 
 theatre, is that it necessitates a life, or a pro- 
 fession, of acting — which is in itself an un- 
 worthy profession — the character of the 
 plays performed is, at the best, of but sec- 
 ondary importance. Of course, a pure play 
 is in itself better than an impure play. ' Yet 
 
142 Border Lines 
 
 if every play were pure, the other, and the 
 main, objection to the theatre would still 
 have full force. 
 
 Granted that a drama as written and acted 
 is in itself calculated to impress only the 
 best of lessons, the fact still remains that it 
 requires for its presentation the work of 
 professional actors, while, as is here 
 claimed, the profession of an actor is un- 
 worthy of the life energies of a true man or 
 a true woman. Even though nine editors 
 of religious journals and one hundred and 
 thirteen prominent clergymen were to cer- 
 tify to the immaculate nature of a new dra- 
 matic rendering of the "Pilgrim's Progress," 
 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "The Sign of 
 the Cross," " La Pater," including an im- 
 pressive rendering of the Lord's Prayer on 
 the stage, or "The Christian," or "The Old 
 Homestead," would that justify a well- 
 wisher of his fellows in giving countenance 
 or support to an institution that cannot ex- 
 ist except by the degrading or the harmful 
 
Which Side of the Door? 143 
 
 influencing of the actors required to impress 
 a good lesson on pleasure seelcers ? 
 
 It would be a pity to have even good ser- 
 mons preached from church pulpit or the- 
 atre stage, if such preaching must neces- 
 sarily degrade or lower the moral standard 
 of the preacher or actor. But even as to 
 the end sought, Mr. Clement Scott declares 
 that "dogma and drama are impossible 
 companions," and Mr. William Winter as- 
 serts unqualifiedly that "Christian ethics 
 on the stage would be as inappropriate as 
 Mr. Owen's Solon Shingle in the pulpit." 
 And these men know quite as much about 
 it as well-meaning but poorly informed 
 clergymen who endorse patent medicines 
 and popular stage dramas. 
 
 It is a well-known and notorious fact, 
 however, that pious plays and pure plays 
 are not as attractive to theatre-goers gener- 
 ally as plays that cannot by any stretch of 
 the imagination or conscience be called 
 pure or pious. Religious play-goers are 
 
144 Border Lines 
 
 not seeking moral lessons when they go to 
 the theatre. Plays and actors of another 
 sort are sure to be more popular with that 
 kind of pleasure seekers when they visit 
 the theatre. The experiment has been too 
 often tried, with the same result, to leave 
 any intelligent observer in doubt on the 
 subject. Religious plays had the start in 
 theatres, but they gave way to something 
 better suited to the audience centuries ago. 
 Theatre managers generally would agree 
 with the Nestor of that class, Mr. A. M. 
 Palmer, as already quoted, when he says : 
 "The chief themes of the theatre are now, 
 as they have ever been, the passions of 
 men: ambition leading to murder; jealousy 
 leading to murder; lust leading to adultery 
 and to death; anger leading to madness." 
 
 An excellent illustration of the modern 
 theatre in one of its higher phases, as 
 viewed from the standpoint of the better 
 class of theatre-goers, on the one hand, and 
 of the skilled dramatic critic on the other 
 
Which Side of the Door? 145 
 
 hand, is furnished in the record of a visit to 
 Philadelphia by Madame Sara Bernhardt, to 
 perform the chief part in Sardou's " La 
 Tosca," at the Chestnut Street Opera House. 
 Madame Bernhardt is no commonplace per- 
 former; she is called "the most effective 
 emotional actress in the world," "indispu- 
 tably mistress" in the art of tragedy, a 
 " genius " in her professional realm. Hence 
 many who would draw a sharp line be- 
 tween poor acting and good, feel called on 
 to witness the performance of such an 
 artist as this. 
 
 According to the reports of the most 
 trustworthy daily papers of the city, the 
 large audience that greeted the eminent ar- 
 tist "represented the most thoughtful and 
 the sincerest admirers of the play" in 
 Philadelphia, "but out of deference to the 
 penitential season [it being Holy Week] 
 they had, for the most part, avoided the 
 garb and demeanor of fashion." It was no 
 rabble that was present, but rather the in- 
 
14-6 Border Lines 
 
 telligent and conscientious believers in " the 
 co-work of the pulpit and the stage" for 
 the elevation of the morals of the commu- 
 nity. 
 
 The play itself is characterized by the 
 discriminating dramatic critic of The Public 
 Ledger — a paper with a high reputation for 
 clean pages for family reading — as a " mon- 
 strous conglomeration of horrors, of vile- 
 nesses." The critic of The Record says 
 that "it is especially open to objection be- 
 cause of its sheer and unconcealed brutal- 
 ity." " Physical agony and elemental pas- 
 sion are presented with brutal bluntness in 
 a series of rudimentally contrived situa- 
 tions," is the way it appears to The Press 
 critic. The Inquirer's critic speaks of it as 
 "a mawkish, miserable tale, told with re- 
 volting realism." These hints from pro- 
 fessional observers are sufficient to give an 
 outsider a tolerably correct idea of the play 
 as a whole, without the trouble of going to 
 see it, in order to measure its moral worth. 
 
Which Side of the Door? 147 
 
 But the fact that the play itself is a 
 "monstrous conglomeration of horrors, of 
 vilenesses," is by no means a reason for its 
 exclusion from the stage, in the opinion of 
 the careful critic of The Public Ledger, who 
 thus characterizes it. He even insists that, 
 "the worse the play, — and what play 
 could, all things being considered, be 
 worse ?— the greater the triumph of the 
 actress, who, having material so repulsive 
 to work with, so deftly, with art so con- 
 summate, shaped and formed it as to make 
 the spectator see in it only elements of 
 sentiment, emotion, passion, which human- 
 ized, almost ennobled, even that which was 
 most repellent in it." 
 
 The well-known critic of The Times says 
 of the plays and the actors: "The torture 
 scene is unjustifiably harrowing, but with 
 all the intense reality that she gives to the 
 woman's suffering, her exquisite art yet 
 turns it all to favor and prettiness." This 
 power of art to transfigure and beautify 
 
148 Border Lines 
 
 scenes of actual physical horror is the 
 crowning triumph of her whole perform- 
 ance, which reaches its climax in the ter- 
 rific murder of "Scarpia." "When she 
 fiercely plunges the blade into the villain's 
 heart, and as he falls shakes the knife in 
 his face, hurling imprecations on him, the 
 scene is one not easily to be forgotten," Is 
 there any wonder that the critic feels that 
 "through all these awful scenes the sweet 
 femininity of Madame Bernhardt, the charm 
 of her personality, and the charity and 
 beauty of her speech, command unfailing 
 sympathy." What does "The Christian" 
 or " The Sign of the Cross" offer to rival 
 this as a lesson in " sweet femininity " to a 
 woman who is seeking the best examples ? 
 According to The Press critic, the pre- 
 vailing affection of the heroine of the play 
 is "her fleshly love, — a fleshliness that 
 Madame Bernhardt in some ineffable way 
 exalts." What a help to a pure-minded 
 young girl it must be to have gross " fleshly 
 
Which Side of the Door? 149 
 
 love" exalted in some ineffable way before 
 her observant eyes! 
 
 This is merely an outline picture of a 
 single performance of a favorite genius of 
 the stage, in the Quaker City of America, 
 as given by the critics and admirers of the 
 drama. It is an illustration of what is be- 
 ing done in all our great cities, and of what 
 is -being said about it by those who claim to 
 know it better than outside objectors. 
 
 If, indeed, it be true, as the critics seem 
 to think, that the worse the play the 
 greater the triumph of the actor in render- 
 ing it bearable to a decent spectator, would 
 it not be well to have the story of "Jack 
 the Ripper" dramatized for some star tra- 
 gedian, who might have the genius to hu- 
 manize, and almost ennoble, the doings of 
 the famous Whitechapel artist ? It would 
 seem possible to make even a more " mon- 
 strous conglomeration of horrors, of vile- 
 nesses," out of that story, than Sardou has 
 yet produced. If the " fleshly love " of the 
 
ij;t> Border Lines 
 
 }irro in this new play were "in some inef- 
 fable way " exalted by the actor for the 
 benefit of young men who attend the thea- 
 tre as a means of liberal education, what a 
 gain there would be to the community! 
 
 If, according to the unbiased testimony 
 of theatre critics and theatre lovers, this be 
 the modern theatre on its higher plane, then 
 let the man who wants to be under such 
 teaching and influences — go to his own 
 place. 
 
 There are unquestionably worthy men 
 and women in the actor's profession; but 
 is any one of them in a worthy profession ? 
 Ought any pure or^ noble man or woman to 
 be in a profession which demands a life of 
 simulation and of un-selfing ? Ought any 
 pure or noble man or woman who is out- 
 side of that profession to give countenance 
 or support to the institution of the theatre 
 which demands these lives of simulation 
 and un-selfing? Is not even the entering 
 the doors of a public theatre for the wit- 
 
Which Side of the Door? 151 
 
 nessing of the performances of professional 
 actors to give to this unworthy institution 
 unjustifiable countenance and support ? 
 
 That a professional actor destroys or di- 
 minishes his truest personality by giving 
 his best powers and endeavors to simula- 
 tion and imitation, rather than to creation 
 or to independent action, would seem to be 
 shown beyond the possibility of disproof. 
 There are those, however, who, seeing the 
 force of this truth, seek to break it by sug- 
 gesting that it applies equally to the profes- 
 sional reader or elocutionist. Because this 
 suggestion has been put forward by some, 
 it is worthy of passing notice. If it be true 
 that the profession of an actor does tend to 
 destroy or diminish the actor's best and 
 truest self, and that the profession of a dra- 
 matic reader or elocutionist has the same 
 tendency and in a like degree, then the con- 
 clusion follows that the dramatic reader or 
 elocutionist is in an undesirable and un- 
 worthy profession. A correct principle is 
 
152 Border Lines 
 
 none the less correct because it interferes 
 with a favorite practice or practitioner. But 
 are the two professions and practices of 
 dramatic acting and dramatic reading en- 
 tirely similar ? 
 
 It may indeed be, in a given case, that a 
 man so gives himself to dramatic reading 
 as a profession that he sinks himself in 
 that profession of impersonating, and thus 
 greatly loses in individuality and force of 
 independent character. But the ordinary 
 reader in public, or the instructor in elocu- 
 tion, employs his power as an imperson- 
 ator of characters, so that he is the master, 
 and not the servant, of his varied imperson- 
 ations. His impersonation is merely sub- 
 ordinate and incidental, like the occasional 
 amateur actor, or speaker, or reader, or 
 preacher. Any clear thinker can see the 
 distinction between sympathetic, forceful 
 reading in portrayal of a dozen characters 
 in the same brief narrative, for the purpose 
 of giving emphasis to a truth, or of illus- 
 
Which Side of the Door? 1 53 
 
 trating the power of the voice and physical 
 action, and the sinlting of one's personality 
 in the profession of an actor and imitator. 
 But the question of this distinction does not 
 militate against the force of the chief ob- 
 jection to the actor's degrading profession ; 
 nor is this a real difficulty in the mind of 
 one who wishes to know the truth and to 
 conform his course to it. 
 
 It will be observed that in this present 
 discussion of the theatre and of its actors, 
 the whole argument pivots on the influence 
 and tendency of the profession of an actor. 
 Whether those who support the theatre by 
 their patronage are helped or harmed by at- 
 tending, is quite apart from the main ques- 
 tion. Yet in the popular discussion of the 
 theatre, in pulpit and press, the supposed 
 influence of theatre-going is made the chief 
 factor. If one can say that a given play is 
 pure, and that to witness it on a certain oc- 
 casion is found refreshing and otherwise 
 helpful to those attending, that is thought 
 
1^4 Border Lines 
 
 to be a fair argument in the case. But quite 
 apart from this there is the main question, 
 as presented in this treatment of the case, 
 of the essential worthiness or unworthiness 
 of the profession of an actor. 
 
 Granted that in the case of a particular 
 play, and of particular spectators, individ- 
 uals may be refreshed and otherwise aided 
 through witnessing the performance, is it 
 well to have such persons thus helped if the 
 actors giving them this help are in a profes- 
 sion that tends to their own permanent in- 
 jury, and is quite unworthy of their called- 
 for devotion ? That is the main question. 
 That is the question that has to be met and 
 considered. 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 
 
 " Dancing! You don't mean that you are 
 so puritanical tliat you object to social dan- 
 cing ? Wliy don't you take ground against 
 making mince-pies for Christmas, or a man's 
 kissing his wife on Sunday ? You might as 
 well go the whole figure, now that you are 
 about it. But, seriously and sensibly, can 
 you see any harm in little children moving 
 about the nursery in rhythmic measures, to 
 the sound of sweet music ? 
 
 "No, there certainly cannot be any fair 
 exception taken to that kind of dancing. 
 But, on the other hand, do you think there 
 is no fair exception to be taken to promis- 
 cuous dancing in a public ball with the 
 greater part of the night given to it, with 
 other incidental excitements ? " 
 
 "Why, of course that\& an extreme that 
 «S7 
 
158 Border Lines 
 
 all the more sensible persons see wrong o. 
 danger in. It's only the more moderate 
 course that is to be approved. 
 
 " Then it is recognized on both sides that 
 there is one extreme which can be approved, 
 and another extreme which is not to be 
 commended. This shows that the sensible 
 course is somewhere between these two 
 extremes, and that raises the question, 
 Where is the dividing hne, on each side of 
 which there is border ground ? Is it not 
 worth a reasonable man's while to consider 
 the location of that line? Nothing more 
 and nothing less^ than this is intended in 
 this discussion." 
 
 Dancing has frequent mention in the 
 Bible as a form of worship and as a mode 
 of merrymaking; as evidencing a spirit of 
 reverence and praise, and a joyous, cheerful 
 spirit, as there is also in connection with 
 drinking and general festivities. When 
 Israel had passed through the Red Sea, 
 "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 159 
 
 Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all 
 the women went out after her with timbrels 
 and with dances/' When Jephthah re- 
 turned from his victory over Ammon, "his 
 daughter came out to meet him with tim- 
 brels and with dances." David is said to 
 have "danced before the Lord with all his 
 might," when the ark of the covenant was 
 borne to its resting-place. That would 
 seem to be a safe mode of dancing, "be- 
 fore the Lord " and with all one's might. 
 Yet even then David's wife thought it was 
 not entirely seemly. The command to 
 God's people was, 
 
 " Let them praise his name in the dance : 
 Let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel 
 and harp ; " 
 
 and again, 
 
 " Praise him with the timbrel and dance." 
 
 It is said of the Amalekites, when they 
 had taken spoil from their enemies, that 
 they were making merry "eating and drink- 
 
i6o Border Lines 
 
 ing and dancing." And in the parable of 
 the Prodigal Son it is said that the elder 
 brother "heard music and dancing" in the 
 old homestead as a sign of the festivities 
 over the younger son's return. The daugh- 
 ter of Herodias danced before Herod and 
 pleased him, on the celebration of his 
 birthday. And it is admitted by Koheleth 
 that there is "a time to dance," as well as 
 "a time to mourn." 
 
 It is, however, to be observed, that in all 
 the mentions, in the Bible, of dancing as a 
 mode of worship, or as a sign of joy, there is 
 no instance in which the two sexes danced 
 together. Men danced by themselves, and 
 women danced by themselves; unless, in- 
 deed, there be a possible exception in 
 those cases where little children are spoken 
 of as dancing; as where Job says of the 
 wicked, "their children dance," and where 
 Jesus refers to children piping to their fel- 
 lows in the market-place, in order that they 
 may dance. 
 
Concerning the Social Dance i6l 
 
 However this may be, there is nothing in 
 the Bible to aid in drawing the dividing 
 line, in modern dancing, between the ex- 
 tremes, so as to fix the desirable borders. 
 As it does not seem to have been a practice 
 in those days for young persons of the two 
 sexes to dance together, we must look else- 
 where for a practical solution of the ques- 
 tion at issue. 
 
 In Oriental countries in former ages, and 
 more or less to the present day, the two 
 sexes have little to do with each other, out- 
 side of family bounds, and even children of 
 the two sexes in the same family are not 
 permitted to be much together after they 
 have passed the age of mere childhood. 
 Changes of custom in this regard make dif- 
 ferences in such a matter as dancing quite 
 natural. No one would even now object to 
 brothers and sisters dancing together in the 
 home circle. It is only when young people 
 of different sexes who are not of the same 
 family come together in the social dance, 
 
1 62 Border Lines 
 
 that there is likely to be any question as to 
 the tendency of the custom, or as to the 
 danger points to be guarded against. 
 
 All will admit that even a proper practice 
 may be carried to excess. The practical 
 question is, What is the tendency of a given 
 practice ? Does that practice naturally and 
 generally lead to excess? Dancing in the 
 open air, either as an act of religion or as 
 an expression of joy, would naturally find 
 its limits within a reasonable time. Broth- 
 ers and sisters might safely mingle in that 
 practice without being tempted to keep at 
 it all night, or even long after the dew was 
 falling, or the chill of darkness was on. 
 Most of the Bible instances of dancing were 
 in the open air. The exceptions were of 
 professional dancing women, or of those 
 lacking modesty, in connection with scenes 
 of dissipation. But when dancing is by 
 young persons of opposite sexes, who are 
 not of the same family, in the heated air of 
 a comparatively close room in the evening, 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 163 
 
 other elements are introduced, and this 
 surely necessitates care in discriminating 
 and judging. 
 
 It cannot be denied that young people 
 wiio are not of the same family are gener- 
 ally readier to join in an evening dance in- 
 doors, and to keep at it hour by hour, than 
 to share in conversation however bright and 
 spirited, or in any games of skill without 
 the element of chance in them. How far 
 this shows a tendency of this particular 
 practice which needs guarding against by 
 the cautious and sensible, is certainly well 
 worth considering. That there has been a 
 decided change and manifest progress in 
 this thing in the past two generations, is 
 unmistakable. 
 
 Fifty years ago, and more, the writer of 
 these pages lived in a seashore borough of 
 New England which was a popular sum- 
 mer resort, with the influences of the sum- 
 mer extending into the winter. In the 
 summer, dancing was the chief occupation 
 
164 Border Lines 
 
 at the fashionable hotels in the evening. In 
 the winter, dancing parties, larger or 
 smaller, in the homes of the villagers, oc- 
 cupied the young people during several 
 evenings of each week. In fact, there was 
 little done in that village in the line of pleas- 
 ure-seeking except social dancing. At the 
 time, only one young man besides the 
 writer, in that village, was a non-dancer. 
 Neither of these two had any conscientious 
 scruples against dancing. Both were in- 
 fluenced merely by the absorbed interest 
 shown by the young people in the intermi- 
 nable dance to the neglect of all intelligent 
 social enjoyments. Both were at most of 
 the gatherings for dancing, as they were 
 "in society," but only as cooler headed ob- 
 servers ; and the opinions of the writer on 
 the dancing question had their start at that 
 time, although they have been modified or 
 confirmed in some particulars by later and 
 fuller observations. 
 In those early days with the young dan- 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 165 
 
 cers, the writer learned several lessons 
 which he has had reason to value in later 
 years. One was, the social advantage to a 
 young woman in not being a dancer where 
 most of her companions are. As he and 
 his non-dancing fellow, with an occasional 
 reinforcement for a time among those who 
 rested from the dance, stood outside the 
 circle in free converse with the few young 
 women who from any cause were not 
 sharers in the dance, he had occasion to 
 notice the extra brightness in conversation 
 of these young women in comparison with 
 those who danced, as he knew them then 
 and at other times. There was one who by 
 lameness was shut off from dancing. She 
 was evidently one of the very brightest 
 and keenest in her set. There were a few, 
 a very few, whose parents objected to dan- 
 cing. They also were exceptionally bright 
 in conversation. Noting this, he made it a 
 subject of study and of personal inquiry. 
 In his early Stonington home, and in his 
 
i66 Border Lines 
 
 later Hartford and Philadelphia homes, he 
 was freely told by some who either could 
 not or would not dance, that just because 
 they were deprived of the privilege of shin- 
 ing in the dances they felt the necessity and 
 enjoyed the privilege of trying to be attrac- 
 tive in some more sensible way. In this he 
 saw a secret of their success. Subsequently 
 he was confirmed in the conviation that 
 there was real force in the value of such a 
 pressure on intelligent and sensible young 
 women who were unwilling to share in the 
 social dance, with all that it involved. 
 They, he found, felt an added duty to evi- 
 dence greater power, rather than less, in 
 their making an evening pleasant to their 
 companions, wherever they were. Other 
 young men, whom he knew, were con- 
 vinced of the same thing. 
 
 A young man, or a man already old 
 enough to be called quite a "bachelor," 
 who was exceptionally fine looking, a man 
 of choice family associations, of irreproach- 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 167 
 
 able personal character, and with a hand- 
 some income, a man, indeed, who would be 
 called quite a desirable "match," told him 
 one day that he had decided to marry, and 
 he explained how it was. He said it had 
 seemed to him as if most of the young 
 women of his acquaintance found their 
 chief enjoyment in social dancing and such 
 amusements, while he thought this not an 
 exalted standard for them. But one even- 
 ing, as he was at a social gathering where 
 dancing was the chief occupation, he no- 
 ticed a young woman of attractive appear- 
 ance outside the dancing circle. Being 
 presented to her, he asked why she was 
 not dancing. He found that she did not 
 feel it to be worth her while, — worthy of 
 her, in fact. In further conversation he 
 found her bright, sensible, and well in- 
 formed to an exceptional degree. They 
 were soon betrothed. 
 
 He is by no means the only fine young man 
 whom the author has knoWn to find a good 
 
l68 Border Lines 
 
 wife, and an attractive one, among the 
 non-dancers in a social circle. This is not 
 given as a reason for abjuring dancing; but 
 it is mentioned as illustrative of the truth, 
 which has been influential in the author's 
 mind for many years, that there is a posi- 
 tive gain to a young woman in being ne- 
 cessitated to use other powers of attraction 
 in society than those called for in dancing. 
 
 When the author had daughters of his 
 own to guide in their training, he found 
 this a practical question of no little impor- 
 tance and delicacy. Most of their immediate 
 associates and companions — far more, as 
 has been said, then than now — were accus- 
 tomed to dance. Perhaps there was but a 
 single family, among all those whom he 
 knew more intimately, where social dan- 
 cing was not practiced. He made no arbi- 
 trary prohibitions for their guidance, but he 
 did tell them that he deemed it unworthy 
 of his daughters to enter into a social com- 
 petition where the test of superiority was 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 169 
 
 in the toes rather than in the brain, and they 
 lovingly considered his preferences. 
 
 In these days of blcycfes, and golf links, 
 and lawn tennis, and various other athletic 
 amusements, as well as of select classes 
 in art study or in history of current events, 
 and of various forms of fashionable handi- 
 work, there is no such dearth of sensible 
 occupations as thirty years ago ; but then it 
 was dance or die. When a hostess wanted 
 to present a young man guest to her niece, 
 the author's daughter, at an evening gath- 
 ering, she mentioned the fact that her niece 
 did not dance, whereat the young man 
 gasped out: 
 
 "She doesn't dance I Why, then, what 
 can 1 say to her?" His stock phrases in 
 conversation were of no use to him. Poor 
 bankrupt! But that was twenty-five years 
 ago. There has been progress since then. 
 The social dance has no such prominence, 
 or preeminence, as at that period. Perhaps 
 in the struggle of social life, where only the 
 
ijo Border Lines 
 
 fittest survive, our descendants will hear of 
 this only as we hear of some other things 
 which our fathers found enjoyment in, but 
 which we can hardly understand. 
 
 While the daughters of the author were 
 still quite young Jie was repeatedly told by 
 his friends in social life that his views on 
 the dancing question must shut out his 
 daughters from many opportunities of de- 
 sirable acquaintance, and would stand in 
 the way of their advancement. One friend, 
 of prominence in the social world, ex- 
 pressed the view of many when he said : 
 
 "Trumbull, your course is sure to stand 
 in the way of your daughters. You are 
 training them to be mere wallflowers in 
 social life. They never will get husbands, 
 for they will not be where they can be 
 known. When it is too late you'll find your 
 mistake.'" 
 
 But the author had already observed 
 enough of life to know that a young woman 
 gains more in character and attractiveness. 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 171 
 
 and in the estimate put upon her by desir- 
 able young men, by being a non-dancer, 
 than she can lose in any way through not 
 dancing. His five daughters won five most 
 worthy young men, while neither mere 
 wallflowers nor yet dancers. He is con- 
 fident that their training to share in pleasant 
 social life without mainly depenjding on the 
 use of their toes as an attraction has been 
 a prominent factor in their winsomeness 
 toward others. So much for this mere 
 incidental result of non-dancing, which 
 actually stands as a bugbear in many a 
 questioning mother's mind. 
 
 But there was another lesson learned by 
 the author in those early days, which has 
 been cdnfirijied in all the subsequent years. 
 This lessqji has a more direct moral bearing 
 than the other. It is based on the excep- 
 tional opportunity given in the social dance 
 for a young man of not the highest moral 
 character to be temporarily, at least, inti- 
 mate with a pure-minded and unsuspicious 
 
172 Border Lines 
 
 young woman, and possibly to pave the 
 way for subsequent intimacy. In this the 
 social dance is different from any other 
 form of recreation in vogue in social life. 
 Lest there be any doubt on this point, it will 
 be well to carefully consider the fact at the 
 start. 
 
 Being partners in a dance brings two 
 young persons into closer relations, for the 
 time being, with opportunities for free con- 
 versation overheard by no one else, in the 
 heated air or close room, while the blood is 
 warmed and quickened by active exercise, 
 as is the case in no other allowable amuse- 
 ment, indoors or out. This is undeniable. 
 And with the claims and customs of society 
 as they are, a young woman who dances at 
 all does not feel entirely free to dance only 
 with one whom she respects and could 
 utterly trust, and to decline to dance with 
 other guests in the home of her host. , A 
 kind-hearted young woman, even the 
 purest and most cautious, who is at a social 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 173 
 
 dance, would hardly feel free to say to a 
 young man just presented to her by their 
 hostess, and who asked if he might be her 
 partner in the next dance, that she did not 
 yet know enough of him, or, on the other 
 hand, that she did know too much of him 
 by repute, to grant him that privilege of in- 
 timacy. This being the- case, a young 
 woman is of necessity liable to be brought 
 into the position of being the special 
 partner, for a time, of a man utterly un- 
 worthy of such an honor. 
 
 It will not do to say, that in any ordinary 
 social gathering there ought not to be, or 
 there is not, any young man who is of 
 doubtful reputation, or who is unworthy of 
 being a pure woman's partner for a brief 
 time. With the constitution of society as 
 it is in America, to say nothing of other 
 countries, such young men are to be found 
 in the choicest social circles. Even if these 
 are' not guests in every home where social 
 circles gather, there are such in some of the 
 
174 Border Lines 
 
 houses of that circle, and the most cautious 
 young woman is sure to have such persons 
 presented to her, in one home or another, 
 who will ask to be her partner in a dance. 
 And this surely is an important fact — too 
 important to be ignored. 
 
 The author knew young men, in his ear- 
 lier days, and he has known or has known 
 of many others in later years, who were 
 not fit acquaintances for any pure-minded 
 woman, yet who were often partners in 
 the social dance with the purest-minded 
 young women, and who could not have 
 secured such intimacy (which was sought 
 by them mainly to give an opportunity for 
 poisoning the pure mind) except through 
 the customs of the social dance. No such 
 intimacy, with its opportunities, could be 
 secured in ordinary conversation or in walk- 
 ing parties or in athletic games. Moreover, 
 there a pure woman's very instinct might 
 serve her a good purpose (as such a man 
 addressed her in ordinary intercourse), and 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 175 
 
 protect her from closer acquaintance; but 
 the very customs of the partnership of the 
 dance give an advantage to the evil-dis- 
 posed man, and put her at a disadvantage. 
 Men can see, and do realize, the force of 
 these statements, as few women are able to. 
 Foreigners, from what we call less civi- 
 lized countries than our own, are surprised 
 and in some instances shocked, at the sight 
 of the liberties allowed to young men and 
 young women of the better class of society 
 in the promiscuous dancing of our ordinary 
 social life. The more intelligent men com- 
 ing to us from Turkey, Persia, India, Siam, 
 China, Japan, Korea, Morocco, Abyssinia, 
 and other countries on a similar plane with 
 these, look with amazement at the social 
 dances here in which young people of the 
 two sexes indulge even on slight acquaint- 
 ance ; and they sometimes judge harshly 
 the nominal religion of the land which per- 
 mits this. Is it because our civilization 
 shows us that this form of familiarity be- 
 
176 Border Lines 
 
 tween the sexes, with the excitement of 
 active exercise in heated rooms, without 
 the fullest guards against the admission of 
 any unworthy, or impure or designing man, 
 has no such dangers as would seem to an 
 intelligent observer to exist? Or are we 
 really less cautious and strict than is becom- 
 ing to sensible Christians? This is surely 
 worth thinking about. 
 
 To be sure, there are different dances, 
 some of which are more objectionable than 
 others. Many individuals draw a dividing 
 line between these. Yet there are few so- 
 cial circles where dancing is esteemed and 
 practiced, in which "round" dances are 
 wholly debarred and only "square" dances 
 are permitted. Many a young woman re- 
 fuses to waltz with any man who is not 
 already an intimate and trusted friend. 
 This, indeed, shows her consciousness of 
 the fact that a pure woman's nature shrinlcs 
 from such liberties with her person as are 
 permitted in the waltz, but would not be 
 
Concerning the Social Dance 177 
 
 tolerated elsewhere from any man not her 
 accepted and betrothed lover; but, on the 
 other hand, her waltzing at all gives her 
 seeming approval to this mode of dancing, 
 and many observers think little of the spe- 
 cial limitations she makes. It is a notable 
 fact that many "men of the world," as 
 well as yet more men of special upright- 
 ness, are unwilling that their wives should 
 ever waltz with other men than theif hus- 
 bands, even though both husband and wife 
 danced freely with other partners befor^ 
 they married. 
 
 Yet in places of summer resort, at moun- 
 tain or seaside, in New England or farther 
 south, as well as in other circles at other 
 seasons, young women who would not 
 wish to lack the fullest respect of their 
 fellow-guests, are seen evening after even- 
 ing, year by year, to be waltzing or dancing 
 in other ways with young men who are 
 known by many to be utterly unworthy to 
 be their companions. If they knew how 
 
178 Border Lines 
 
 many pitied them for their conduct in this 
 amusement, or were forced to give them 
 a lower place in their esteem than that 
 of sensitively pure-minded women, they 
 would never indulge in this amusement in 
 this way again. Among the lookers-on 
 there are always those who have known 
 such sad results in so many cases, from 
 just this beginning, that their estimate of 
 the peril incurred by being over the border 
 line in this amusement is often greatly ag- 
 gravated and intensified. Men, as has been 
 said, can understand this, as a true woman, 
 thank God! cannot. 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 
 
 In all questionable matters there is a 
 higher side, and a lower side; a safer side, 
 and a side less safe; a stricter side, and a 
 laxer side; a side which requires self-denial, 
 and a side which permits Indulgence. On 
 which side is it best to place one's self? 
 This is a practical and often momentous 
 question. It needs to be carefully consid- 
 ered. 
 
 It does not follow that the safer side in 
 
 all matters is the best to pursue. A 
 
 soldier in war time would be ashamed of 
 
 himself, and his friends would have reason 
 
 to be ashamed of him, if he were to seek 
 
 always the place of safety for himself, or 
 
 were determinedly to avoid positions of 
 
 danger. It may be his first duty to go 
 
 where danger is greatest. So it is with 
 i8i 
 
iSl Border Lines 
 
 the policeman, the fireman, the member of 
 the life-saving coast-guard, the physician, 
 the sanitary expert, the trained nurse, the 
 loving mother when her child is stricken 
 with pestilence, and many another generous 
 worker for others. But in order to make 
 going into danger a duty, there must be a 
 worthy object of pursuit. When duty 
 callSj^ danger is to be disregarded. Then 
 he who would save his life loses what is 
 more than life, and he who loses his life is 
 the one who finds it. But it must first be 
 clear that duty does call in the direction of 
 danger. Then, it is sometimes found that 
 the way of danger is the safer way. 
 
 Where duty calls to danger, a repression 
 of self, and a determined purpose of resist- 
 ing selfish calls to look out for one's self, 
 are a necessity. At such a time the path of 
 duty is the difficult path, while the path 
 away from duty is easier and in a sense 
 more attractive, weak human nature being 
 as it is. But the path of duty when faith- 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 183 
 
 fully and resolutely followed gives added 
 character to the pursuer, and proves the 
 best in the long run. 
 
 But in a question of morals, where it is 
 on the one hand self-denial and on the 
 other hand self-indulgence, the higher side 
 is always the better, whether it be the side 
 of danger or of safety. The difference may 
 seem slight between the two sides of the 
 dividing line, but the grade, however 
 slight, either rises or descends from the 
 start. Purer air and more bracing Is found 
 on the upper grade. Malarial mists are in 
 the hollow, and one is conscious of them as 
 he leaves the higher regions. In consider- 
 ing any border line of morals, one may be 
 sure that, where there is no demand of duty 
 to be heeded, it is always, always safer and 
 better to choose the higher side. It is safer 
 for one's self; it is safer for those who are 
 influenced by one's example. 
 
 One gains in character and in the esteem 
 of his fellows through standing determin- 
 
184 Border Lines 
 
 edly on the higher side. When the author 
 was approaching young manhood, and was 
 first facing for himself the question of these 
 border lines in laxer social customs, his 
 good father said to him one day : 
 
 " Henry, would you like to be respected 
 and looked up to by all your companions, 
 as you grow up?" 
 
 "Of course I would, father." 
 
 "Well, if you won't drink, or use to- 
 bacco, or dance, or play cards, you will be 
 respected by others, if you have nothing 
 else than this to recommend you. You 
 will be a leader through this self-control, 
 even if the other boys have more brains or 
 more friends than you have." 
 
 The author's father was a wise man of 
 few words, and he did not argue the case, 
 but left it with his son, when he had briefly 
 made his suggestion and statement. He 
 knew the ambition of every true youth, 
 and he based on that an appeal to his son's 
 better desires. He had named the social 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 185 
 
 customs of his neighborhood, against 
 which he thought it better for his son 
 to stand out. Had there been a theatre 
 there, he would doubtless have included 
 that, but there was none; so that was not 
 named. His son thought the matter over, 
 and concluded that the experiment was 
 certainly worth trying, and he tried it. Of 
 course, he had to be singular in a com- 
 munity where most persons acted differ- 
 ently. He had to meet and resist invitations 
 and temptings. And he had at first to face 
 ridicule and sneers from many whose good 
 opinion he would have valued. But he 
 kept at it because he would not be dra- 
 gooned into conforming to the ways of 
 others simply because they wanted it. And 
 there came a manifest gain in this course. 
 
 Gradually he found that, by the very fact 
 of standing out against the customs of his 
 community in laxer matters, he was all the 
 time in training in a moral gymnasium. 
 His moral musples were being developed 
 
i86 Border Lines 
 
 and hardened. His moral backbone was 
 being strengthened. His moral independ- 
 ence was being made completer. While he 
 was pursuing the course which he deemed 
 better, his companions were the weaker 
 through huddling together and moving on^ 
 or being moved, in a mass. He gained in 
 self-respect. He found that, as he stood 
 the test of their invitings and their sneer- 
 ings, he won a certain respect from them. 
 He perceived a new meaning in his father's 
 pregnant words; and now, as he looks 
 back through the vista of a half-century, he 
 is convinced that to no single teaching of 
 his beloved father, and to no one line of 
 personal action on his own part, does he 
 owe so much of the best strength of char- 
 acter that he has had to exercise in time of 
 trial in the passing years, as to that one 
 teaching which involves all the questions 
 concerning these border lines. 
 
 Therefore it is that the author says to 
 every young man and every young woman 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 187 
 
 who will heed him, " If you want to stand 
 higher with your companions, keep on the 
 higher side of the border lines here pointed 
 out. You are sure to be gainers so far, 
 whatever may happen to you." And to 
 every thoughtful parent he says earnestly, 
 "You cannot do a better thing for your 
 sons and daughters, in order to improve 
 their personal character and to advantage 
 them socially, than to impress upon them 
 this truth. It will be worth more to them 
 than a university education, followed by a 
 two years' trip to Europe." This he does 
 say out of the convictions of his lifelong 
 experience and observings, however others 
 may feel about it. Is not the suggested 
 course worth trying ? 
 
 Yet there are young people who for them- 
 selves, and parents who for their children, 
 actually think that young people who have 
 kept, or who have been kept, on the higher 
 side of these border lines, are somehow the 
 losers thereby. What shortsightedness! 
 
i88 Border Lines 
 
 It is true that it takes more trouble to rear 
 a family, and to train children, in conform- 
 ity with a higher stand, than to let them go 
 with the popular current, and to do as others 
 do in the community about them. It cer- 
 tainly costs more at the start, but in the 
 long run it surely pays. This is the case 
 with everything worth having in this world. 
 It costs unremitting struggle to climb up 
 hill. It is so much easier to slide downward 
 without effort. Yet the one who finally 
 stands in the purer air on the mountain 
 height with its extended outlook, would 
 never be willing to exchange places with 
 the poor fellow weakened or maimed at 
 the mountain's foot who would not be at 
 the trouble of the upward struggle. As 
 with individuals, so with families. 
 
 In homes where there are a number of 
 young people to enjoy themselves in the 
 family circle with one another, or with 
 friends from outside, if cards and dancing 
 are in order these are the stock amusements 
 
Gain of the Higher Side 189 
 
 and entertainings of the evening inside, as 
 is the theatre for outside of the home. 
 There is no variety, no choice. It is the 
 same monotonous round year after year. 
 Bright thoughts, keen wit, inventive minds, 
 are not called for in invitations in such cir- 
 cles. But where these conventional amuse- 
 ments — the same for dullards and geniuses 
 and for those of every grade between — are 
 not depended on for enjoyment, there is a 
 demand, and there is occasion, for ingenuity 
 in making an evening enjoyable and the 
 company entertaining. 
 
 As a rule, the more senseless and less in- 
 telligent an occupation, for young people 
 who are merely seeking pleasure, the more 
 satisfying. But the best minds and the best 
 spirits want something better, even in hours 
 of recreation. They want it; they have it, 
 and they show it to others. 
 
 There are such homes and such family 
 circles in which cards and dancing are not 
 the chief means of recreation, but where. 
 
190 Border Lines 
 
 when the young people are together for an 
 evening of recreation and merrymaking 
 in bright and fun-provoking amusements, 
 there is an ever-fresh variety and there are 
 ever-delightsome methods of having and 
 giving cheer. Those who know of the 
 methods of enjoyment and recreation in 
 these circles, recognize the superiority of 
 such means to the common and more com- 
 monplace monotonies of card-playing and 
 dancing social circles, and are glad that 
 they have been taught and helped to the 
 higher place. It is a pity that there are not 
 more thus advantaged. 
 
What the World Thinks of It 
 
What the World Thinks of It 
 
 A VERY common idea among Christians 
 who mingle socially with those outside of 
 the church fold is, that they gain added in- 
 fluence over the outsiders by conforming in 
 a measure to their laxer customs. They 
 think that in this way they will show that 
 they are not "bigoted " or " puritanical " or 
 "strait-laced," and that their ideas of reli- 
 gion are not such as to make it repellent to 
 the young or to others who would find en- 
 joyment in life. There can hardly be a 
 greater mistake than this. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the world's standard 
 for Christians in matters of outward con- 
 duct is higher than Christians' standard for 
 Christians in the same line. Christians take 
 Into consideration the spirit and motives of 
 
 a believer as back of all conduct, and they 
 193 
 
194 Border Lines 
 
 judge accordingly, but men outside of the 
 church lay chief emphasis on outer conduct, 
 and shape their judgments of a believer by 
 his course with reference to the highest 
 standard of morals. A Christian is not so 
 likely as a man of the world to judge a 
 Christian severely because of his indulgence 
 in theatre-going, or card-playing, or dan- 
 cing, or wine-drinking, or tobacco-using. 
 Apart from the question whether these 
 things are in themselves right or wrong, it 
 is a fact that men of the world who prac- 
 tice them have a higher respect for a Chris- 
 tian who abjures them than for a Christian 
 who indulges in them. 
 
 Two well-known Christian gentlemen 
 were sitting with a gentleman who was 
 not a church-member. The latter and one 
 of the former were smoking, and when a 
 cigar was proffered to and was declined by 
 the third, the Christian smoker expressed 
 regret that his companion did not smoke. 
 " And I honor him the more for that." was 
 
What the World Thinks of It 19^ 
 
 the instant response of the man of the 
 world. "His standard is clearly higher 
 than ours." This surprised the Christian 
 smoker, because it was an implied censure 
 of his own course, yet it was in accord 
 with the views of men of the world gener- 
 ally as to laxity or strictness in questions of 
 debatable propriety. 
 
 An army chaplain in our Civil War 
 thought to bring himself on better terms 
 with his fellow-officers by sharing a sim- 
 ple game of whist with them, and con- 
 forming to their laxer practices in other 
 lines. He did this because he really be- 
 lieved that he was thus gaining added influ- 
 ence for good. That course so lost him the 
 respect of officers and men who were not 
 Christians that his usefulness as a chaplain 
 was speedily at an end. 
 
 On an ocean steamer, a clergyman and 
 his young companion were the only total 
 abstainers at their cabin table. They were 
 repeatedly urged to drink for their own 
 
196 Border Lines 
 
 good, and they were spoken of as unwisely 
 strict in their abstinence. But the very men 
 who thus criticised them spoke with a con- 
 temptuous sneer of the course, in this line, 
 of another clergyman at an adjoining table, 
 who was supposed to take a glass of wine 
 socially — although he really did not do so. 
 The mere supposition that a clergyman 
 would do what they were asking another 
 clergyman to do gave them a lower esti- 
 mate of that clergyman. 
 
 A young girl who had been brought up 
 to dance and to go to the theatre, and 
 whose father seemed to have little interest 
 in religious matters, connected herself with 
 the church. Wishing not to seem a gloomy 
 Christian, she continued in her old habits 
 of social life. Yet her father told a clergy- 
 man friend that he should have a higher re- 
 gard for his daughter's religion if it kept 
 her from dancing and theatre-going. 
 
 It does not follow that the world's stand- 
 ard 15 the correct one, or th?it Christians 
 
What the World Thinks of It 197 
 
 ought to conform their course to the world's 
 opinion as to their duty. So far as that is 
 concerned, a Christian ought to do what is 
 right whether those who observe him deem 
 his course correct or incorrect. If it be a 
 Christian's positive duty (whether he be a 
 clergyman or a layman) to drink and to 
 smoke and to dance and to play cards and 
 to go to the theatre, then he ought to do 
 those things courageously, as unto God, be 
 the consequences what they may. But if 
 he has the privilege of a choice, and can 
 occupy the higher or the lower plane as he 
 deems best, and if, in the exercise of this 
 choice, he would "have good testimony 
 from them that are without," and would 
 gain influence by his conduct as well as by 
 his character over men of the world whose 
 practices are on the lower plane, he may 
 be sure that he will gain through his per- 
 sonal conformity to the higher standard 
 rather than to the lower. 
 If the clergyman who goes into the 
 
198 Border Lines 
 
 smoking-car, or the smoking compartment 
 of a Pullman car, to enjoy his cigar on an 
 express train, or who is seen smoking on 
 the veranda of a summer hotel, or who has 
 a quiet game of cards in the card and smok- 
 ing room of an ocean steamer or of a sea- 
 shore hotel, or who is seen in a theatre 
 trying to elevate the drama in that way, 
 could but hear the expressed opinions of 
 his course by his companions there and of 
 those outsiders who know of his being 
 there, he would himself realize, as many 
 others now realize, what a lowering of the 
 public estimate of him he is securing by 
 this course, and how many there are who 
 value less the most earnest words that he 
 speaks for truth on any occasion or in any 
 place. 
 
 The opinion that the world holds as to 
 the clergyman who is content to occupy 
 the lower plane in the border-line regions 
 of debatable morals, shows what is the 
 recognized higher standard in the estima- 
 
What the World Thinks of It 199 
 
 tion of the world for Christian laymen as 
 well as for Christian ministers. The world 
 may be wrong in its estimate of the right 
 standard of conduct for Christians; but, 
 right or wrong, the world's standard for 
 Christians is on the higher side of every 
 border line in debatable questions of mor- 
 als. As to this there can be no reasonable 
 doubt in the mind of one familiar with the 
 opinions of the world. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America