.)." 
' I.     8:I
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS:
AN APPEAL TO.
METHODISTS,
IN REGARD TO THE EVILS OF
CARD-PLAYING, BILLIARDS, DANCING,
THEATRE-GOING, ETC.
By HIRAM MATTISON, D.D.
NEW YORK:
CARLTON & PORTER,
200 MULBERRY STREET.
/6
0
4.0 - - - 
CONTENTS.
PAGE
4
9
18
40
53
67
77
85
88
I.-EviLs OF CARD-PLAYING, BILLIARDS, ETC.............
II.-EVILS OF DANCING............................................
III.-EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING....................................
IV.-TH1 VOICE OF THE BIBLE..................................
V.-THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN...........................
VI.-THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE...............
VII.-APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES.....................................
VIIL-OUR COVENANT OBLIGATIONS...............................8
IX.-FINAL COUNSELS AND  ENTREATIES.......................
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
CARLTON & PORTER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.
3'iX
9 3 i.,lA- e 
3 -?    -/  33
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
BELOVED  BRETHREN:-It  is commonly  reported
among us, and we partly believe it, that some of you
Methodists who were once poor and unknown, but have
grown rich and prominent in the world, have left the
narrow way in which you walked twenty or thirty years
ago, have ceased to attend class-meetings, seldom pray in
your families or in prayer-meetings, as you once did, and
are now indulging in many of the fashionable amusements of the day, such as playing chess, dominoes,
billiards, and cards, dancing and attending theatres, or
allowing your children to indulge in them. Others, it is
said, who do not practice these things themselves, apologize for them; and some not only indulge in them, but
even have bowling alleys and billiard tables in or near
their dwellings, and have dancing in their parlors whenever their children or company desire it.
These things, it is said, are most common in cities and
villages; and the rich and aristocratic families of the
Church, as some call them, lead the way, and are the
most prominent and open in the practice of these follies.
To such, then, especially, and to all Methodists who
indulge in or apologize for these things, or encourage
others so to do, I make this solemn appeal, in behalf of
the interests of our holy religion, the honor of Method                                              3 
/
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
ism, the good of your own families and the world that
lieth in wickedness, and the everlasting well-being of
your own souls. Will you hear me patiently and with
candor?
CHAPTER I.
EVILS OF CARD-PLAYING, BILLIARDS, ETC.
I. It s A WASTE OF TIME, which God gives M  to we for
higher and holier ends.
"See that ye walk circumspectly," says the apostle,
"not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the
days are evil," Eph. v. 15. And again, Collos. iv. 5,
"Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time." Both these scriptures clearly teach that
a Christian is to use his time well, and not to waste it.
"With all possible care," says John Wesley, "redeeming
the time-aving all you can  for the best purposes:
buying every possible moment out of the hands of sin
and Satan, out of the hands of sloth, ease, pleasure,
worldly business, etc." (See Notes.) Oh how precious a
boon is time to an immortal being bound to the bar of
God! And who of us have any time to waste in idle
games an d worldly follies?
No room for mirth or trifling here,
For worldly hope, or worldly fear,
If life so soon is gone.
And who can doubt that God, to whom we must account
at the last, even for every vain and idle word that we
speak, will also call us to account for the manner in
4 
EVILS OF CARD-PLAYING, BILLIARDS, ETC.
which we have spent the precious time allotted us in this
world?
Time destroyed
Is suicide, where worse than blood is spilt.
And what a response it will be, to be obliged to say at iast,
"I spent my evenings playing cards and billiards, and
chess and dominoes!" And we shall not have even the
poor excuse urged in regard to some other amusements,
that it afforded healthful recreation and exercise, either
for mind or body; for this is seldom or never claimed now
for cards, or dominoes, or chess-playing.  A Christian,
therefore, should use his time aright, as he must account to God at last, and has no right to spend it over
such profitless games. How much better to spend it in
religious conversation, reading good books, or visiting
the sick, by which God would be glorified and Christianity made influential for good in the earth!
II. Playing cards, billiards, etc., even at home, and in
the family circle, exposes those who do it to be draumw into
corrupt associations.
Your son, for instance, learns to play at home, and
becomes skillful.  It becomes a passion with him.  He
gets acquainted with other young men who have no
billiard tables at their houses or boarding-places, and
must go to the public rooms if anywhere. They play,
and your son plays, and they invite him to go with
them. Of course it is "only for amusement." They go
to the public rooms. But here is a bar, and some of the
party drink.  Your son resists at first, but is at last overpersuaded, and joins them in drinking. Then comes
playing "for the drinks," or "the cigars;" and before his
father has been aware of it, many a son whose father
has set him the example, and been his teacherin billiards,
cards, etc., has become a companion of rowdies and
gamblers, and perhaps a tippler and a gambler himself.
1 *
5
-41 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
III. Playing for amusement is the highway to gambling
and to final ruin.
For as all drunkards are first "moderate drinkers," so
all gamblers begin by playing "merely for amusement."
Not one gambler in a thousand ever thought of becoming one when he first began to play. His soul would
have revolted at the thought. But he learned to play,
became skillful and confident, played for small stakes
and won; staked more and more and was encouraged;
lost all and played on and recovered it again; and thus
became a gambler.  And how smooth the inclined plane
from the family circle, perhaps his father's house, where
he first played chess, or dominoes, or shuffled the cards,
down to the society of thieves and drunkards and debauchees, and the infamous calling of a public gambler!
A recent fact will illustrate this point:
A few months since the writer was on his way to a
dedication, and passing over the Erie railroad. Near
him in the cars sat two young men, evidently intimate
friends, playing cards for amusement. Pretty soon two
other young-looking men came along, sat down near
them, and soon joined in the game. In a short time,
the four having each his "hand," one of the last two
carelessly dropped the remark that he could "euchre"
the other party. Meanwhile a large and well-dressed
man came up, and stood carelessly witnessing the game.
Hearing the remark about euchreing, the youngest of the
first two studied his cards attentively, a bet of $100 was
offered by the stranger, and accepted by him (as he was
confident of winning), the money "put up;" the cards
rapidly thrown down; and, in less time than it takes to
read this account his money was gone! The cars being
near a station, the "professional gentlemen" got off, and
the poor young man was left to his own reflections.
Seeing his downcast look, I said to him, "Where did you
6
- 
7
EVILS OF CARD-PLAYING, BILLIARDS, ETC.
learn to play cards?"  "At home," said he, "with my
brothers and sisters." "Did you ever expect to become
agrambler?" "No," said he," "and this is the first time
I ever gambled in my life. But he was so willing and
free about it, and I was so certain, that I thought I
might as well take the money." But instead of his
takig the professed gambler's money, the gambler had
taken his. To the young man $100 was evidently a very
large amount, as he seemed near shedding tears as he
talked about losing it.
But suppose he had won the hundred dollars, would
he not have gone on in the career of a gambler? And
suppose the other parties had remained, and he had had
a thousand dollars, would he not have played further
till he had either won his money back or lost all? Such
is the exposure and the downward road upon which every
man enters who has anything to do with the implements
of gambling. The dreadful spell is upon him, and God
only can tell where the lessons taught, even at some
Methodist firesides, may yet lead many of the young
men of our Methodist households. From playing at
home with brothers and sisters, the descent is gradual to
playing abroad with others. There is but a step between
playing for amusement, and playing for drinks, cigars,
and money, and from playing for money, to drinking,
cheating, stealing money of employers, if need be, with
which to gamble; and onward to detection, imprisonment,
suicide and eternal ruin. And say what we may, there
is no safety to the young but in total abstinence from all
such games. If our children never learn to play, they
are safe; but not otherwise.
Here is the end of one who began to play for amusement, and thereby lost his life and his soul forever. On
his person, after his death by suicide in a club room in
New York, the following note was found:
ii I1  1, 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
"May 20,1867.
"DEAR CORONER:-Please inform Normal Lodge, No. 523, of my
ungodly death, and say that I request that my poor wicked body breturned to the bosom of Mother Earth by them, and may Almighty
God have mercy on my poor soul, through Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Amnen.                                           F. B. FIsHER.
"Please inform my poor old Christian mother of my death: Mrs.
Mary E. Fisher, Iowa City, Iowa.
"My room is at 153 Laurens street, where my trunk and clothing
are."
Attached to a latch-key found in the pocket was a
card, containing the following in pencil mark:
"Done by my own wicked hand; cause, demoralized by playing
faro bank, and may the Almighty God have mercy on my soul.
" F. B. FISHER."
What an illustration of the evil of attempting to blend
sin and righteousness, light and darkness-to drink and
gamble and pray to God, and commit suicide! So'is it
with all who follow the world and its vain pleasures, and
yet vainly dream that they are Christians, and presumptuously hope in Divine mercy.
But who does not know that many suicides occur every
year from this cause alone-the loss of money by gambling? And there are but a few easy steps downward
from innocency to this terrible end-learning to playplaying for amusement at home-playing abroad-playing for money-losing all- despair-suicide-eternal
death! These are the steps leading downward to hell.
So begin all gamblers; and so will end many who are
now learning to play, who have no more ideas of ever
gambling than the "moderate drinker" of to-day has
that he will hereafter fill a drunkard's grave.
Such are a few of the evils of card-playing, billiards,
etc. And it is of no use to discriminate, and tolerate
one and condemn the other. If we play dominoes and
chess, why not cards and billiards? All have the same
fatal fasciation-all waste sacred time-all lead away
-.,..-        X,<        I,
8 
EVILS OF DANCING.
from God and expose to evil associations. Men bet upon
billiards and chess and nine-pins, as well as upon cards
and dice, faro-banks and horse-races. They all belong
to one family, and are evil, only evil, and that continuall.   And how can you, reader, if a professed Christian,
and especially a Methodist, indulge in, or even allow in
your family orcouutenance, anything that may lead on to
such consequences, and is legitimately capable of bearing
such bitter fruits?
CHAPTER II.
EVILS OF DANCING.
I. Like playing cards and billiards, it is A USELESS
WASTE OF TIME.
For children to learn to dance requires a great deal of
time, which they need for other and better purposes; and
both private and public dancing, in after life, are a waste
of precious time, of which no Christian especially should
ever be guilty.
II. It is a USELESS WASTE OF MONEY.
To learn to dance requires a dancing-master or school,
and. no little outlay of money for tuition, extra dresses,
slippers, etc.; and, to keep up the practice requires costly
dresses, suppers, and wines.
"The dance and the ultras of dress and fashion are
sworn companions. In most cases a marked influence
will be exerted in this respect. Many will be tempted to
dress above their means, and thus add dishonesty to dissipation. The young gentlemen must have finer coats,
and more rakish, jaunty hats than before; and the ladies
will covet all the splendors of ruffles, trinkets, and
9 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
feathers. And now and then the parental purse must
yawn to pay for a new dress, to be worn at the ball, but
which is too short at each end to be called modest or
decent anywhere else. The teacher of dancing must be
paid more liberally for instructing the feet than he who
informs and cultivates the nobler powers of the mind; and
the dancing-master's array of satellites, white and black,
must be abundantly rewarded for useless services. And
all this, while within sight of the place where the dancers
congregate, children, ragged and hungry, are desiring in
vain to be fed with the crumbs that fall from the tables
of the rich; and the poor are sick and dying in want of
the necessaries of life."*
It is useless to say that this does not apply to private
or "parlor dancing," for such is the fascination of this
amusement that few who dance in private, especially if
they are good dancers, will refrain in public. What the
glitter of decanters and the fumes of gin and brandy are
to the tippler, the sound of the viol and the movements
of the dancers are to one addicted to this folly. If we
learn to dance, and dance in private, we shall be almost
sure to dance in public, and to incur all the expenses and
other liabilities of attending dancing parties, "hops," or
public balls.  Indeed, private dancing sustains the same
relation to public balls that private card and billiardplaying sustains to gambling. The one leads almost
inevitably to the other, especially with the young, as
almost all experience shows. How, then, can a Christian
who expects to give an account to God at the last for
the use he makes of his money, expend it in paying a
dancing-master, or in costly wines and viands, and dresses
for the ball-room, either for himself or children?
III. Dancing often brings the otherwise virtuous and
pure-minded into association with the low and vile.
* Essay on Dancing, by Dr. Crane.
10 
EVILS OF DANCING.
Public balls are not apt to be very select in this respect.
In fact, there are all grades of "hops," from the private
parlor to the dance-house and the brothel. And how is
the votary of dancing to discriminate, and always keep in
pure society?
"The exponents of almost every grade of society may
be found in a dance of general character. In such a
general dance may often be seen those who rank high as
the world reckons men socially, and those who are dissolute and prostitute in character; those who would scorn
to tell a lie, and those whose oath would not be believed.
At such a time it is not the question in a lady's heart
whether she shall dance the'next figure' with a man
because he has a fine character; but the question is, Is he
a fine dancer?
"A young lady was once dancing in a ball-room with
all who chanced to invite her, until she was asked by an
offended young man, who brought her to the place, if she
' would not dance with the devil if he was a good dancer?'
and she replied that she would. But that there is at least
in these general dances an unavoidable recognizing of
those who are worthless or worse, must inevitably be true.
I doubt not there are ladies who will read these words who
have danced many a figure with a man whom they would
scorn to entertain for an evening in their own parlors at
home."*
IV.  Public dancing and moral impurity are almost
inseparably associated.
Among the Greeks the public dancers were almost
invariably wretched females, who made merchandise of
their own persons. The French are the greatest dancers
in the world. From Paris, troops of dancing-masters go
forth every year to corrupt and debauch other lands; and
from her theatres and operas come the professional dancing        * Rev. M. S.' Hard, in the Northern Independent.
11 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
girls of our city theatres and operas. And yet, according
to the testimony of Rev. Dr. Baird, a virtuous woman is not
the rule in France, but the exception, and one-third of the
children are of uncertain parentage.  Even the Roman
Catholics in this country, instructed by the revelations of
the confessional, have recently prohibited dancing, as
tending to licentiousness.
V. Dancing is usally associated with tippling, and often
leads to intemperance, and consequent ruin.
Whoever heard of a ball where wine was not used?
And are not other liquors usually supplied and drank?
"Young men who habitually attend balls," says the
Central Advocate, "are, as habitually dram-drinkers, on
the high road to a drunkard's destiny. Such young men
are unfit companions for virtuous girls.  They would be
better dead than married to a common dram-drinker.
Nothing out of perdition is as bad as being a drunkard's
wife, unless it be to be a drunkard. This all-consuming
curse has its strongest defences in fashionable society, and
in that society its securest retreat is the ball-room. The
fact is, both ladies and gentlemen drink at balls, and both
get heated with wine and inflamed by passion. The
atmosphere of a ball-room is deadly to modesty. It
smothers it, murders it, and leaves the robbed victim polluted by the image of sin and the breath of the destroyer,
Intemperance. Cases have not been unfrequent in which
young persons have chosen their companions among the
beautiful waltzers of the ball-room, and afterwards found
that they were either incurable tipplers or debauched
prostitutes."
VI. Dancing is usually as injurious to the HEALTH of its
votaries as it is to their purity of mind and morale and their
habits of temperance and sobriety.
And yet some plead for dancing as a health-promoting
exercise!  But what are the facts?
12 
EVILS OF DANCING.
"Exercise, to promote health, must be taken at proper
hours of the day, in a pure atmosphere, and in a dress
that will admit of deep and full respiration. But all
these conditions are violated by the votaries of the modern
Terpsichore. They dance away the hours of midnight
and early morn, when they should be seeking balmy
sleep; and they retire to rest at the very hour when they
should be rising, refreshed and blooming, to the duties of
the day. The air of the dancing apartment is impure and
unhealthy, and the dress indispensable on such occasions
prevents free respiration. Add to this the unseasonable
refreshments on such occasions, and we can hardly conceive any amusement more calculated to destroy instead
of promoting health.
"A delicate female attends a ball. She dances in an
apartment crowded to suffocation, till she is exhausted
almost to faintness. The hour of closing comes at last,
and she passes, all in a perspiration, out into the chilling
air of early morning. A violent cold ensues; her lungs
become affected; and in a little time, her form, beautiful
even in death, is wrapped in the winding-sheet, and her
weeping friends follow her to an untimely grave."*
Nor is this mere theory or supposition, as the following
will show:
"In one of the largest printing establishments of the
West there might have been seen one of the swiftest of
compositors. He would sooner dance than eat. Many a
night would his feet patter to the sound of bewitching
music, until the sun began to show its face in the east.
Weary from the labor of the dance (for there is hard
work in dancing), he was unfitted for the labors of the
day; and so he nerved himself to the task by the power
that there was in drink. One night would succeed
another, until his frame began to break under the pres                   * Dr. Crane's Essay.
2
13 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
sure. Unable to toil in the day, yet so bitterly craving
was his desire to dance that he began to take by littles
from his employer to pay the man who drew the fiddlebow.  He stole genteelly and well until he could no longer
practice his fraud. The law did its work, and that young
man danced himself into perdition."
Take another instance:
"In a beautiful town in our State there might have
been seen a splendid mansion. This was the home of the
only child of a wealthy banker. She was the idol of her
father, and never had an ungratified desire. She was
graceful as a fairy, and was called beautiful among
women. Dancing was her passion. Frail in body, and
predisposed to disease, yet she would dance, while with one
hand she had to support her aching side.
" New Year came, and she was gorgeously attired for
the evening's ball. Her suitor was proud of her that
night as she danced, the fairest of the fair. The midnight
came, and heated with the dance, she sat down at an
open window and breathed the winter air. The minstrels
struck up a livelier air than they were wont to play, and
her feet, so fond of the dance, would not rest. Taking
her partner's hand, she rushed upon the floor, and in a
moment she was the wildest dancer there.
"The music grew stronger; the dancer's feet flew faster,
until a shriek, which seemed born of hell, rang out in
that place of mirth. The music hushed; the dancers'
feet were still, and the fairest of the dancers had fallen
into the arms of her partner.
"They bore her to the window where she had been a
moment before, with the blood pouring down over the
gorgeous dress, which had hitherto been spotless. They
chafed her temples and sought to bring her to life.  At
last she opened her eyes into the face of him who was
soon to have made her his bride, and cried out,'I have
14 
EVILS OF DANCING.
danced my body into the grave and my soul into hell;'
and died!
"In that early hour of the New Year's morning that
ball-room became the charnel-house for the dead. With
the body of that dead dancer there went into the palace
of the rich father a more awful woe, as he remembered
the last utterance of his idol. She may have gained
pleasure, but was there, can there be any compensation
for the wrecking of her body and the losing of her
soul?"*
But we need not multiply illustrations upon this point.
Every dancer knows that after a night spent in the ballroom it takes two or three days for the system to recover
its wonted elasticity and spirits. And hundreds of instances have occurred where females especially have
taken cold upon leaving the ball-room in their thin
dresses and slippers, and in a state of perspiration, and
have paid for their folly by filling a premature grave.
VII. The habit of dancing is necessarily opposed to all
true piety and spirituality.
Who ever knew a votary of the ball-room to pray in
his family, or in prayer-meetings, or attend class-meetings?
Who ever saw one laboring in a revival to bring sinners
to Christ? No! If they attend church at all, they are
silent in the prayer-meeting and love-feast, and are seldom
or never seen at their class-meetings. And no wonder!
They feel that the two things are incongruous-that to
pray and dance is a contradiction.
"No Christian can go to a ball and dance without
having a sense of demoralization, a feeling of condemnation and personal unworthiness and shame.'Be ye not
conformed to this world.' We do not believe that one
in whom the love of God dwells will desire to'attend
balls. We have never known any but worldly, back
* Rev. M. S. Hard.
15 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
slidden members of the Church to defend the practice or
send their children to dancing-school. Miniisters who
favor it are more desirous to get the people's money than
to save their souls. Churches that permit it have but
little moral weight.  All this we say in perfect kindness,
but without circumlocution, and we could prove more
than we have stated."
"Once in our pastoral work we met a young man who
was proud, supercilious, and impudent; and when we
courteously addressed him on the subject of religion, he
assailed our Church in a most unchristian manner. Not
long afterward this same young man went to a ball,
danced nearly all night, went home sick, and gradually
sank into the arms of death. Once he had been a
happy, modest Christian, but had been misled, strange as
it may seem, by a minister of the gospel, who told him
the Methodist Church was too strict, that dancing was
genteel, that h/ Church was the true Church.
"While on his dying bed this poor young man refused
to let this cruel tempter come into his room.  He did not
wish to see a man who had betrayed him to death, but
sent for pious men who had warned him against his
vicious course.   His dying prayers  for pardon,  his
fearfiul testimony against the fatal delusions that had
misled him, and the false minister who had deceived him,
were affecting in the extreme. Calling to see him in the
afternoon, we could not get away until the next morning,
for he begged us to stay and pray for him if happily
God would have mercy on him.
"Wrecks of Christ's children lie all along this same
perilous shore of worldliness and guilt. The ball-room
is an ante-chamber of hell, where souls dress for initiation
into Satan's kingdom. It is impossible to pray for these
with hope, as God's curse rests on its folly, licentioumne,
a~d intemperance.  We  warn our readers against the
16 
EVILS OF DANCING.
dance for all the reasons we have given, and we shall
continue still to entreat them."*
With  the testimony of Dr. Adam  Clarke upon this
point, I shall close this chapter:
"I learned to dance.  I grew passionately fond of it;
would scarcely walk but in measured time, and was constantly tripping, moving, and shuffling in all times and
places. I grew impatient of control, was fond of company, and wished to mingle more than I had ever done
with young people. I also got a passion for better clothing than that which fell to my lot in life, and was discontented when I found a neighbor's son dressed better than
myself.
"I lost the spirit of subordination; did not love work;
imbibed the spirit of idleness; and, in short, drank in all
the brain-sickening effluvia of pleasure. The authority
of my parents was feared, indeed, but not respected, and
few serious impressions could prevail in a mind imbued
now with frivolity.
"I in no case ever kept any improper company;
nevertheless, dancing was to me a perverting influence,
an unmixed moral evil. It drowned the voice of a wellinstructed conscience, and was the first cause of impelling
me to seek my happiness in this life. And I can testify
that as far as my own observations have extended (and
they have had a pretty wide range), I have known it to
produce in others the same evils that it produced in me.
I consider it, therefore, as a branch of that worldly education which leads from heaven to earth, from things
spiritual to things sensual, and from God to Satan. Let
them plead for it who will, I know it to be evil, and that
only.
"They who bring up their children in this way, or send
them to those schools where dancing is taught, are conse              * Northwestern Christian Advocatc.
2
17 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
crating them to the service of Moloch. No man, in his
senses, will dance, said Cicero, a heathen. Shame on
those Christians who advocate a cause by which many
sons have become profligates and many daughters have
been ruined!"*
Such are a few of the obvious evils of dancing. To
enumerate them all would fill a volume. But let us pass
from the ball-room to the next stage downward-the
theatre.
CHAPTER III.
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
Is it necessary to prove to a Methodist that the theatre
is evil and only evil, and that to attend upon it is a
sin and shame? It scarce seems possible. And yet it is
said there are professed Christians and even Methodists among us, who apologize for and even attend
theatres, and allow their children to do so! Let us, then,
consider the evil of this practice in the light of the
moral character of the theatre, and its invariable influence
upon society.
If any confidence is to be placed in history, the theatre
has been one unmitigated moral pest through the whole
twenty-five centuries of its existence.
I. The ANCIENT PAGAN MORALISTS condemned the
theatre as subversive of public morality.t
* Clarke's Theology, by Samuel Dunn, page 400.
t Most of this chapter consists of an abridgment of portions of
" The Theatre: Its Character and Influence, by REV. R. M. HATFIELD,
D.D."-a thorough pamphlet of forty octavo pages upon the subject. Chicago, Ill.: Poe & Hitchcock, publishers.
18
"Z 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
1. Four hundred years before Christ, Plato said:
"Plays raise the passions and pervert them, and by
consequence are dangerous to morality." Again: "The
diversions of the stage are dangerous to temper and
sobriety-they swell anger and desire too much. Tragedy
is apt to make men boisterous, and comedy, buffoons.
Thus those passions are cherished which ought to be
checked, virtue loses ground, and reason grows precarious."
2. Aristotle says: "The law ought to forbid young
people the seeing of comedies, till age and discipline
have confirmed them in sobriety, fortified their virtue,
and made them, as it were, proof against debauchery."
3. Cicero denounces "licentious plays and poems as
the bane of sobriety and wise thinking."  He says "that
comedy subsists on lewdness, and that pleasure is the
root of all evil."
4. Livy says of the origin of plays among the Romans:
"They were brought in, upon the score of religion, to
pacify the gods, and remove a mortality;" and adds,
"The remedy in this case was worse than the disease;
and the atonement more infectious than the plague."
The same author says, "that when a theatre was being
built under the direction of the censors, Scipio spoke
against it in the House, as a useless and debauching
experiment, and got an order for pulling it down."
5. Valerius Maximus says: "The theatres of Rome
were the occasions of civil distractions, and the state first
blushed and then bled for these entertainments."
6. Plutarch condemns plays on the ground "that they
tend to corrupt the young."
7. Seneca says: "Nothing is so pernicious to good
morals as to be present at these spectacles. Vice easily
finds it way into the heart through the pleasurable emotions which they excite. From such scenes I depart
19 
POPULAR AMUSEMIENTS.
more ambitious and luxurious than before." Again: he
charges the theatre "with having produced the extravagance and debauchery of the age."
8. Tacitus censures Nero for "hiring unfortunate gentlemen"-poor gentlemen of decayed fortune-"to appear upon the stage;" and says, "he ought to have relieved
their necessities, and by his bounty set them above an ill
practice, instead of driving them into it."
9. Ovid, in a work in which he endeavors to make
amends for the injury done by the pernicious poems he
had formerly written, proposes a plan for the reformation of public morals, and among other suggestions
advises "the suppression of plays, on the ground that
they promote lewdness and dissoluteness of manners."
Such was the opinion which heathen moralists formed
of the character and influence of the theatre, even centuries before the Christian era.
II. The EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS. were emphatic in
their condemnation of the theatre as a school of vice.
1. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, thus writes in the
second century: "'Tis not lawful for us to be present at
the prizes of your gladiators, lest by these means we
shall be accessory to the murders there committed;
neither dare we presume upon the liberty of your shows,
lest our senses should be tinctured with indecency and
profaneness. We are for seeing no representations of
lewdness." * * * "God forbid that Christians should
dishonor themselves by such wickedness as this."
2. Tertullian, towards the close of the second century,
says: "We keep off from your public shows, because we
cannot understand the warrant of their original. There is
superstition and idolatry in the case, and we dislike the entertainment because we dislike the reason of its institution;
besides we have nothing to do-with the prizes of the raceground, the lewdness of the play-house, or the barbarities of
20 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
the bear-garden." In an argument to dissuade Christians
from these indulgences, he says that "the tenor of their
faith-the bond of principle and order of discipline had
bound them against the entertainments of the town. Some
people's faith is either too full of scruples, or too lax of
sense. Nothing will serve to settle them but a plain text
of Scripture. They hover in uncertainty, because it is
not said as expressly Thou shalt not go to the play-house,
as it is said Thou shalt not kill. But this looks more like
fencing than argument. For we have the meaning of the
prohibition, though not the sound, in the first Psalm:
'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor
sitteth in the seat of the scornful.'"
3. Clement of Alexandria says: "The circus and theatre
may not improperly be called the chair of pestilence.
Away, then, with these lewd, ungodly diversions, which
are but impertinence at the best. What part of impudence, either in words or practice, is omitted by the stage?
Don't the buffoons take almost all manner of liberties, and
plunge through thick and thin to make a jest?"
4. St. Cyprian says of the play-house: "What business
has a Christian in such places as these? A Christian, who
has not the liberty so much as to think of an ill thing,
why does he entertain himself with lewd representations?
Has he a mind to discharge his modesty and be fleshed
for the practice? By using to see these things, he'll learn
to do them."
5. St. Chrysostom says of plays and public shows:
"What need have I to speak of the lewdness of the
spectacles and be particular in description? For what's
there to be met with but lewd laughing, but smut, railing,
and buffoonery? In a word,'tis all scandal and confusion.
I speak to you all. Let none who partake of this holy
table unqualify themselves with such mortal diversions."
21 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
6. St. Augustine calls theatres "cages of uncleanness
and public schools of debauchery."
III. MODERN CHRISTIAN WRITERS have not been less
explicit in their condemnation of the theatre.
1. Archbishop Tillotson calls the theatre "the devil's
chapel, a nursery of licentiousness and vice; a recreation
which ought not to be allowed among a civilized, much
less among a Christian, people."
2. The Bishop of Flanders, in 1697, issued a pastoral
letter, in which he says: "A man must be very ignorant
of his religion not to know the great disgust it has always
declared for public sights, and for plays in particular.
The holy Fathers condemn it in their writings. They look
upon them as works of heathenism and schools of debauch cry, and they have always been abominated by the
Church."
3. Jeremy Collier, in 1698, declared that "nothing had
gone farther in debauching the age than the stage-poets
and play-house."
4. John Wesley, in 1764, wrote to the mayor and corporation of Bristol against the erection of a theatre in the
town: "The present stage entertainments not only sap
the foundation of all religion, but tend to drinking and
debauchery of every kind, which are constant attendants
on these entertainments."
5. Wilberforce admonishes Christians against patronizing such  places, "which," he says, "the debauched,
inflamed with wine, or bent on the indulgence of his licentious appetites, finds most congenial to his state and
temper of mind."
6. William Prynne published in 1633 a quarto volume
of more than a thousand pages, closely printed, entitled
"The Player's Scourge."  The book is a rare one, and he
is a lucky man who possesses a copy of it. An author of
our own day-a man of no less authority and right to
22 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
speak than John Angell James-says of this book: "It
contains a catalogue of authorities against the stage,
which comprises every name of eminence in the heathen
and Christian world. It comprehends the united testimony of the Jewish and Christian Churches, the deliberate
acts of fifty-four ancient and modern general, national,
and provincial councils and synods, both of Western and
Eastern Churches; the condemnatory sentence of seventyone ancient Fathers, and one hundred and fifty-one modern
Popish and Protestant authors."
But more upon this point in the next chapter.
IV. As a general rule the theatre is essentially evil IN
ITS MATTER.
Read the following from one who has thoroughly
studied the subject:*
"The great mass of the plays presented to the people
to-day are either insipid or vicious, or both. Any honest
reader who will wade through the trash that attracts at
the theatre will be perfectly amazed. I have searched
whole plays in vain for one inspiring, manly thought. I
have endured this dirty work as a physician endures the
stench of the pest-house, because it is necessary for a right
understanding of the work done in society by the stage.
Let us take a few specimens:
"The'Serious Family,' presented'at the Haymarket
Theatre, London, where its popularity excelled the attraction of Macready or the Keans in their best characters.'
'At Burton's Theatre, New York City, its run has
exceeded that of any other piece of the present day.''It
may be adduced as a fair specimen of modern comedy.' So
much  on the word of Samuel French, who  must be
received as good authority, since a man will not lie
against his own calling. Now what is the burden of this
play? Aminadab Sleek represents Christian benevolence,
* Rev. C. H. Fowler, of Chicago, Ill.
23 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
and is held up as a hypocrite.  Lady Creamly is a bene  volent solicitor, but is put in the worst light as a female
despot. Her antipathy to fast living and fast men is
made the excuse for licentiousness and infidelity. in her
son-in-law. Sir Charles Torrens, an admnitted rake, is held
up as a model man. The restraints of virtue are the suf ficient excuse for his crimes. Lady Torrens is a model
wife. She is made to lie to avoid inconvenience, is ridi culed and pitied while inclined to be steady, and is praised
when she goes into excesses to please her husband. Widow
Delmaine is gay in excess, flirting indefinitely, no way
religious, yet most generous and philanthropic as con trasted with the mock benevolence of Christians. Aside
from the profanity that leavens the play, what but evil
can come of it?. Vice is a pleasant thing. Licentious ness is commendable. Religion is condemned. All good
deeds are done by bad people, and all bad deeds by good
people.
"The play takes a'Serious Family,' inclined to be
religious, and through the influence of a rake and libertine converts them into a fast, frivolous family. This is
held up as a great reform, more to be desired than the
reformations wrought by Christianity. If the work of
Jesus was upward, the work of this play is downward.
Choose ye which gospel you will embrace.
"I need hardly refer to the'Hypocrite,' so popular on
the American boards. A viler assault upon religion and
all that can save society would be difficult to find.
"A play very popular in nearly all the theatres of this
country, gives us another specimen of what is demanded
of stage-managers and furnished by them when possible.
'Camille' carries the sympathy of the crowd through
every extremity of crime and profligacy. She is accomplished and winning, but none the less an admitted and
open prostitute. She is loved and almost worshiped,
24 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
though in her the rottenness of depravity breaks out in a
running sore. All her lewdness and shameless sin are
charged to the over-virtue of society. She is pitied as a
victim, not of deception but of public opinion. Society is
too good, and the mission of this play is to tone it down
to a level, where the vicious shall be honorable and the
virtuous despised.
"Take the' French Spy' and' Mazeppa.'  The' French
Spy' has no merit calculated to attract. The motive
power is in the peculiar dress, or rather undress, of the
actress. Vulgarity and passion are the fruits of such representations.'Mazeppa' may have some merit wanting in
the'French Spy,' but it depends upon its lewdness for its
power. Its chief attraction is in binding the actress,
apparently naked, to a horse, and in representations of
the same class.
"Can any one be profited by witnessing the horrid
scenes in the' Six Degrees of Crime?'  Will it not stain
and corrupt a young heart? If I had space, this argument might be extended indefinitely by the analysis of
such plays as'The Forty Thieves,''The Devil in Paris,'
' Devil to Pay,''Great Devil,' and the like. There is
not the same amount of poison in each of these plays,
but what is lacking in some is made up by the actors."
V. The theatre is a SCHOOL OF -PROFANITY and irreligion.
It has come to be a great virtue in a popular actor to be
able to extemporize profanity.  The "gag," as impromptu
swearing is called, is a stated part of the entertainment.
When the interest flags, and the "roughs" become restive,
the actor must feast them with a little fresh swearing. It
is a sad fact that no part is cheered more than this when
the oaths are adroitly thrown in or voluminously poured
out. It is to-day, as it was in the days of Addison, who
laments that in his day rant, curses, and imprecations
3
25 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
would raise storms of applause, while sentiments of genuine beauty and virtue dropped dead from the actor's lips.
Any one reading the comedies so much applauded at our
theatres would hardly see the demand for more profanity
than is already crowded into the text. Take "Handy
Andy," or "Box and Cox," or "The Loan of a Lover," or
any others of the class, and the oaths almost touch each
other from beginning to end. The best characters are the
worst  swearers.  But even in these the "gag" gives
additional spice.
What defence can be made for the usual interlude, the
fancy dance, so essential to the greatest success? Conceive of a woman dressed in short illusion skirts, whirling
on one foot, with the limbs making an angle of 120
degrees. This may be entertaining, but it can hardly be
called refining, or elevating, or moral.
The play of the "Hypocrite" was worked over into a
worse form solely to ridicule religion and hold up God's
ordained means of saving men to the contempt and raillery of the crowd gathered for a special treat. A woman
in a Chicago theatre "brought down the house" by saying: "The first woman plucked the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, and gave it to the first man to eat, and thus
brought death (a doubtful evil) into the world. But I,
a woman, uphold and glory in the deed of the first of my
sex."
These are but samples of the material and animus of
the modern theatre; so that if bad plays, if profanity by
wholesale, if familiarity with the worst crimes, if the ridicule of all that is pure, or good, or holy, if the defence and
apology for falsehood, licentiousness, prostitution, and
every flagrant violation of decency, and honor, and purity,
and virtue, can make an institution evil, then the theatre
of to-day s evil-evil from its purpose, evil in its matter,
26 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
evil in its acting, evil in its fruit. It is evil, and only evil,
continually.*
The following recipe for a modern theatrical performance is from the Round Table, which is anything but a
religious periodical:
"Sixteen pounds of powdered brimstone for lightning; twentyfour peals of thunder; a dozen imps with tails; a dozen bloody daggers; a skull and cross-bones; forty battle-axes; six terrific combats,
three of them double-handed; a course of violations; eight murders; a pair of ensanguined shirts; one comic song; three hundred
oaths, and sixty-four pages of blasphemy. This is what our city's
Bowery masses and village loafers delight in. This suits the intellects of' Plug-Uglies' and'Dead Rabbits."'
VI. The character of the theatre may be inferred from the
EFFECTS produced in the neighborhood in which one is
located.
No sooner is the flaming poster set up, the doors
opened, and the gas lighted, than decency flies it as
health would a plague-spot. The erection of a new
theatre in a previously respectable quarter of one of our
cities is well known to destroy that quarter for any future
decency of life.  The  private house  is turned into  a
bagnio, the shop of honest trade into the faro-saloon or
bar-room; and the play-house stands a spectacle of vice,
supported by its congenial aids of rowdyism, gambling,
drunkenness, and prostitution. Now, these effects are
marked, unmistakable and uniform. A theatre located in
any neighborhood in this or any other city blights that
neighborhood as with a moral leprosy. It breaks out
upon the very surface of things. Not only the inhabitants, but the houses, become scabbed with moral corruption. It demands and must have accessories and surroundings answering to its own moral character. There
must be a bar-room under the same roof, or so near that
it can be easily reached between the acts. And those who
* Rev. Dr. Fowler.
27 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
have been there know what a stampede there is between
the acts when the thirsty patrons rush out to wet their
whistles. Theatre-goers insist upon these accommodations. They require that licentiousness, and rum, and
gambling shall be convenient to the place where they convene, so that they can pass easily from one excitement to
the other. Now, if any man can give me any explanation of this that does not injure the character of the playhouse, I should be glad to hear it. But these are just the
facts that mninisters and Christian men dodge when they
come to their apologies for the theatre.
VII. The REPUTATION OF ACTORS as a class furnishes
additional evidence with regard to the character of the theatre.
1. It is not said that there are no exceptions to this
statement. There was one righteous man in Sodom, but
that did not do much towards elevating the average
character of its population. There was one righteous
man among the antediluvians, but Noah's character only
made more apparent and hateful the abominations and
corruptions that prevailed everywhere else. But these
individual cases with regard to actors and actresses are
the exceptions to the general rule. It still remains true
that as a class they have been in bad repute for two thousand years.  How comes it that members of this profession
can set all laws of morality at defiance in their private
lives?  How happens it that an actor can dimiss his wife
and take to himself the wife of another man and it seem
no glaring impropriety?  How is it that he may live in
scandalous and admitted wickedness and the fact scarcely
excite attention?  How comes it to pass that a man or
woman in that profession is notorious not for being vicious,
but for being virtuous.  The whole world knows that a
virtuous actor or actress is now and always has been the
exception, and not the rule.
2. A Church Council in the year 424 declares: "That
28 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
the testimony of people of ill reputation, of players, and
others in such scandalous employment, shall not be
admitted against any person."
3. Theophilus of Antioch, two hundred years before,
says: "Even those very magistrates who favor the stage
discountenance the players; they stigmatize their character and cramp their freedom; the whole tribe of them is
thrown out of all honor or privilege." That was over
sixteen hundred years ago. He says: "They are neither
suffered to be lords nor gentlemen, to come within the
senate nor harangue the people, or so much as be members
of the common council."
4. St. Cyprian, in reply to a letter that he received on
the subject, writes: "You have asked my thoughts concerning a certain player in your neighborhood, whether
such a person ought to be allowed the privilege of communing. This man, it seems, continues his scandalous
practices, and keeps a nursery under him; he teaches
that which'twas a crime for him to learn; sets up for a
master of debauch, and propagates the lewd mystery.
The case standing thus,'tis my opinion that the admission of such a member would be a breach of the discipline of the gospel; neither do I think it fit that the
Church should suffer by so infamous a correspondence."
5. Cicero says of the Romans, "Their predecessors
counted all stage-plays uncreditable and scandalous, insomuch that any Roman who turned actor was not only
to be degraded, but likewise, as it were, disincorporated,
unnaturalized, by order of the censors."
6. Livy says that common players "were expelled from
their tribe and not allowed to bear arms." The Athenians had a law that forbid any judge of the Areopagus to
write a comedy. And the Lacedemonians would not
allow the theatre among them on any terms or under
any circumstances. In the Theodocian code, players are
3.
29 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
called "Persons maimed and blemished in reputation."
The function of players was counted scandalous, and
those who came upon the stage to divert the people had
a mark of infamy set upon them. In an old English
work actors are classed with rogues, vagabonds, and
sturdy beggars. Then we have the councils and de crees of the Church excommunicating players and denying the sacrament to any woman who marries an actor.
7. Rousseau, the infidel, said: "I observe, in general,
that the situation of the actor is a state of licentiousness
and bad morals; that the men are abandoned to disorder,
and thatlie women lead scandalous lives."
Everybody knows that such is the reputation of most
of the stage-players of the present day.
8. Henry Ward Beecher, who is certainly quite loose
enough both in his theology and his views of amusement,
says: "Putting together, in one class, all gamblers,
circus-riders, actors, and racing-jockeys, I pronounce
them to be men who live off society without returning
any useful equivalent for their support. It is within the
knowledge of all that men who cater for public pleasure
are excluded from respectable society. In the support
of gamblers, circus-riders, actors, and racing-jockeys, a
Christian and industrious people are guilty of supporting
mere mischief-makers; men whose very hearts are diseased, and whose sores exhale contagion to all around
them. We pay moral assassins to stab the purity of our
children; we warn them of temptation, and yet plant the
seeds which shall bristle with all the spikes and thorns
of the worst temptations."
9. Not long since a paper of high literary order, published in the city of New York, making no claims to a
religious character, used the following language: "Exceptions there may be, and are; but as a class, the members of the dramatic profession in this country to-day are
30 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
persons who are very properly debarred from respectable
society."
10. After a full and successful trial of the actor's life,
Macready gave it up, unwilling that his daughters should
mature under its perverting influence. Go behind the
scenes. Looseness of manners, lowness of conversation
and recklessness of morals prevail there. The theatrical
life itself is socially wrong. Go to the homes of actors.
In the'wee sma' hours' of the night they return thither,
flushed with the excitement of applause or wine. They
sleep heavily until near noon-time, and rise languidly to
rehearsals.
11. "Actors and actresses," says Dr. Taylor Lewis,
"never have and never can be regarded as a reputable
class in society." The red-handed assassin who butchered
our beloved President made it his boast that he had
received $20,000 for his performances on the stage for a
single year; and not many years since a notorious woman,
for publicly dancing and indecently exposing her person
on the stage, received the sum of $60,000 in fifteen
weeks.  Madam Rachel, when she died, left each of her
illegitimate children a large fortune.
12. One more test that will bring the matter home to
our own bosoms. You, reader, may be a father, with
sons and daughters growing up around you; would it
be a pleasant fact for you to know that your daughters
are intimate with the actors who visit your city from time
to time? You have sons, it may be, just going into life
at a time when its perils gather thickly about them, and
when a step makes or mars their destiny forever; would
you like to know that they are given a free entrance at
all times to the green-room and are familiar with its
mysteries?
Perhaps you have children in whom your thoughts
and wishes are bound up, as they can be in nothing else
31 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
in this life. In all your bright dreams for their honorable future, did it ever cross your mind that your boy
might become an actor? You have thought of medicine,
of the law, of trade, of his being an editor, or filling the
pulpit-almost everything possible of honor has passed
before your vision as you have dreamed upon this subject. And you have, perhaps, prayed alone in your
room, and have prayed together, that, as he passes
through the world, he might never be too harshly exposed
to its temptations and perils. Did it ever cross your
mind that he might avoid these sharp. temptations by
connecting himself with the theatre?
Let me ask you, young man, justly proud of your sister,
would you not about as soon follow her to her grave as
to have her marry an actor? And so, parents, as to
your sons and daughters; would you not about as willingly follow any one of them to the grave as to have
them marry an actor or an actress?
The corrupters of others necessarily become debauched
themselves. Men and women whosp nightly business it
is to act a lie, to seem to be what they are not, who are
trained to assume the most contradictory passions and
moral states, have no power to prevent this life of falsity
and sham from reacting most disastrously upon themselves. What God hath linked together as cause and
effect let no man think to put asunder. There is absolutely no escape from the injury inflicted upon the
character by this reflex influence. The actor who does
not become thoroughly depraved is a spectacle to angels
and to men. The actress who passes through this terrible
ordeal unstained and unsuspected is more to be marveled
at than if she had walked blindfolded in the midst of
red-hot plowshares without being burned.
VIII. All the ffifnities of the theatre are for vice and
32 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
corruption, in the midst of which it naturally lives and
flourishes.
1. This proposition will scarcely be doubted by any
reader. And how is it to be accounted for, except upon
the theory of the inherent moral corruption of the
theatre itself?
2. "Most theatres," says the Central Christian Advocate, "are houses of assignation, liquor-saloons, and gambling-hells combined,-or so intimately connected that
you cannot separate them. No theatre can live and be
decent. The gallery for bawds is necessary to the success of any play-house. Some decent people affect not
to know these things, but if they will inquire of any
honest policeman, they will find out some things they
never knew perhaps."
"We repeat it, the theatre is attractive to most people
on account of its impurities; and many men go there
often to make assignations. It stands next to the Jbrothel
in vileness, and holds the same relation to it that the
water of the mill-dam does to the mill; that is, it runs it.
Its ways are the ways of death."
From first to last it was an evil place;
And now such things were acted there, as made
The devils blush; and from the neighborhood,
Angels and holy men, trembling,-retired.
3. Go back to the time of the French Rbvolution.
The vilest corruption and crime openly prevailed, and
the theatres in Paris were increased fourfold during that
Revolution. 
"While  the courts of justice were  thrust out by
Jacobin tribunals," says Edmund  Burke, "and silent
churches were only the funeral monuments of departed
religion, there were in Paris no fewer than twenty-eight
theatres, great and small, most of them kept open at the
public expense, and all of them crowded every night.
3
33 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
Among the gaunt, haggard forms of famine, amidst the
yells of murder, the tears of affliction and the cries of
despair, the song and the dance, the mimic scene and the
buffoon laughter went on as regularly as in the gay hours
of festive peace. Even under the scaffold of judicial
murder, and the gaping planks that poured down blood
upon the spectators, the space was hired out for a show
of dancing dogs. The society of Paris was like a den
of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier a lewd tavern for
the revels and debaucheries of banditti, assassins, and
paramours, filled with licentious and blasphemous songs
appropriate to their brutal and hardened course of life.
The crowd went at night to the theatre to be diverted
with the representation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and turned in the morning to the congenial
work of butchering babes and' half-grown girls."
IX. To attend theatres is to put yourself in the company
of the lowest and vilest elasses in society.
1. No effort that has ever been made, or can be made,
has induced, or will induce, Christian people to patronize
the theatre to any great extent. As a rule, therefore, it
is a place to which the God-fearing and prayerfill and
virtuous never go, or allow their children to go.
2. A few decent, reputable, and sober people may
attend the theatre, but they are not there in such numbers
as to give character to the audience. But whether you
find them there or not, you will find another class there.
You will find the rakes and the gamblers; thje fast men
and the loose women; the harlots andthe libertines; and
it is not the kind of company into which a young man
should go. I don't say that you will make these men
your associates, but the best characteristics of youthits ingenuousness, its frankness, its susceptibility to
impressions, its very best traits-render him peculiarly
liable to yield to these bad influences. Can a man take
34 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
pitch in his hands and not be defiled? Can he take fire
into his bosom and not be burned? He may associate
with these people and not be injured. But it is not a
thing to be expected. "Evil communications corrupt
good manners." The very air of some places is so loaded
with moral contagion that a man cannot breathe it without being rendered worse for it. And much of the company that gathers in and about the theatre is of such a
character that every young man especially ought to shun
the place as he would shun the very gates of hell. No
lazar-house or hospital for the diseased, with small-pox or
cholera patients, is so dangerous to a young man as the
company that convenes night after night about the
theatre.
X. The theatre HAS NEVER BEEN KNOWN TO DO ANY
ONE ANY GOOD, while it. has led its tens of thousands to
reuin and eternal death.
1. A long and earnest conflict has been going on in the
world, pro and con., as to the utility of the theatre. Its
advocates have all along claimed that it was a school of
virtue and an instrument of reform and moral exaltation.
Where, then, are the specimens or illustrations? Christianity can point to her millions which she has rescued
from drunkenness, profanity, and other vices. Where
are the men and women reformed and made virtuous by
the theatre? Who will point to the first man or woman
who has been reformed or elevated, or even strengthened
or encouraged, in the ways of virtue and sobriety.
"We are told," says a secular New York paper, "that
theatres reform the wicked. Where they reform one
they ruin thousands. The Ticket-of-Leave-Man, lately so
popular, once led-as the story goes-an absconding clerk
to return to his employers ~1500 out of ~2500 which he
had stolen.  So the theatre taught him to ease his conscience by returning only a part and retaining ~1000 of
35 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
his plunder. Grand moral teaching that! and yet it is
not at all probable that this partial restitution of stolen
money by a theatre-going thief ever took place.
"We know that good men and wise will differ with us
in these views. They will tell us that the pure, the true,
and the cultured have patronized and participated in
theatrical representations. That may all be, but they
were not made what they were by these; they remained
what they were in spite of them."
2. Hear this secular and irreligious paper still further:
"The youth entranced by the syren power of the theatre
becomes no worthier son or truer brother.  The friends
of home are not his links of life. The spell of a magician mightier than they is upon him. The thronged
galleries, the brilliant stage, the tinseled actors, the stirring utterances, and the exciting.applause, come to him as
from Calypso's isle. When all is over, what wonder
that the bar-room and the brothel, the debauch and
the misery ensue! These are not necessarily or universally the concomitants of the theatre; but they are so
much craved by many after the theatrical fever, fitful
and ephemeral, is over, that it is almost impossible to
banish them from the precincts of the stage."
3. "Young men," says the Central Christian Advocate,
"who habitually attend the theatre are not to be trusted;
they are generally neither virtuous nor honest. No young
man can go to the theatre three or four nights in the
week and keep a pure mind one month. It is the halfway house between the honest family and the brothel.
Girls who habitually go to the theatre will most likely go
to the city stews and sell themselves. These things are
so palpable that no one half posted will venture a
denial."
4. To patronize the theatre involves a foolish expenditure of money; and a foolish expenditure of money in
36 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
a young man is an extravagance which tends to one of
these results-either to poverty, or to dishonesty, or to
crime, and very often to all three. Aside, therefore,
from all moral considerations, what broker, or banker, or
insurance company, or merchant wishes to employ a
young man who is in the habit of attending a theatre
once or twice a week? Even with Deists or Atheists, if
such are to be found, it would be no objection that a
young man attends church or labors in a Sabbath-school.
But the most loose and irreligious business firms regard
it as an objection to any young man that he is a votary
of the theatre. This fact at once suggests more beyondbrothels, gambling-hells, bad faith, money purloined, etc.
How conclusive this undeniable fact as to the moral
influence of the theatre!
If, therefore, a young man wishes to keep his influence
and standing, and rise in the world, it does not become
him to waste his money in supporting the dancing Jezebels
and riff-raff who live by pandering to the pleasures and
ministering to the vices of society.
5. Theatricals-such, at least, as are now most popular-of the French and Italian school, must and do
create a disrelish for domestic life. They make home
joys less attractive, and home duties more irksome. They
blunt the natural sensibilities by a false excitement of
them in view of imaginary suffering. The heart then
becomes hardened towards actual woe. Whatever thus
diverts the mind and perverts the heart from the true
ends of social life must have an immoral influence.
XI. The theatre never has been, and never can be, reformed or made better.
1. The whole history of the past, and the experience
of ages, are summed up in these few lines of Pollok:
"The theatre was, from the very first,
The favorite haunt of sin, though honest men
4
37 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
Some very honest, wise, and worthy men         Maintained it might be turned to good account;
And so perhaps it might, but never was."
2. "The theatre," says the Central Christian Advocate,
"has always been hopelessly vile. It has nothing to redeem it from utter wickedness. Its literature for the
most part is the shameless travesties of noble works and
the imbecile driveling of obscure witlings. Its actors,
with few exceptions, are the very vilest men and the
most abandoned characters. Its plays are generally
vulgar and immoral. Its paraphernalia wanton and impure. Its surrounding as bad as possible."
3. To reform the theatre-that is, to make it virtuous,
in its matter, acting, and influence- would be to destroy
it. It is chiefly supported by those who are attracted by
its vileness-men of a low order of intellect, without
mental resources upon which they can draw for entertainment, who need somebody to amuse them, and are
willing to pay to be amused. These men, who are in
quest of impure excitements, and who love to have their
ears tickled with profane and impure jests, are, to a large
extent, the patrons of the theatre-so large that if their
patronage could be withdrawn the play-house would die.
The theatre, purged of its objectionable features, would
be as dull and uninteresting to these men as a Methodist
class-meeting. Theatrical managers, therefore, who would
live by their business, must cater to the depraved appetites of this class. It is for this, among other reasons,
that the reform of the theatre is impossible.
3. Another insurmountable obstacle to the "reform"
of which we have heard so muich is found in the fact,
already stated, that Christians cannot be induced, in any
considerable numbers, either to patronize the theatre or
waste time in vain efforts for its reformation. They know
too well the folly of all such endeavors. They know too
38 
EVILS OF THEATRE-GOING.
well that the object is to induce them to patronize the
theatre, not to lift it up to morality and virtue, but to
break down the public conscience, induce others to follow
their bad example, and thus debauch both them and the
general public at the same time.
Such is our general indictment against the theatre.
During all its history it has been an evil institution.
The ancient Pagan moralists condemned it-the early
Christian writers condemned it-modern Christian writers
and ministers almost invariably condemn it-it is evil in
its matter, evil in its manner-a school of profanity and
irreligion, and a moral and social blight wherever
located. Its actors are generally persons of bad reputation, dissolute and immoral, and its affinities are all for
corruption. Its supporters are to a large extent tipplers,
gamblers, debauchees, and prostitutes. It has never been
known to do any good, while it has ruined tens of thousands; and it is utterly incapable of being reformed or
becoming anything better than a moral pest-house in
every community in which its loathsome existence is
tolerated.
And yet (enough to make angels weep if they had tears
to shed) there are found professed Christians, and even
METHODISTS,  who  patronize, and  thus sanction and
approve by their presence and pecuniary support, this
God-dishonoring and soul-destroying curse.
From these notices of the evils of card-playing, dancing,
and theatre-going, which are but specimens of many similar follies, let us now turn to the Holy Scriptures, to
see what light, if any, they throw upon the subject.
39 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
To every Christian the BIBLE is the end of all contro versy. He should do whatever it enjoins, and shun what ever it condemns. And as we all recognize this Book as
the rule of our faith and practice, it shall be our next
business to compare the amusements already noticed
with the tenor and spirit of the word of God.
It is not, of course, claimed that the Bible condemns
dancing, billiards, etc., by name. Neither does it so con demn gambling, lotteries, betting on elections, horse racing, forgery, or arson. But it inculcates printeiples
which cut up all such follies and sins root and branch.
And it is upon this ground that we contend that participation in the popular amusements of the day, such as
dancing, card-playing, billiards, theatre-going, etc., is
incompatible with the Christian profession, spirit, and
life, and should therefore be discountenanced by all true
friends of Christ and of the Church of God.
I. The Scriptures represent conversions to Christ as A
GREAT CHANGE, to be followed by a corresponding change
in the OUTWARD LIFE of its subjects.
2 Cor. v. 17: "If any man be in Christ he /s a new
creature; old things are passed away; behold all things
are become new."
But men of the world "mind earthly things," and look
wholly upon "things that are seen and temporal." In
these they seek and find their only earthly enjoymentsto eat and drink, and dress and amuse themselves, and
get money and spend it. Such were the lives of the early
Gentile converts, at least, before conversion; and so live
the unconverted now. But in conversion, old things are
40 
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
to pass away. New associations are formed, new relishes,
aspirations, and hopes are implanted in the soul, and
new sources of enjoyment are opened up. Henceforth we
are to look, not at the things that are seen, and temporal,
but at things not seen, and eternal. Out affections are to
be on things above, and not upon things on tlie earth. If,
then, we are thus renewed and changed in the current of
our relishes, desires, and hopes, a new life necessarily follows, as when the tree is changed the fruit also will be
changed. This general principle covers the whole case.
If "old things are passed away," and "all things are
become new," we shall hereafter seek our delight in the
things of God, and shall abandon forever the vain pleasures and delusive follies of an unbelieving world.
If professed Christians are to live like others so far as
worldly pleasures are concerned, how are the world to see
that there has been any real change wrought in their
hearts?  "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good,"
said the Saviour, "or else make the tree corrupt, and his
fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit." If the
tree professes to be good, let the fruit or life correspond
with the profession.
II. The Scriptures bear a general testimony against a life
of worldly pleasure, as inconsistent with a Christian profession.
1 Tim. v. 6, St. Paul says, "but she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth;" that is, if she lives a gay
and pleasure-seeking life, she will be dead in religion.
And let none suppose that the phrase "liveth in pleasure"
means something worse than mere worldly gayety. It
means precisely such a life as all those lead who follow
the fashionable amusements of the world, and nothing else.
Donnegan in his Greek Lexicon defines the original word
rendered pleasure thus: spatalao, "to live luxuriously or
sumptuously; to riot in luxury-to frolic." A perfect
4 *
41 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
picture of a modern "hop," with a luxurious supper at
twelve, with plenty of champagne, and a general frolic till
daylight; but not the slightest intimation of impurity,
unless the "frolic," implies it.
Parkhurst's Lexicon defines the word to mean "to live
extravagantly, luxuriously, or voluptuously."
Dr. Albert Barnes says, "the Greek word  satalao
occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, except in James
v. 5: [' Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth,' etc.] It
means to live in luxury, voluptuously; to indulge freely
in eating and drinking; to yield indulgence of the appe tites.  It does not indicate grossly criminal pleasures, but
the kind of pleasure connected with luxurious living, and
with pampering the appetites."
Dr. Adam Clarke thus renders the passage: "She that
liveth delicatelyvoluptuously indulging herself with dainties. It does not indicate grossly criminal pleasures; but
simply means one who indulges herself in good eating and
drinking, pampering her body at the expense of her
mind." And after citing an ancient Greek author to
justify this definition, he says: "I have introduced this
long quotation the better to fix the meaning of the apostle,
to show that the life of pleasure mentioned here does not
mean prostitution or uncleanness of any kind, though such
a life may naturally lead to dissolute manners."
Dr. MacKnight, than whom there are few better Greek
scholars, says, "the word spatalao signifies one who fareth
deliciously;" and his paraphrase or commentary upon the
whole verse is, "But the widow who liveth in gayety and
luxury is dead while she liveth in that manner," etc.
In the general Epistle of James, v. 1, 5, addressing
certain rich men in the church who were corrupting it, as
some are doing now, he says, "Go to now, ye rich men,
weep and howl for the miseries that-shall come upon you."
"Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth; ye have nour
42 
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
ished your hearts as in the day of slaughter." Here the
same Greek word is used as in the passage last citedspatalao, "to riot in luxury, to frolic;" and the same
unchristian practices are solemnly condemned.
All this shows how specifically and emphatically St.
Paul condemned a gay and pleasure-seeking life as utterly
incompatible with the life and power of religion in the
soul. If we live in pleasure, we are dead while we live.
Gal. v. 19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which
I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God."
In this passage we find "revelings and such like"
enumerated among the works of the flesh. This phrase
plainly covers dancing, wine-drinking, gay, festive parties,
and all worldly folly. But to break its force as against
worldly amusements, it has been alleged, as in regard to
the preceding passage, that "revelings and such like,"
has no reference to feasting and dancing, but to licentiousness! This I emphatically deny, and will give the
proof:
1. The passage itself shows upon its face that this cannot be the meaning of the phrase; for the apostle had
already mentioned "adultery, fornication, uncleanness,"
and "lasciviousness;" and hence, to represent him as
again using a phrase which means lasciviousness is to
accuse him of the strangest tautology. But when we take
it to mean worldly amusements, its position is natural and
comprehensive-" drunkenness, revelings, and such like."
And who does not know that dancing, and billiards, and
theatre-going, and drinking are usually associated?
43 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
2. The Greek word komoi, translated revelings, does
not refer to lasciviousness, but to precisely what answers
to a modern ball or "hop," with its accompaniments of
wine and music, dancing and late hours. Let us con sult the Greek lexicons:
Parkhurst defines the word thus:  "komos-reveling,
lascivious, feasting [not conduct, mark] with songs and
music." Donnegan defines it to mean-" A jovial assem bly of friends, who met at an entertainment, or to cele brate a festival, with music, DANCING, and singing hymns,
and odes-a band of revelers, etc." Here you see that
the komoi forbidden by the apostle included music,
dancing, and a sumptuous supper, and tendencies to las civiousness, but did not include lasciviousness itself. It
means an ancient ball, and NOTHING ELSE. And the
phrase "and such like" covers all similar worldly pleasures and follies. There is no evading this fact, unless
we are determined to wrest the word of God to accommodate our own carnal appetites and longings. And if
we do this, we may as well cast off God's authority over
us and our conduct at once, and give up all pretensions
to piety and all hope of heaven at last.
3. Do not fail to notice that these "revelings and
such like" are specifically designated as "works of the
flesh," and are classed with adultery, murders, drunkenness, etc. And nothing of the kind is found among the
fruits of the Spirit; for they are "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." And the apostle
immediately adds that "they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts;" that
is, they have put down and overcome all these fleshly
lusts for the pleasures and vanities of the world, and are
seeking happiness in Christ alone and the things of
religion. Depend upon it, brethren, if we are Christians,
44 
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
we are "debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh;
'for if we live after the flesh, we shall die: but if we
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we
shall live.'" Rom. viii. 12.
4. Mark with what solemn emphasis the apostle concludes the passage. After having enumerated the works
of the flesh, even to "revelings and such like," he adds:
"Of the which I tell you before [before the day of judgment and final retribution], as I have also told you in
time past, that they which do such things SHALL NOT INtIERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD." May God in mercy
help us all to heed the solemn warning!
1 Pet. iv. 3, 4: "For the time past of our life may
suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when
we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: wherein
they think it strange that ye run not with them to the
some excess of riot, speaking evil of you."
Here observe (1) that Christians were not to live as
formerly, and like other men, in folly and dissipation.
(2). That "revelings" and "banquetings" are specified,
which covers all balls, hops, and masquerades, at least.
(3.) That the early Christian had ceased to "run with
them that walked in these follies." (4.) That the ungodly thought this very "strange" and over-rigid, and
(5) that they spoke evil of the children of God, on
account of their peculiar abstemiousness and self-denial.
And to-day the same course meets the same treatment,
even at the hands of some who profess religion, and
ought to be found wholly upon the Lord's side.
2 Tim. iii. 1-8, St. Paul says: "This know also that
in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall
be lovers of their own selves, etc., despisers of those that
are gobd, traitors [to God and religion], heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure  more than lovers of God;
45 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
having the form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof; from such turn away."
Further on he says that "as Jannes and Jambres
withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth."
A more perfect portrait of a modern pleasure-seeking
professor could scarcely be drawn. The love of pleasure
stands associated with its kindred vices, contempt of the
truly pious, unfaithfulness to Christ, pride, formality
without religion, and hostility to God's faithful watchmen, who, like Moses of old, contend for the truth. And
mark the stern decree of the apostle-"from such turn
away;" that is, as Barnes well expresses it, "have no
intercourse with them as if they were Christians; show
no countenance to their religion."
1 John ii. 15: "Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him." Here "the world"
does not mean the globe, nor its inhabitants, but its amusements, follies and carnal pleasures. Hence it is added,
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the
Father, but is of the world." And no such love of
pleasure, it is declared, can co-exist with the love of
God in the same bosom. "Ye cannot serve God and
mammon."
III. The Scriptures constantly enjoin SELF-DENIAL a an
indispenable Christian duty.
Matt. xvi. 25: "If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."
Mark viii. 34: "Whosoever will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his- cross and follow me."
Luke ix. 23: "If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me."
Also, ch. xiv. 27: "And whosoever doth not bear his
cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."
46 
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
In his letter to Titus, ii. 11, 12, Paul says: "For the
grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world;" and then adds, "these things exhort and
teach."
Heb. xi. 24-26: "By faith Moses, when he was come
to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;
choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming
the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the
reward."
Here we have an example of self-denial set before usMoses discarding the pleasures of sin, which were but for
a season at best, and choosing even affliction with the
people of God, that he might finally inherit eternal life.
But if Christians indulge in all worldly amusements
and follies like others, where is the self-denialt where the
cross? where the peculiarity? where the difference in the
life 
IV. The Scriptures plainly require Christians to COME
OUT FROM THE WORLD, and NOT TO BE CONFORMED TO
ITS SPIRIT AND PRACTICES.
Rom. xii. 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world; but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye
may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect
will of God."
But if the world dance, and play cards and billiards,
and attend theatres, and we do the same things, are we
not conformed to them, instead of their being conformed
to Christ? In what sense is our body a living sacrifice to
47 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
God if we use it to play billiards and dance polkas and
waltzes? Oh, how far are we from the divine standard,
when thus swept away by the spirit and vanities of a
prayerless and ungodly throng, who seek their only good
in this world, and are hastening with every passing day
to a dark and terrible hereafter! And yet professed
Christians join the wild revel, and help to lead them on
to death and destruction! Oh, may God pity and have
mercy upon these professed Christians-Methodists, espe cially-who have thus helped to deepen their blindness,
increase their carnal security, render their conversion to
Christ more difficult, and their final and eternal ruin
more probable!
1 Peter i. 14: "As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye
holy in all manner of conversation: because it is written,
be ye holy, for I am holy."
But if we live a gay and pleasure-seeking life, as we
did before conversion, are we not fashioning ourselves
according to the former lusts?  Where, then, is the holiness in conversation and deportment? Where the conformity to Christ, and the example that leads others to him
and his service-?
2 Cor. vi. 17: "Wherefore come out from among them,
and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the
unclean thing, and I will receive you. And will be a
father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty."
Here the prohibition "not to be unequally yoked
together with unbelievers," is enforced by the general
principle that Christianity and the world are not to be
blended in the life of the same person. The Christian is
to deny himself, even as to the choice of an irreligious
48 
TIlE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
companion, to "come out from" the irreligious and "be
separate," that the Lord may receive him.
V. Christians should avoid even the APPEARANCE of evil.
1 Thess. v. 22: "Abstain from all appearance of evil;"
not merely from that which is intrinsically and obviously
sinful, but from that also which may be indifferent, but
which others regard as wrong. Now who will deny that
for a professed Christian to be seen playing cards or billiards, dancing or attending a theatre, appears wrong to
nine-tenths of the people of God, and also to a vast
majority of non-professors? And if this be so, no matter
what such practices are in themselves, this text forbids
Christians indulging in them.
VI. We must not unnecessarily cause or allow our
Christian profession and character to be brought into disrepute.
Rom. xiv. 16: "Let not then your good be evil spoken
of." Do not practice those things, whether it be eating
meat offered to idols, or anything else, which will bring a
reproach upon Christianity, and give the unconverted
occasion to speak evil of the religion which you profess.
But for professed Christians to play cards, dance, or attend
theatres, does give occasion for the world to reproach the
cause of Christ; and therefore no Christian should ever
indulge in such practices.
VII.  We must not in?dulge in anything, however innocent in itself, if thereby a brother Christian is grieved or
stumbles in the way to heaven.
Rom. xiv. 21: "It is good neither to eat flesh nor drink
wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is
offended, or is made weak."
The subject under consideration was, whether a Christian
should eat the flesh of animals that had been offered in
sacrifice to idols.  The Church were divided upon the
question. Some ate and others were grieved, stumbled, and
4
49 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
made weak in faith and love. Now how did Paul decide?
"There is nothing unclean in itself." Abstractly considered, it is a matter of indifference. But "let no man put
a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's
way." "If thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now
walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy
meat for whom Christ died." And soon after comes the
general declaration, "It is good neither to eat flesh," etc.,
as already cited.
Now, for professed Christians to play cards and billiards, and dance, and attend theatres, does grieve and
afflict, and stumble a vast majority of their fellow disciples; and I have no doubt has in various ways
"destroyed" hundreds of our fellow immortals for whom
Christ died.  How then can Christians be justified in
these practices in the light of this passage of Scripture?
VIII. We are to do nothing that we cannot do to the glory
of God.
1 Cor. x. 31: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
Here the same question is under discussion, and the
apostle inculcates the same doctrine.  "Give none offence,
neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church
of God." But can men and women dance polkas, and
play billiards, and go to circuses and theatres "to the
glory of God?" Will such conduct honor the Christian
name and profession?  Do Christians, by so doing, "let
their light so shine before men that others [the irreligious], by seeing their good works [their good dancing
and card-playing], will glorify their Father which is in
heaven?"
IX. We  are to SET OUR AFFECTIONS UPON  THINGS
ABOVE, as we cannot do if we indulge in worldly amusements.
Col. iii. 2: "If ye then be risen with Christ [have been
50 
THE VOICE OF THE BIBLE.
raised up from the death of sin and folly] seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand
of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with
Christ in God."
But whoever gives himself up to worldly amusements
soon becomes so fascinated by them that his affections are
much more upon them than upon God and eternity. His
heart is not upon the things that are unseen and eternal,
but upon those that are seen and temporal-the fashion
of this world that passeth away. Such a life of pleasure
is, therefore, utterly at variance with that spirituality and
heavenly-mindedness which this passage enjoins.
X. Indulging in such amusements is incompatible with
that SPIRIT OF PRAYER in which Christians are expected
to live and die.
Our Saviour taught, Luke xviii. 1, that "men ought
always to pray, and not to faint;" and St. Paul's advice,
1 Thess. v. 17, is that Christians "pray without ceasing,
and in everything give thanks." In his first letter to
Tim. ii. 8, he says, "I will that men pray everywhere,
lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting."
Now while these passages do not teach that Christians
should be always upon their knees, or uttering vocal
prayer, they certainly teach that Christians are to pray
much, to pray constantly; that is, not to live days and
weeks without praying; and that they are to maintain a
spirit of prayer at all times, and wherever they are.
Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;
His watchword at the gates of death,             He enters heaven with prayer.
But how can such a spirit be maintained while playing
cards? What person carries a prayerful spirit to the
ball-room? Who ever prayed even in his heart in a
51 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
theatre? Every votary of these amusements knows that
the two things are as utterly opposed, the one to the other,
as light and darkness. If, then, we obey Christ and his
apostles, and maintain the spirit of prayer as they enjoin,
we must give up our worldly amusements and follies,
for the two are utterly incompatible, the one with the other.
Such, then, is the general tenor and spirit of that
blessed Book which is our only guide as to our conduct
here, and the results thereof hereafter. It teaches us
that at conversion old things should pass away, as the
dry leaves of the beech are shed from the boughs and
disappear when the buds are swelled by the warmth of
spring-that we cannot live gay and pleasure-seeking
lives and enjoy the love of Christ in our souls-it classes
"revelings" among the works of the flesh, that debar
their votaries from admission to heaven-that the early
Christians ceased to indulge in "excess of wine, revelings,
banquetings," etc., when they embraced Christ-that we
are not to be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of Godthat we are not to love the world, if we wish the love of
God to abide in us-that we are to deny ourselves and
take up our cross and follow Christ-that we are not to
be conformed to this world, not to fashion ourselves
according to the former lusts-that we are to come out
from the world and be separate, that God may receive
us-that we are to avoid even the appearance of evil, and
not let our good be evil-spoken of-that we should do
nothing which will grieve, or stumble, or offend our
brethren in Christ, as card-playing, dancing, etc., doesthat we are to set our affections on things above, as we
cannot if we follow the vanities of the present life-and
that we are to live in and cultivate such a spirit of prayer
as is utterly incompatible with a life of pleasure and
worldly amusements.
These are but specimens of the general teachings of
52 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
the Bible upon the subject; but enough to show that the
practices against which I plead are entirely incompatible
with the Christian profession, spirit and life. Whatever
may have been our practice, therefore, or may be our
present inclinations or preferences, such is the voice of
God. It is not more certain that Christ came into the
world and died to save us, than it is that, the Bible being
our guide, a life of pleasure and worldly amusements is
incompatible with the Christian name and profession.
CHAPTER V.
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
THE Church of Christ is his flock on earth. He is the
chief Shepherd, and his ministers are under-shepherds, to
feed and watch over his flock and guard them from evil.
These ministers are also his watchmen, who are to stand
on the watch-towers of Zion, and blow the trumpet and
warn the people when they see the sword coming. Now,
there is no reason on earth why they should wish to prohibit the members of the Church from the enjoyment of
anything that does not interfere with their spiritual safety
and progress, and with their eternal welfare. On the contrary, the tendency is rather to interpret God's word too
leniently, and to make broaderthe way that leads to heaven.
But with all this liability and tendency to lower the
standard of self-denial and of piety to please the natural
appetites and desires, a note of warning has rung out
through all the ages from the trumpets of the watchmen
against the follies we herein condemn. That they are
condemned by Christ and his apostles, and by the early
5 *
53 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
Christian writers, we have already shown. And that the
modern watchmen have been equally faithful we shall
now proceed to show.
I. The general rules of our Church have been a standing
testimony of the ministry against worldly amusements for
over a century.
We have already cited the section bearing upon this
subject, page 3, and refer to it here as embodying the
religious convictions of the Methodist ministry throughout all our history. And for long years it was no more
possible for a person to remain in our societies and play
cards or dance than it now is to remain and steal, or lie,
or get drunk. The line was drawn just as God draws it
between the Church and the world, and the preachers
administered accordingly. Scores were cut off for breach
of this rule, but thousands were thus kept from the
downward way, proved faithful, and now inherit the promises. And so far as spirituality and moral power and
influences were concerned, who will deny that these were
the golden years of Methodism, both in Europe and
America?
II. The ministry of our Church and of other Churches
have not ceased to warn the people and to remonstrate
against the ingress of this sin and folly into the Church.
1. BISHoP MORRIS, the senior Bishop of our Church,
thus speaks through the columns of the Western Christian
Advocate:
"That some people join in these trifling amusements who profess
to be Christians is admitted; but they are self-deluded, their life
contradicts their profession.' The tree is known by its fruit.' Such
professors'have a name to live, but are dead.' And this is specially true of our own denomination, who know their calling better.
To call men and women Methodists who dance, pitch quoits, play
ball, or the like, is a contradiction of terms, as much as to speak of
humble fops, sober drunkards, or honest thieves. Let every Methodist pastor see to it that no dancing or gambling members are
allowed to remain in our Church, unless they confess their sins and
54 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
forsake them; and if any Methodist pastor refuses or neglects to
enforce the rules, let his Annual Conference attend to his case."
2. BISHOP PIERCE, of the M. E. Church South, is
equally explicit:
"Dram-drinkers and dancing Methodists, without prompt confession of wrong, deep humiliation, and solemn pledges never to
repeat, will be-or they ought to be-cut off. The preachers, I trust,
will cease to rely upon talking and coaxing, and let all these old
offenders know that the Church cannot, will not, tolerate these vices
and fooleries. If it be said that our young members will quit us,
and go to other Churches, I answer let them go. We lose nothing
but numbers, and others gain nothing that a Church of Christ ought
to have. For one, I say, any Church desiring such accessions, is
welcome to all the Methodists, so called, who can be bought off by
the privilege of dancing."
3. The entire board of Bishops of the Southern Methodist Church thus speak in their Episcopal Address of
the 18th of May, 1867:
"This is no time to abate our testimony against worldliness in all
its forms. Our Church has never faltered in its teaching or modified
its tone in relation to dancing, theatres, the manufacture and sale
of ardent spirits, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, as demoralizing and fatal to godliness. Now, that we are threatened with
these evils, coming in like a flood, we renew our warning."
4.  BIsHOP MCILVAINE, of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, thus speaks in one of his pastoral letters:
"Let me now turn to two objects, in which there is no difficulty of
discrimination-the theatre and the dance.  The only line I would
draw in regard to those is that of entire exclusion. And yet, my
brethren, I am well aware how easy it is for the imagination to
array both of these in such an abstract and elementary simplicity,
so divested of all that gives them their universal character and
relish, that no harm could be detected in either. And the same precisely can be easily done with the card-table and horse-race. The
exercise of graceful movement in the dance, and the exercise of
speed in the horse-race, may easily be conceived of in such a light
as to make them very innocent. But what if they were attempted
to be got up under such an abstract form, and made common amusement in such elementary simplicity-how would they succeed?
Their deadness as to all that makes their usual interest would be
55 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
their sufficient condemnation. The question is not what we can
imagine they may be, but what they always have been, and will be,
and must be in such a world as this, to render them pleasurable to
those who patronize them. Strip them bare, till they stand in the
simple innocence to which their defenders' arguments would reduce
them, and the world would not have them. To be genial to the taste
of those who most sustain them, they must be matters of worldly
fashion and gayety; and not only so, but designed to promote the
spirit of such things, and so dependent on them that in proportion
as these condiments are lacking they are rejected as insipid. Were
the trial made of a series of dancing assemblies, conducted in all
respects as becomes the sobriety and spiritual-mindedness of the
Christian character, so that it would be nothing inconsistent if every
attendant were a devout and earnestly pious person, it would need
no prophet to predict their entire failure. The world would ridicule
such a dance, and Christian people would think that they had something else to do than to attend to it."
5. The venerable BISHOP MEAD thus indorses the
views of his honored colleague of Ohio. Speaking of
dancing, he says:
"As an amusement, seeing that it is a perversion of an ancient
religious exercise, and has ever been discouraged by the soberminded and pious of all nations, on account of its evil tendencies
and accompaniments, we ought conscientiously to inquire whether
its great liability to abuse, and its many acknowledged abuses,
should not make us frown upon it in all its forms?  I will briefly
allude to some of the objections to it: Whlen taught to the young at
an early age, it is attended with an expense of time and money
which might be far better employed; it promotes the love of dress
and pleasure, to which the young are already too prone; it tempts
to vanity and love of display; it induces a strong desire to enter on
the amusements of the world at an early period, in order to exhibit
the accomplishments thus acquired, and to enjoy a pleasure for
which a taste has been formed; it leads the young ones exactly into
an opposite direction to that pointed out in the Word of God and
pledged in the baptismal vows. Thus educated, they are, in this
respect, at least, trained not in the way they ought to go, but in the
way they ought to forsake, according to almost universal consent, if
by Divine grace they are ever turned to God in true penitence and
faith."-(See "Baptismal Vows and Worldly Amusements.")
6. Within the last year (1866-7) almost every Methodist Episcopal Conference has had the matter under con
56 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
sideration, and has taken special action upon the subject.
The following may be taken as specimens of the action
of the Conferences:
NEW YORK CONFERENCE.
Resolved, 1. That we, the members of the New York Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, deeply regret that the
members of our Church should ever be found attending dances,
theatres, circuses, operas, negro minstrels, playing those games
which do not tend to godliness, "taking such diversions as cannot
be used in the name of the Lord Jesus," and mingling in those associations which contradict the Divine idea of that pure religion which
keeps its possessor unspotted from the world.
2. That as those who must give account to God, we affectionately and earnestly beseech all the members of our Church within
the bounds of this Conference who have to any extent been guilty
of these wrongs, to consider whether th, laws of Christian expediency, the teachings of the word of God concerning our influence,
the effective power of our example, the danger of association, the
evident tendency of all these things to unfit the mind for devout
worship, the general judgment of the most pious of all Christian
Churches, the example and expectations of the Master, the claims
of the gospel of Christ, and the desire to do all the good in our power,
do not call upon them to cease at once and forever to indulge in any
of these or kindred amusements.
3. That this preamble and these resolutions be read by the pastors
connected with this Conference to the congregations to which they
minister the word of life, so that the desire and position of this Conference on this subject may be clearly understood before the Church
and the world.
NEW YORK EAST CONFERENCE.
Whereas, There is cause to fear that the examples and practices of
worldly society are steadily pressing upon our members and their
families, endangering our simplicity and purity, especially in the
form of drinking vinous and other liquors; of card-playing and
dancing; of visiting the theatre and the opera, and of taking part in
lotteries;
Resolved, That in the judgment of this Conference, indulgence in
such customs and practices is directly contrary to Christ's requirement of Christian discipleship: "Whosoever will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me;" contrary
to both the spirit and letter of the Discipline of the Methodist Epis
57 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
copal Church respecting the conduct of its members; is deleterious
to the growth of pure and undefiled religion in the individual soul
and in the body of believers; and is calculated to obliterate the
lines of distinction between the Church of Christ and the world.
Resolved, That the preachers of this Conference are requested to
place themselves more than ever in opposition, both by word and
deed, to the indulgence in such customs and practices on the part
of the membership of their respective charges.
(On motion, each preacher was directed to read the above resolutions to his church and congregation.)
N EWARK CONFERENCE.
R,esolved, That the influence of the fashionable amusements
above-named is most pernicious, and especially if indulged in by a
professed Christian; and that the danger from this source is such
at the present time as to call for one united voice of warning and
remonstrance from every pulpit in the land, that we may stay the
plague if possible before it is for ever too late. And
Second, That if, after kind and faithful admonition, private and
public, there are those among us who have run into these follies,
and will not forsake them, but still persist in violating their baptismal vows and the rules of the Church, and encouraging others to
do the same, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, it were
better far to call them to account before the Church, even if in some
cases it should cost us trouble and denunciation, and personal hostility, and the loss of their pecuniary support, than to allow them
to corrupt the whole Church, and finally write Ichabod over the
gates of our beloved Zion.
BLACK RIVER.
Resolved, 2d, That theatres, circuses, dances, and kindred amusements, are in their very nature antagonistic to pure Christianity
and vital piety, and that the members of our Church, who either
apologize for or attend such gatherings, are guilty of a violation of
our General Rules and their own Church covenant.
These are but samples of the general voice of the
Methodist ministry throughout all our borders.
We have thus in this one denomination the united
remonstrance of some seven thousand of as faithful, and
devoted, and successful ministers of Christ, and spiritual
watchmen, as can be found in this or any other land.
All these lift up the voice together, with scarcely a dis
58 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
cordant note among them all, and warn and entreat us
not to be engulfed in the deceitful maelstrom of worldly
amusements.
III. The religious press of the country, and of the
.Methodist Episcopal Church in particular, has been faithful
to its trust in this solemn hour of danger and responsibility.
Signs of apostasy and corruption appearing in certain
quarters (often encouraged by vain and worldly ministers), the religious press of the country has been for
months sounding an alarm in the ears of the people,
lifting up a standard against the flood of corruption
which was seen to threaten the purity and future efficiency and honor of the Church of Christ. I take twelve
religious weeklies, besides quarterlies and monthlies, and
do not remember one of the number which has not borne
testimony against the popular amusements of the day
during the last year.
We must not take the space to quote these warnings
at length, but may cite a few specimens.
The Christian Advocate, after citing our General Rule,
says:
"We will not attempt to prove that among the'diversions' thus
prohibited, dancing must be included, because we cannot believe
that any Methodist, who is not a reproach to the name he bears,
can have any doubt about it. Before our members become a class
of dancers, it is our earnest prayer that Methodism may cease to be
known in the earth."
2. A Presiding Elder, writing for the same paper, says:
"Surely, now, when the world, with its trickery, and fashion, and
folly, is coming in upon us like a flood, God calls his faithful ministers and people everywhere to lift up a standard against it-the
standard of earnest protest from the pulpit and the press, the
standard of private expostulation and a prudent but firm administration of discipline."
3. The Northern Christian Advocate thus speaks:
"This demand for amusement by Christian professors is, in itself,
painfully suspicious. We fear such demands arise from leanness of
59
I 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
soul spiritually. How can a soul, filled with God, or one hungering
and thirsting after God, crying out for the living God, desire amusements? How startling the incongruity! An earnest and devoted
Christian seeking amusement in dancing, or card-playing, or in the
whirl of the gay saloon! A consecrated, earnest Christian life, with
time on hand for worldly amusements! We have never known one
such life to have a single golden hour for such folly. Life is too
short, there is too much work to do for God and humanity, to have
time on our hands for amusements. Such a life needs them not."
4. The North- Western Christian Advocate, after quoting
several extracts from other Church papers, thus concludes:
"To these extracts from our own papers we might add others from
various Evangelical denominations. The extract in another column,
entitled'Presbyterians and Dress,' is indeed of the same character.
The religious portion of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and even
the Romanists, are lifting up the voice against these things. It is
of the utmost importance that this tide of trifling, and amusement,
and sin be stayed, or it will drown out the life of the Christian
Church."
5. The Methodist thus speaks upon the subject of
masquerades:
"To say nothing of the gross immoralities that may be perpetrated
under cover of a mask, how can it be that men and women who have
either self-respect, intelligence, or a desire for their best interests,
can consent to disguise themselves in hideous masks or theatrical
costumes and play the clown for each other's amusement?  We have
even heard of instances where members of the Church of Christ
have frequented such scenes of frivolity. Let such put this fact side
by side with the solemn baptismal vow, and THINK! I'renounce
the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world,
with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the
flesh.'"
IV.  The Friends or Quakers of every land have borne
a noble testimony upon this subject throughout all their
history.
So well is this understood that no proof need be offered.
They may possibly have gone to the other extreme in the
matter of dress, and singing, and the use of "the plain
language," and the discarding of titles; but this does not
60 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
prove them wrong as to dancing, theatre-going, etc., any
more than it proves them wrong in regard to war or the
freedom of the enslaved.
V. The Presbyterian ministry and churches of this country have always condemned worldly amusements as incompatible with Christianity.
1. In 1818 the General Assembly adopted and published the following opinion:
"On the fashionable, though as we believe, dangerous amusements
of theatrical exhibitions and dancing, we deem it necessary to make
a few observations. The theatre we have always considered as a
school of immorality.  i  *  *  With respect to dancing, we think
it necessary to observe that however plausible it may appear to
some, it is perhaps not the less dangerous on account of that plausibility. * * * When the practice is carried to its highest extremes, all admit the consequences to be fatal; and why not, then,
apprehend danger even from its incipient stages? It is certainly in
all its stages a fascinating and an infatuating practice. Let it once
be introduced, and it is difficult to give it limits. It steals away our
precious time, dissipates religious impressions, and hardens the
heart. To guard you, beloved brethren, against its wiles and its
fascinations, we earnestly recommend that you will consult that
sobriety which the sacred pages require," etc.-Minutes 1818, p. 690.
This testimony has never been repealed or modified, but
has stood and still stands as the solemn deliverance and
judgment of this influential and honored body of Christians throughout their American history.
2. At the session of the New School Presbyterian
Church, held in Brooklyn, New York, in May, 1865, the
following declaration was adopted and published:
"In regard to theatres and theatre-goers, this Assembly reaffirms
the action of the General Assembly in 1818. In this action the Assembly declared the theatre to be a school of immorality. This
Assembly, seeing no occasion to modify the opinion then given,
earnestly exhorts all the members of the Church in their practice to
avoid, and by their influence to discountenance, all such dangerous
amusements, as being inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel and
detrimental to the best interests of piety in the heart.
"In respect to the custom of fashionable card-playing referred to
6
61 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
by the mnemorialists, and represented as being countenanced in
many of our Christian households, and also participated in by
members of the Presbyterian Church, this Assembly would affectionately exhort all the members of the Church to practice the most
careful watchfulness in avoiding all recreations and amusements,
whether in the form specified in the memorial or otherwise, which
are calculated to impair spirituality, lessen Christian influence, or
bring discredit upon them in their profession as members of a
Christian Church."
3. In January, 1867, the session of the Central Presbyterian Church, in Rochester, New York, issued an
address to the members of their church, in which they
say:
"We desire particularly to give our solemn testimony against
such practices, on the part of professing Christians, as card-playing,
theatre-going, and dancing. We regard these things as unedifying,
as giving offence to pious minds, as dissipating serious thoughts, as
leading to practices that are very reprehensible, and as presenting
an example unwholesome to the world.
"Therefore, in all kindness, charity, and forbearance, we do earnestly entreat of you, one and all, to abstain from these things, and
from others like them; and to conspire together to maintain for our
beloved Church that good name which it has hitherto enjoyed."
4. Rev. T. L. CUYLER, pastor of one of the largest
Presbyterian churches in the land, thus writes upon the
subject:
"Brethren, I have a prodigious fear for our metropolitan churches.
I fear that fast-growing wealth is impoverishing the Church's piety;
I fear that an unparalleled prosperity is making our churches
luxurious, fashionable, worldly-minded, self-indulgent. The religion that walks on life's sunny side in Paris laces, and sips its
choice wines in freestone mansions, is not the religion that breeds
missionaries or fights Goliaths."
"Don't you remember reading in your childhood's favorite fiction
about Sinbad's voyage into the Indian Ocean?  Do you remember
that magnetic rock that rose from the surface of the placid sea?
Silently the vessel was attracted toward it; silently the bolts were
drawn out of the ship's side, one by one, through the subtle attraction of that magnetic rock; and when the fated vessel drew so near
that every bolt and clamp were unloosed, the whole structure of bulwark, mast, and spars tumbled into ruin on the sea, and the sleeping sailors awoke to their drowning agonies.
62 
THE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
"So stands the magnetic rock of worldliness athwart the Church's
path. If the Church draw too near, then bolt after bolt of godly
purpose will be drawn out, clamp after clamp of Christian obligation will be unloosed, until the sacred argosy, that is freighted with
immortal hopes, shall tumble into a shattered and disgraceful
wreck. Depend upon it, brethren, that God will never suffer this to
be.  He will not let us rob him.  Depend upon it, that if we lie
down to luxurious slumber on couches of rosewood, while the world
is perishing, he will snatch the couch from beneath us in financial
judgments. If we persist in paving the way to our places of amusement and our parties of pleasure with his silver and gold, he will
wrest it from us with the terrible rebuke:' Ye may no longer be my
stewards!' Oh! for a Pentecostal fire to consume this'wood, hay,
and stubble' of pomp and luxury! Oh! ye who long to see the selfpampering Churches brought back to a hardier self-denial and a
holier self-consecration, I pray you that ye besiege the mercy-seat,
and labor, too, for a soul-humbling, Church-purifying revival."
5. Rev. ALBERT BARNES thus utters his convictions:
"Dancing, balls, parties, and theatres, are by many thought innocent. But they are a profitless waste of time. They lead to forgetfutlness of God. They nourish passion and sensual desire. They
often lead to the seduction and ruin of the innocent. They are
unfit for dying creatures. From the very midst of such scenes the
gay may go to the bar of God. How poor a preparation to die!
How dreadful the judgment-seat to such!"-Notes on Matt. xiv.
Such are the views and feelings of the great majority
of the Presbyterian ministers and churches in this land.
They fully realize that devotion to worldly amusements is
destructive to personal piety, and dishonoring and ruinous
to the Church of Christ.
6. Rev. HENRY WARD  BEECHER thus gives us his
opinion upon the subject of the theatre:
,, The Church has had an intimate acquainance with the theatre
for eighteen hundred years; during that period every available
agent for the diffusion of morality has been earnestly tried; the
drama has been tried. The result is that familiarity has bred contempt and abhorrence. If, after so long and thorough an acquaintance, the Church stands the moral enemy of theatres, the testimony
is conclusive. It is the evidence of generations, speaking by the
most sober, thinking, and honest men. Let not this vagabond pros
63 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
titute pollute any longer the precincts of the Church with impudent
proposals of alliance."
7. Rev. J. P. THOMPsoN, D.D., of the Tabernacle
Church (Congregationalist), New York, thus warns his
people against the theatre:
"Parents should use their utmost endeavors to keep their
children from the theatre. What father who desires to see
his children virtuous, prosperous, and happy, can foster
in them a fondness for the amusements of the stage, or
can know that they frequent the theatre without deep
anxiety and grief? What mother could introduce her
daughter to such a place? Parents sometimes argue that
their children will surely visit the theatre, and that it is
therefore better to go with them till their curiosity is
satisfied, relying upon good instruction at home to counteract the evil influences to which they are subjected.
But the example of the parent in going to the theatre is
more likely to be remembered than his counsels on returning. As you prize the moral welfare of your children
and your own future peace of mind, keep them from the
theatre."
VI. The Wisconsin Union Religious Convention, held
in Milwaukee in December, 1866, thus speaks of dancing
and the theatre:
"Dancing, we hold, has evil tendencie,s, and therefore should not
be practiced. Even parlor dancing tends to frivolity and dissipation,
which are utterly opposed to that sobriety which is especially enjoined upon the young in the gospel. It also sanctions the dance in
other places, and among all classes, even among those where, it
must be admitted by all, it is used as the occasion and means of
downright crime.
"Theatres contain impurities and corruptions, and therefore
should never be visited. No matter though the corruption be
excluded from the first and second play, if introduced in the third
or the last, the theatre is positively condemned. No matter even if
the evil be shut out for a single night or a week, the institution that
will even foster corruption, that will rehearse or insinuate any
impurities, that will for once descend to the excitement and grati
64 
TIIE VOICE OF THE WATCHMEN.
fication of base and sinful passions, should be utterly forsaken. It
can never be patronized without violating that injunction,'Have
no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.'  Besides, there
seems to be something in the theatre or histrionic art itself that tends
to debasement and corruption. A Christian theatre never existed.
We lament that some professing Christians bring reproach upon the
cause of Christ by attending the theatre; or are pained even to see
the name of a Church member in a call for a benefit to an actor or
actress. The opera we.condemn on the same general grounds that
we do the theatre."       -
VII. The Young Men's Christian Associations of the
country condemn such amusements as dangerous to the
Christian and dishonoring to Christ.
At the General Convention of Delegates for the United
States and British Provinces, held in Albany, N. Y., in
1866, the following, introduced by Dr. Baldwin, of the
Baptist Church, Troy, were adopted:
Whereas, The time has arrived when circumstances make it our
duty as a Convention of the Young Men's Christian Associations of
the United States and British Provinces, to express our judgment
upon the relations of amusements to Christianity as embodied in
thii organization; therefore be it
Resolved, That we bear our energetic testimony against dancing,
card and billiard-playing as so distinctively worldly in their associations and unspiritual in their influences as to be utterly inconsistent with our profession as the disciples of Christ.
Resolved, That in view of the fact, in addition to the purely spiritual needs of young men, their natures crave some form of amusivg
recreation, we earnestly advise the adoption of any kind of amusement
which may be harmless in itself, and not made injurious by worldly
association, and which shall impart a home atmosphere to our rooms.
Under the operation of the clause which we have put
in italics, some of the Associations introduced amusements into their rooms; but at the next General Convention, held in Montreal, June, 1867, and after a year's
experience of the evil effects of such amusements, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted, after full
discussion, and by a very emphatic vote:
" Whereas, The younger Associations have sought counsel of the
Convention with refcrence to the methods and instrumentalities to
5
65 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
be employed in the work, especially as to the use of games of amusement in their rooms; and
"Whereas, We consider this a subject of vital importance to the
whole work of Christian Associations throughout the land and the
world; therefore
"Resolved, That this Convention regards the introduction of
games into the rooms of Young Men's Christian Associations, for the
entertainment or amusement of young men, as fraught with evil,
dangerous to the best interests of Associations, compromising the
Christian integrity, and dishonoring to the blessed Master and
Teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ."
VIII. Even the Roman Catholics condemn dancing as
tending to immorality.
At the "Plenary Council," held in Baltimore in May,
1867, they thus warn their people:
"We consider it to be our duty to warn our people against those
amusements which may easily become to them an occasion of sin,
and especially against those fashionable dances, which, as at present
carried on, are revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety,
and are fraught with the greatest danger to morality."
These are but samples of the utterances of the ministry, the religious press, and the Young Men's Christian
Associations of the country upon the subject under consideration. And while it is admitted that some who profess to be ministers of Christ openly countenance these
things, it still remains true that more than nine-tenths of
all the Protestant ministers in this land are of one mind
in warning their flocks of the pernicious influence of
popular amusements. Will the reader ponder this fact?
These men make the Bible their study, and are trying to
know and teach the right way, and to lead their people,
through grace, to God and eternal life. Hlow is it, then,
if such amusements are innocent and suitable for Christians to indulge in, that all these watchmen unite in lifting up a warning voice against them? Ought not this
fact alone to cause any Christian to pause and consider,
before he yields himself up to the amusements and follies
of the world?
66 
THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.   67
CHAPTER VI.
THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.
FROM the testimony of the Bible, and the voice of
the watchmen, I make a still further appeal to the
Reason and Conscience of the reader. And in so doing I
shall call attention to a series of indisputable facts, all of
which go to show that indulging in worldly amusements
is incompatible with the Christian profession, spirit, and
life, and should therefore be refrained from and discountenanced by all who desire to please God, do good in the
world, honor their profession, and find their way safely
to heaven.
I. No young convert ever DESIRES such amusements.
Let there be a revival in progress, and souls being
converted to Christ. Happy in the love of the Saviour,
their mouths are filled with singing, and their hearts with
a divine joy. You, reader, have often seen this in our
revivals, and probably experienced it when you first
entered the heavenly way. Had you then any desire for
worldly amusements?  Did you ever know a young convert who had? I never did. And why not? Simply
because they are satisfied with their religious enjoyments,
and feel that the vain pleasures of the world are incompatible with the love of God shed abroad in their hearts
by the Holy Ghost given unto them. Young and tender
in the cause of Christ, they are sensitive to opposing currents, and are better tests of their downward and chilling
influence and true moral character, than they will be
when they have grown cold and worldly and eager for
the pleasure of sense, as too many have done.
Again: let a young convert be overcome in an evil
hour, induced to go to a ball or a theatre, and one of two 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
things will invariably follow-either he will confess his
wrong under compunction of conscience, and thus reinstate himself, or from that hour will he go downward, till
his religion is little more than a profession, or he utterly
departs from the living God. And the same cause will
produce the same effect upon an awakened sinner. Let
him be convinced of sin, and inquiring what he shall do
to be saved, and let him be induced to stifle his convictions and attend a ball or theatre, and it will drive the
awakening Spirit of God from his soul, perhaps forever.
"A few years since, a young lady in one of our large
cities was awakened to a sense of her guilt, and seriously
asked,'What shall I do to be saved?'  Just then a
splendid ball was to be given in honor of a stranger of
great literary fame. She had delighted in such scenes.
She wished to be present in this. But conscience remonstrated. The conflict was severe; but she concluded to
go, and afterwards attend to her soul. She went, but,
alas! her convictions had left her, and in a few days she
died without hope.
"Another young lady was absent from home in a place
where God was pouring out his Spirit. With others, her
own mind was deeply impressed. But she was on a visit;
she must appear gay and cheerful; and how could she
attend to the subject of religion then. She resolved that
on her return home it should be the first business. But
at home she was waited for to attend a ball which had
been purposely delayed on her account. She had been
the charm of the circle, and they could not go on without
her.  Of course she was soon invited.  But she rememb)ered her vow and declined. Every excuse but the right
one was given; among others, she had no dress. HIer
parents promised her a splendid one if she would go.
She at length yielded, but did not attend the ball. She
was smitten with sudden disease and sent for her minister,
68 
THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.   69
not to learn the way of salvation, but to leave her
solemn warning to others, not to resist the Holy Ghost.
She was directed to the Saviour; but refusing all comfort
for herself, she died in despair."
Such sad examples might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Is not the reader satisfied that such is the natural
and legitimate effect of such things upon the minds and
hearts of young converts and of awakened sinners? And
such being the case, how conclusive is this fact alone
against the innocency of such amusements?
II. Indulging in such amusements never sits with perfect
ease upon the CONSCIENCE of any professed Ohristian.
At the best there is always more or less of misgiving
and doubt whether they have not done wrong. Despite
the specious pleas of some, and the countenance of some
professed Christians and even professed ministers, conscience will ring her bell of warning and admonition.
"Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through gain's silence, and o'er glory's din."
It whispers to us at the communion-table, at the funeral, under the preaching of the word, in the hour of sickness, "Are you not wrong?  Have you not dishonored the
Lamb of God, whose yoke you profess to bear? Have
you not caused his sacred name to be reproached and
blasphemed?" I appeal to every professed Christian who
reads these lines, and who is a votary of pleasure and
amusements, if what I write is not true? As you must
answer before God at the last and solemn day of judgment, be honest with your own soul, and answer now, if
conscience does not condemn you whenever you let yourself down from your high and holy profession to join the
gay and giddy throng in the amusements and follies of
the world?
III. The irreligious world generally regard such practices
as unbecoming in professors of religion. 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
For the truth of this statement I appeal to the unconverted reader.  Do you like to see a Presbyterian dance?
or a Baptist in a theatre? Would you think nothing
amiss if you saw a Methodist playing cards?  "Look at
her! Don't she dance splendidly for a Methodist!" said a
]ooker-on at a private "hop," where one of our silly young
women took the floor. And with what a laugh of scorn
did he and others near him look at the horrible spectacle!
How was she disgraced in their estimation, while she thus
"crucified the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open
shame." And more than one unconverted person has
said when this subject has been under discussion, "Well,
I make no profession of religion, and I like balls and
theatres, but I don't like to see professors of religion at
them." No! the public sense of propriety and consistency condemns the letting down of religion to the low
standard of the gay and unbelieving world. Men feel
that they must die-that they may hereafter wish to
turn to God-and if so they want a better religion to lean
upon than a religion of pleasure and dissipation.
A star actor was playing in the city of Washington.
He drew crowded houses.  Mr. and Mrs. B             were
members of a Christian church in an Eastern city. They
wished to hear this actor. It was Saturday evening, and
that night was to end the engagement. They had many
scruples; but they were away from home and friends, and
no human eye would probably recognize them. The
tempter prevailed, and they went.
In the very first act, a gentleman sitting by them, a
perfect stranger, said sneeringly to his companion, "A
pretty place, I should think, for church members Saturday
night I" IHIe did not refer to them; he pointed to another
part of the house. Yet none the less did the thrust go
home. They were humbled and sorrow-smitten. They
could not stay, but went back to their home filled with a
70 
THIE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.   71
humiliating sense of how easy a thing it is for one of
Christ's little ones to become a stumbling-block and rock
of offence.
When the writer was pastor of the old John Street
Church in New York, in 1854, he invited a local preacher
from Northern New  York, with whom  he was well
acquainted, to preach for him one Sabbath evening. As
we were leaving the house a stranger called us aside, and
inquired, "Who was that who preached to-night?"  We
replied, and he responded, "Well, I saw him in a theatre
last night, and I don't wish to hear any such preachers!"
Thus was the cause of God wounded in the house of its
professed friends, and the Christian ministry scandalized.
IV. Such practices DESTROY THE RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE of those who indulge in them.
You who indulge in these things may think otherwise,
but it is so. You are the last persons to admonish others
of the error of their ways. You have no heart to do it,
and if you had it would be of no avail. "Physician, heal
thyself," would be the pertinent reply. Perhaps you only
play cards and dance, and wish to keep your children
from "Niblo's" and  the  "Bowery."  But they ask,
"What is the difference?" and you have no satisfactory
answer.  If one is right, why not the other?  You may
keep up your church connection, and not be disciplined,
and get along in a cold and dead way till death comes;
but so far as your religious influence is concerned, your
"salt has lost its savor," and your light has become gross
darkness. Your religious influence is lost to God and his
cause, and you are leading sinners, not to religion, God,
and heaven, but down the broad road which many travel,
ending in eternal death.
These are plain words, but they are written in love and
from a full heart. Let me illustrate my meaning more
fully. 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
Suppose, reader, you were under religious awakening,
or about to die, and wished some one to pray with and for
you, that God might be merciful to your soul; whom
would you send for?  Would you send for Mr. A., that
you saw leading a polka, or Mr. C., that you saw whirling
in a waltz a week before? Would you prefer the man of
cards and ninepins, and billiards and theatres?
Never!  You have no confidence in the prayers of such
professors. Nay, rather your heart and confidence would
turn to the self-denying, cross-bearing, covenant-keeping
disciples of Jesus, who, at the expense of being called
singular and "straight-laced," and even hated by some
of the irreligious and by formal and cold-hearted professors, have "kept the faith," walked humbly with God,
abstained from all appearance of evil, led praying and
cross-bearing lives, with their affections anchored beyond
the stars, and are
",Watching the opening of the eternal gates,
To the eternal years."
These are the men and women that sinners send for to
talk and pray with them when they come to die, and not
for card-players, dancers, and theatre-goers. You know
this is so; and what a testimony is this to the incompatibility of such amusements with the Christian profession
and a life of prayer and true piety!
IV. Indulging in worldly amusements is FATAL TO
REVIVALS OF RELIGION in the Church.
Most Christians believe that revivals are necessary,
and to be prayed and labored for, and that when the
Lord pours out his Spirit in answer to prayer, it is the
duty of Christians to talk with the irreligious, pray for
them, in private and in public, and warn and exhort
them to flee from the wrath to come. But what dancing professor ever did this, or had any heart to do
it? What dancing or theatre-going Methodist, for in
72 
THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.   73
stance, ever felt like going into the altar during a revival,
and weeping and praying with penitents seeking God's
mercy?  We never heard of such an instance.  And so
far as evangelical Christians are concerned, this question
of amusements is really the question whether the spirit
and pleasures of the world shall overflow the churches,
extinguish their revival altar-fires, obliterate all distinctions between saint and sinner, and write "the glory is
departed," over the doors of all our Christian temples;
or, when the enemy comes in like a flood, we shall lift
up  a standard against him, warn and admonish our
young people, point to the old paths, make the voice of
God to be heard, and, whether popular or unpopular,
blessed or condemned by worldly-minded and pleasureseeking'professors, save the Church of Christ from utter
apostasy, and the name of Christian from everlasting reproach.
V. Such practices invariably destroy all relish for spiritual and divine things.
The devoted, self-denying, and faithful Christian loves
the things of God. To him God's commandments are
not grievous, but joyous. His delight is in the law of the
Lord.  He loves the Bible, the Church, the Sabbath, the
sanctuary, the worship of God, and all the ordinances of
his house. And the more heart-searching and spiritual
the meeting or service, the more he delights in it. Hence
he loves the class and prayer-meetings and love-feasts,
and the society and conversation of the truly spiritual
and devoted. But let him imbibe a passion for chess, or
cards, or dancing, or the theatre, and how soon will
all this be changed! How soon will the heart begin
to lose its relish for the things of God, duty become a
burden, religion degenerate into mere form and profession, and the spirit and power and divine peace he once
enjoyed, all depart from the soul! Such I believe to be
7 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
the universal experience. If we love the world, and the
things of the world, the love of God and divine things
cannot and will not abide in us.
VI. No votary of these amusements ever looked upon his
past life with pleasure and approval in the hour of death.
The bed of death is certainly a proper stand-point
from which to look at this question.
"A deathbed's a detector of the heart."
We are traveling to the grave; and, if not before, we
shall be honest before God and our own souls when we
come to lie upon our dying pillow, and await the moment
of the giving up of the ghost.
Now, although thousands die every year who bless God
in their last hours that they were enabled through grace
to renounce the world and sin, deny themselves, and live
cross-bearing and consistent lives, who ever heard of one
who looked back from before the gates of death and
blessed God for the hours spent at the card-table, or in
the ball-room, or in the theatre? Nay, rather the
thoughts of such a life plant thorns in the pillow of death.
I know whereof I affirm. I have buried not a few who
have confessed before death, and with burning tears and
sorrow, their wanderings from God; and that they were
first seduced from his ways by the very amusements for
which some plead. And unless some who now indulge in
these things repent, and take a different course, a gloomy
hour of death is before them; and similar confessions and
regrets will be expressed when it may be too late for ever!
In view of my past experience as a pastor, I could weep
when I think of such scenes and realize the effects of
worldly amusements and dissipations upon the closing
scenes of mortal life.  May  God  so awaken  all the
Churches upon this subject, that the blood of slaughtered
souls may not be found at the last in the skirts of our
garments!
74 
THE VOICE OF REASON AND CONSCIENCE.   75
VII. No parent or child was ever comforted  by the
thought that a departed relative was a lover of cards and
dancing, or a frequenter of the theatre.
When death enters a family, and removes a beloved
son or daughter to the cold and silent grave, what a consolation it is if the parents can say, "Well, we went to
the house of God in company! She loved the churoh and
its services, was devoted to the class-meeting and Sabbathschool, and her young life seemed all given to the service
of the Saviour, into whose presence she has now been
called." Oh! how many tears have such recollections
wiped away! How many otherwise aching hearts have
they relieved and comforted!
And so with surviving children, whose parents are
gone. How precious the memory of the hours of family
prayer-the voice of the father, now hushed in death, as
he used to read to us the Word of Life, and lift up his
hands and voice morning and evening in prayer to the
Father of all mercies! What a legacy are such hallowed
memories, treasured in the hearts of children! and how
salutary their influence not only in mitigating the sorrows
of bereavement, but in restraining and directing their
footsteps in coming life!
But how different the recollection of time spent with
the departed in the theatre or the ball-room! What
parent who has buried a promising son was ever comforted by the recollection that he was passionately fond
of billiards, or cards, or an excellent player, or that the
theatre was his delight?  What child was ever comforted
or benefited by the thought that a departed father or
mother used to dance and play cards, and go to theatres
and operas with them? There is no consolation in such
thoughts. Such memories are ever unwelcome. We would
sooner forget than linger over them. They are unpleasant even to the unconverted. And why? Because even 
POPULAR - AMUSEMENTS.
their conscience and sense of propriety and moral right
tell them that such practices are incompatible with a safe
and happy death, and a bright and glorious hereafter.
The very thought throws a shadow over the eternal pros pects of the departed, in spite of all our charity and
affection, and apologies and excuses.
All this, it seems to me, shows most conclusively that a
life of pleasure and indulgence in worldly amusements is
not the life by which we are to become prepared for the
world beyond the grave. And if not, why should Christians, who profess to be seeking a home above, indulge in
them or countenance them? If no young convert, warm
in his first love, ever desires such vanities-if they are
fatal to early piety and destructive of religious seriousness-if they never sit with ease upon the conscience-if
they destroy the religious influence of those who indulge
in them-if such indulgence is fatal to revivals of religion
-if it destroys our relish for things spiritual and divine
if no votary of pleasure ever looked upon his past life
with pleasure and approval in the hour of death-and if
no parent or child was ever comforted by the thought
that a departed relative was a lover of billiards, or cards,
or dancing, why should Christians indulge in or apologize
for them? Why not renounce them wholly and for ever,
and henceforth be altogether on the Lord's side?
No candid reader, it is believed, will deny the truth of
any one of the above propositions. How, then, can you,
if a professed Christian, practice or excuse a course of life
which produces results so disastrous to souls, destructive
to Christian influence and heart religion, injurious to the
cause of Christ, and ultimately painful to our own hearts
in a dying hour, and to those who survive us when we are
gone?
Do not all these considerations stamp such indulgences
as wrong, and say to all who fear God, "Enter not into
76 
APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES.
the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil
men? Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass
away."
CHAPTER VII.
APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES CONSIDERED.
AFTER what has been said of the intrinsic evils of cardplaying, dancing, etc., and of their effects upon Christian influence and personal piety, this chapter ought not
to be necessary.  If what we have written be true, there
can be no excuse for indulging in these things, or sufficient
apology for those who do it. And yet, for the sake of
some who are doing wrong, and perhaps think they have
good reasons for their course, it may be well to devote a
few pages to the notice of some of their excuses.
I. It is said by some that "THEY ARE NOWHERE  FORBIDDEN in the word of God."
In one sense this is true. They are nowhere forbidden
by name. Neither is horse-racing, gambling, lotteries,
arson, or piracy. And yet they are forbidden in fact, as
we have elsewhere abundantly shown. And to attempt
to satisfy one's conscience by such a plea is not only to
trifle with a most serious subject, but to offer an excuse
which we would not presume to offer in regard to any
other folly.
This excuse is as old as the days of Tertullian, in the
second century; and in reply to it he says, "Some people's faith is either too full of scruples or too lax of
sense. Nothing will serve to settle them but a plain text
of Scripture. They hover in uncertainty, because it is
not said as expressly'Thou shalt not go to the play     7 
77 
POPULAR AMIUSEMENTS.
house,' as it is said'Thou shalt not kill.'  But this
looks more like fencing than argument.  For we have
the meaning of the prohibition, though not the sound, in
the first Psalm:'Blessed is the man that walketh not in
the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful."'
II. " The Bible says'THERE IS A TIME TO DANCE;'
and therefore dancing must be right."
By no means; for the tame passage says, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heavens-a time to "hate" and "a time of war."
Eccl. iii. 1, 8. Now if the expression "a time to mourn
and a time to dance," means that dancing is right, then
the fact that there is a time to hate and a time of war
proves that hatred and war are right. And as it is said
that there is a time to everything, it follows that everything
is right-theft, arson, adultery, and murder! And yet
such is the reasoning by which some professed Christians
seek to satisfy their consciences that it is right to unite
with the ungodly in dancing polkas and waltzes!
III. It i said, "WE  MUST HAVE SOME AMUSEMENTS.
No man can live without them."
1. If it is said that we must have some relaxation from
severe study, or business, or physical toil, no one will
dispute it. The appointment of a Sabbath for man and
beast, and of a night for sleep, is a recognition of this
necessity. So far, then, there is no dispute. But granting that recreation of some kind is a necessity of our
nature, there is a long list of innocent exercises and
diversions, such as walking, riding, skating, rowing a
boat, singing, cheerful conversation, concerts, lectures,
debates, visiting public libraries, galleries of art, museums of natural sciences, navy yards and arsenals,
manufactories of various kinds, &c. So that even if " we
must have recreations," it is by no means necessary that
78 
APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES.
we should go to a cock-fight or a horse-race, a ball or a
theatre.
2. If such amusements are indispensable to our wellbeing, how is it that so many tens of thousands in all
ages have got along without them, and been all the better
for it? As a class, the professed Christians of all ages
have, to a very large extent, abstained from such things.
And have they been any the less happy on that account?
Have any great numbers of them become insane or
broken down prematurely for want of recreation?
The truth is, that the amusements herein condemned
are not a necessity of our present well-being or indispensable to our happiness. They only become a necessity
when we have given ourselves up to their fatal spell, and
lost all relish for more rational and innocent diversions;
as strong brandy becomes a necessity to one whose fine
sensibilities are all burned out by alcohol. And the fact
that thousands never know any thing about this "necessity" for the excitements of the billiard room or the
stage, shows that it is an artifial want, rather than one
that has its foundation in nature.
3. Men and women do not visit places of amusement,
or dance or play billiards at home, because they think it
necessary to their mental and moral well-being, but
because they have a passion for such things. Why not,
then, say so frankly? "I love the ball-room and the
theatre, and therefore attend them." For this, after all
is the real, and usually the only, reason. There is no
weight, therefore, in this specious plea of "necessity."
IV. Of the same class is the plea that such amusements
are NECESSARY TO HEALTH AND LONG LIFE.
1. No ingenuity or invention can make it appear that
to sit motionless and in a profound study for hours at a
time, and often till late at night, over cards or chess, or
dominoes, is conducive to health. There is no muscular
79 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
exercise whatever in such games, and the inaction and
fixed attention, often combined with strong excitement
and late hours, are positively injurious to health, rather
than beneficial.
2. The same may be said of dancing and theatre-going,
as elsewhere shown. They are destructive of health and
life, and lay hundreds in premature graves every year.
"I'm numb all over. My hands and feet fall asleep
without a moment's warning. What does it mean?"
asked a lady of a physician in Washington.  He looked
at her in amazement. Could she possibly be so obtuse
as not to know the price she paid for nature's broken
laws?  "Mrs.," said he, in a spirit of Christian
frankness, "you are living too fast. Five nights at the
theatre this week, and five late suppers! Nature is giving you a gentle hint. By-and-by she will give you a
blow, if you do not mend your ways."  The woman
colored and said nothing. Her face was haggard with
what she called her harmless dissipation. She had two
little ones in a Northern city, and all around her in
Washington were sick and dying soldiers; yet she could
not live, she said, without the excitement of the stage.
And so it is with thousands. They dance, and carouse,
and attend theatres and operas, and sit up nights and sleep
days, and eat at unseasonable hours, till health is broken,
and premature decay overtakes them. Then they resort
to artificial beautifiers of various kinds, try all remedies,
sink down under consumption, and are borne to the grave.
And yet we hear Christians plead for such amusements
as necessary to health!
3. Perhaps no people on earth have been more selfdenying as to such amusements than the Friends or
Quakers. And yet they are a proverbially healthy and
long-lived people. Next to them, I presume, the Methodists have as generally discarded these things for the last
80 
APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES.
hundred years as any other people. And yet who ever
heard of a Friend or a Methodist who died for want of
billiards and hornpipes? What philosopher ever made
the discovery that Methodists die earlier than the votaries
of the ball-room and the stage? The fact is, that if there
be any difference, it is in favor of those who abstain from
such things, and not against them. And the well-known
fact that, whatever men may argue, no person goes to
such places of amusement from considerations of health,
is a sufficient answer to all such reasoning.
4. It is probably true that ninepins, and playing ball
and pitching quoits are, in some cases, promotive of
health. But not as usually practiced. The exercise is
too violent and irregular to be of any essential service.
This is taught by both physiology and experience.  Exercise, to be beneficial, must be moderate at first, and
increased gradually. It must also be regular, day after
day-conditions that are seldom met in playing ball or
ninepins, and much less in dancing. So that even here
the plea of healthfulness is altogether fallacious.
5. But even if it be true that two or three of the popular amusements are healthful, yet, as there are other diversions quite as healthful, and not liable to the abuses and
evil associations to which these are exposed, is it not the
duty of the Christian to forego the physical good that
might possibly result from their use, rather than expose
himself and the cause of Christ to reproach, and set an
example which may lead others far beyond where he
goes, and perhaps prove their eternal ruin.
The plea of" healthfulness," then, is a mere subterfuge,
and one which no one of us will ever wish to name at the
judgment-seat of Christ.
V. Others tell us that "such amusements are all right in
themselves-t i  only their ABUSE that should be condemned."
6
81 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
Such persons will ask you, "Is there any sin in a piece
of pasteboard with a few spots on it? Is it a sin to take
it up? to look at it? to lay it down?"  And so they go
on to analyze card-playing. So as to dancing: "Is it
wrong to hear music? to lift up the right foot, the left
foot? to move it this way, that way? to take hold of
hands?"  How  puerile all such  reasoning!  As well
might ones inquire when forbidden by law to carry a
revolver, "Is there any sin in lead? any in powder? any
in the steel barrels? any in pereusion caps?"  Of course
there is no danger from any one ofthese by itself; but let
all be combined in the loaded revolver, and then put it
into a hand that has a passionate heart behind it, and it
becomes a weapon so deadly that it requires to be
banished from civilized society.
So of worldly amusements: in themselves, as mere
sounds or movements, there may be no wrong in them.
But they are never found separated from their attendant
evils. We must take them as they are, and not as we
imagine they might be.  Thefruit is invariably bad, and
the trees that bear such bitter fruits should be cut down
or plucked up by the roots.
An exact parallel to this reasoning was the argument
we used to hear a few years since, that "slavery was not
wrong per se (in itself); its abmses  only were wrong."
But as the abuses were never divorced from the institution till they found a common grave, so will it be with
popular amusements-the "abuses" will always attend
them, till they all die together under the beaming light
of a purer and more exalted Christianity.
VI. It is said that "the way to prevent the people from
resorting to criminal and dangerous amusements is to provide them with innocent and safe ones."
There may be an element of truth in this proposition;
but the question is, which are the "innocent and safe"
82 
APOLOGIES AND EXCUSES.
amusements? Men bet now on games of ball and chess,
as well as upon dice and cards and horse-races. Select
concerts and lectures are innocent and safe. So is parlor
singing, with the piano or melodeon. So of many other
things already mentioned in this chapter. But whoever
attempts to guard his children against the desolating
current of worldly amusements, with all their surroundings and influences, by providing amusements at homeparlor dancing, cards, &c.-will find out at last, and perhaps when it is too late to counteract the fatal mistake,
that to attempt to keep our children from the "gamblinghells," and public ball-rooms, and theatres, by giving
them a substitute at home, is like giving them ale and
wine at home to prevent their using gin and brandy in
public. We cannot thus counteract poison by poison in
morals, as we may in medical practice. We rather
create an appetite which leads on to ruin.
This specious argument is thus ably disposed of by
Rev. Dr. Lore:
"We fault the philosophy of the advocates of amusements for Christians, because it teaches that the evils of
excess, in doubtful practices, are to be avoided by engaging in them moderately. The falsity of this as a principle has been practically demonstrated a thousand times.
The true philosophy is, never to begin a doubtful practice.
To swear a little, lie a little, break the Sabbath a little,
gamble a little, dance a little, read novels a little, drink
a little, in order to avoid becoming a drunkard, or a
novel-reader, or a gambler, or a Sabbath-breaker, or a
liar, or swearer, or a gay, giddy trifler, is wretched
teaching. Yet this is the teaching of the amusement
advocates. Christian fathers and mothers are advised to
introduce the lively dance, the absorbing game of whist
or euchre, and the interesting novel; only those recommended by religious papers, or, it may be, written by. a
83 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
minister of Christ and published in the New York Ledger,
just to make home attractive for the children; for they
nmust have amusement, and thus save them from excess
and ruin. What infatuation! How sugar-coated this
pill of poison! The road to drunkenness is not more
direct from the wine party, than to gambling and trifling
from the dancing party and whist table in the social
circle. These are the beginnings, leading to the legitimate end. All may not reach this end; yet safety
consists in touching not, tasting not, handling not the
unclean thing; but avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it
and pass away. Such is the direction of Divine Wisdom.
Contrary teaching, from the pulpit, or the religious press,
we are constrained to say, is exceedingly dangerous in its
tendency. The fruits of it already appear in the lost
children of hundreds of Christian families, who attempted
to save them on this false principle."
.. VII. There are other apologies and excuses to which
wve might devote attention and space-such as the example of other professed Christians; the plea that we only
indulge in private; that we indulge in only a few, and not
in all; that we wish our children to be "accomplished,"
etc. But they are unworthy of serious consideration. No
man's conscience was ever satisfied with any such excuses;
and why should we labor to refute them when his own
conscience and judgment condemn them?
The truth is, that no Christian ever had or ever can
have a sufficient reason or excuse for breaking covenant
with his God, and going back again to the beggarly
elements of the world. And every man and woman who
professes religion, and especially every Methodist who
indulges in these things, knows that they are doing
wrong, that they do not stand where they once did in
religion, and that they have lost ground and are still
losing ground.
84 
OUR COVENANT OBLIGATIONS.
How is it with you, reader? Perhaps you are one of
our rich and fashionable city Methodists, indulging in
most of the amusements and follies of the world. Do
you enjoy religion as you once did  If a father, do you
pray in your family?  Do you read the Bible and pray in
secret?  In a word, are you half as faithful and happy in
religion as you were years ago? And if not, are you
half as safe? Most certainly not. For our prospect for
heaven depends upon our meetness for the inheritance of
the saints in light. And one great reason why you have
lost your religious enjoyment, and become cold and
worldly, is probably because you have given way to the
spirit of the world, and have thus been shorn of your
strength, and become like other men. Oh, may you see
where you stand, and come back fully to God and his
service, before you go hence and be no more!
. CHAPTER VIII.
OUR COVENANT OBLIGATIONS.
THE  sacredness of treaties, marriage contracts, and
other covenant obligations is recognized by all civilized
communities, whether religious or otherwise. How much
more, then, should solemn religious covenants be held
sacred and binding by a people bearing the sacred name
of Christian! Let us inquire, then, what are our covenant obligations, and the vows that are upon us, in regard to this question of amusements.
I. Is not indulging in the popular amusements of the day,
such as dancing, chess, billiards, dominoes, theatre-going, etc.,
A BREACH OF THE RULES OF THE CHURCHA to which you
belong, and which you have solemnly promised to keep?
8
85 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
The General Rules forbid "the taking of such diversions
as cannot be used in the name of the Lord Jesus;" and
certainly you cannot play cards, or dance, or go to a
theatre in the name of the Lord Jesus.  To indulge in
these things, therefore, is to trample upon the rules of
the Church of Christ, of which you profess to be a loyal
member.  Is that either consistent or morally right?
II. To indulge in such follies is to WANTONLY DISREGARD AND BREAK YOUR BAPTISMAL COVENANT.
When you stood before God's altar for baptism you
were asked, "Dost thou renounce the devil and all his
works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all
covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of
the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow or be led by them?"
And  your answer was, "I renounce them all."  That
covenant was between God and your soul, and was made
before God's altar, in the presence of the church and the
witnessing angels.  It was written in the book of God's
remembrance, as a covenant well ordered and sure, and
never to be forgot.  And the lapse of twenty or thirty
years, perhaps, since you entered into it, and the death
of many who heard it, in no way weakens its binding obligations, or palliates the guilt of now disregarding it.
You know that it was a covenant not for a few years, but
* for life. God lives to witness your faithfulness or your
apostasy. And if you now cast this covenant from you,
and go again into the sins and follies of the world, what
are you but a covenant-breaker? And how do the
prophets denounce, in God's name, all who in their day
"despise the oath in breaking the covenant?"-Ezekiel
xvi. 18. And you know also that St. Paul classes "covenant-breakers" with "haters of God," fornicators, and
murderers.- Rom. i. 31. And if it be a sin to break
covenant with man, how much more to break covenant
with God!
86 
OUR COVENANT OBLIGATIONS.
You may think this a trifling matter; but depend upon
it, it is a very serious one. God, and the minister who
took your vows in God's name, and baptized you in the
name of the Trinity, and the people who were witnesses
and prayed for you, and have gone on, some of them, to
the better land, were all serious and in earnest. And
so were you. And still more, you then understood the
covenant just as I now apply it-as a renunciation of all
worldly pleasures, pomp, and folly; and you meant all
that you said.
Beware, then, how you break the covenant of your
God. It is for your soul, your life, for long eternity! If
you have sinned already in this thing, oh come back to
your allegiance, confess your error, and plead for mercy,
and ask God to renew the covenant which you have
broken, as he renewed the tables of stone to Moses; and
then henceforth keep the covenant of your God till life is
over, and you are beyond the tempter's power for ever.
III. The low and unspiritual views and evil example of
other professed Christians in no degree absolve you from
the obligation to keep these solemn religious covenants inviolate till the hour of death.
You may have been told, and even come to believe,
that the Methodists of the last hundred years were too
strict in such matters-that the rules and covenant
which you solemnly promised to keep were unnecessary,
and therefore are not binding. "Episcopalians, Unitarians, Swedenborgians, and Spiritualists dance and go to
theatres," say some among us, "and why may not Methodists?" And even some professed ministers of Christ
advocate these things. Well, if you dare trust your
endless salvation to such a type of Christianity, so called,
there is no reason why you should deny yourself anything
in this world. But you should go with them openly, and
87 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
not profess to be a Methodist while you are living like a
Universalist or a Mormon.
The opinions of false teachers, and the practices of
backslidden and pleasure-seeking professors, will be no
excuse for you in the day of judgment. The vows of God
are upon you. You belong to a Church that for a century has borne a noble testimony, both by precept and
example, against these sins, and God has made her like
the stars of heaven for multitude. And her voice from
press and pulpit is still against these corrupting and souldestroying practices. And if you lead the way, or in
any wise aid in dragging the noble and God-honored
Methodist Episcopal Church down to the dead level of
Unitarianism and Ritualism, and thus rob her of her
spiritual power for good in this land, depend upon it God
will hold you responsible for the wrong when it will be
too late to correct it.
CHAPTER IX.
FINAL COUNSELS AND ENTREATIES.
A FEW additional suggestions and entreaties, addressed
to different classes in the Church, and I am done. And,
I. To those who are already indulging in those popular
amsements.
1. I cannot believe it possible, that in view of the
preceding facts and arguments, you can believe such
practices either expedient or morally right. They lead
to evil, grieve the Spirit of God, eat out vital piety and
Christian enjoyment, dishonor the cause of Christ, destroy religious influence, grieve your brethren and sisters
in Christ, cause your ministers anxiety for you per
88 
FINAL COUNSELS AND ENTREATIES.
sonally, and for the welfare of the Church of God, wound
and harden your own conscience and religious sensibilities; and thus tend to hinder your usefulness, separate
you from your brethren, and, as I honestly believe, jeopard
your eternal salvation. Is this an over-estimate of the
case? I do not believe it is.
And all this for what? What good is accomplished?
What end attained that is of any real value to you or
others, either for this world or the world to come? It
may gratify an unfortunate passion you have acquired
for these things, and please you for a few days, or years
even, but how will it be in the end thereof? What will
there be left to cheer and strengthen the heart when the
face is wrinkled with age, the eye dim, and the locks thin
and white? Can you afford, as an immortal being traveling to the bar of God, with but one fleeting life before
you, and perils on every hand, to take any unnecessary
risks of losing your soul? If there is even a doubt as to
the innocence of such amusements, ought you to indulge
in them?
2. But you may be convinced that you are wrong, and
resolve to do differently in future. If so, let me suggest
a course that I think will be most effectual, most safe for
the future, most honorable to Christ, and most satisfactory
to your own soul now and in the hour of death.
(1). From this day onward renounce all such amusements-games, dancing, theatres, &c., and indulge in
them no more. I say ALL, for no half-way self-denial
will answer here.
(2). Come out and confess your error before the church,
in some public prayer meeting. This will wipe out the
stain you may have brought upon religion and Methodism, reinstate you in the confidence of your brethren,
strengthen you in your new purpose by a public committal, and give to Christ and his cause the benefit of your
8 *
89
Is I  
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
example and influence in reforming others, or warning
them of a like error. If you have erred in this thing,
you owe it to your brethren, whose feelings you may have
injured, and to that Saviour.who "sought you when a
stranger wandering from the fold of God," to do as I
suggest. It may seem unnecessary, and a humiliation,
but do it, my dear brother or sister. It will do you good,
in conscience, influence, standing and enjoyment. By all
means take this decided, thorough, and Christian course;
and if so, you will never regret it.
(3). If you have a family who have been influenced by
your opinions, conversation and example, talk with them
plainly upon the subject, confess to them your mistake,
tell them of your new purpose, and thus acquire again in
your own household that confidence which hath great
recompense of reward.
(4). Then take hold with others, who are alarmed for
the purity and future efficiency of our God-honored
Church, and help us to stay the tide of worldly conformity that threatens her spirituality and usefulness for the
century to come. Send this pamphlet to your rich
Methodist brother, who ought to read it, or, if need be,
send for a dozen or twenty through your minister, and
circulate them among your acquaintances, to whom it
might become a blessing. May our God enable you not
only to do all that is right in regard to your own past
course and future peace and usefulness, but to become a
messenger of good to others in this respect, so long as
God shall spare you in this world.
II. To our younger members, who are sometimes tempted
to mingle with the ungodly in their worldly pleasures.
Perhaps you were once fond of these things, embraced
religion, renounced them, and have thus far lived a crossbearing and self-denying life; but recently, seeing others
members, older than yourself, indulging in them, and
90
I/ 
FINAL COUNSELS AND ENTREATIES.
hearing their excuses for so doing, are often tempted to
relax your former purposes, and go back, in this respect,
to your habits before conversion. If this be the case, I
entreat you to weigh the matter well and seriously before you take such a step. It may cost you your eternal
all. God says, "Be not conformed to this world." Are
you prepared to take the risk and go back, now, after all
that God has done for you, grieve the Spirit, break your
solemn vows, dishonor your profession, grieve your brethren, and perhaps throw yourself out of the Church of
Christ, and out of heaven at last? May God forbid!
No, my young brother or sister. Rather let your right
hand forget its cunning. You have made a good profession before many witnesses, oh honor it to the end of life!
Be a living, consistent, self-denying, cros-bearing Christian!
Christ needs such witnesses and laborers; and to this end
were you called to the fellowship of his saints. And
now, as it is a time of special effort to corrupt the Church,
and divest her of all spiritual power to reform the world,
show yourself true to your Saviour who died for youenduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
May I not hope, as I pen these lines, that the young
men and young women of the Church will show, by their
consistency and steadfastness, that if the Church is dragged
down by the gay and rich families of our cities and
villages to the level of the unbelieving world, they shall
take all the responsibility themselves, and never truthfully say that the younger members desired or encouraged
it. May every young reader "stand up for Jesus."
III. I appeal TO ALL CLASS-LEADERS to aid us in resisting the flood of worldly pleasures that now seek to overflow the Church.
I assume that you agree with the views set forth in this
pamphlet, and realize the present danger. You are subpastors and under-shepherds, having a special charge to
91
Il 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
er a portion of each local church.  Will you
Tour influence fully upon the Lord's side in this
peril?  I believe most of you will.  Speak in
y es of the dire effects of such amusements.  Talk
viduals upon the subject.  If necessary, "re uke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine."
rtions of this tract to them, or lend it, or, still
you can do so, get a copy for every member of
s. Many need light upon the subject; and if we
our beloved Church in its original simplicity and
have a hard battle to fight, and need all the
at our command.  And upon any such subject
f s are more effective than a concentrated and
en printed treatise.  The enemies of evangelical
ity are now doing much by such means.   Let us
m with their own weapons, and trust God  for
ry.
I ecially do I  appeal  to THIE  MINISTRY-the
upon the walls of Zion-to do their full duty in
in our history as a Church.
not write to convince you that if the things I
are tolerated in and overflow the Church, our
e revival spirit dies out, and our future will be
perous  than  the past.  This we  all know.
it necessary for me to labor to convince you
ckedness of these corruptions.  We are agreed
Thank God, I have never yet heard a Methoster plead or apologize  for card-playing or
or chess or theatres.
ay it not be true, nevertheless, that some of us
failed to do our whole duty in warning and
ing the people of the threatening danger?  God
us watchmen to the house of Israel, to warn
e from him.  We have many duties and cares
nsibilities, and cannot give prominence to every
92 
FINAL COUNSELS AND ENTREATIES.
thing, but have we said anything in our pulpits in regard to this new and special danger? If not, let us give
it our formal and solemn attention. There is no time to
be lost. Take it up deliberately and prayerfully, make
full preparation, give notice of your purpose, that all who
.desire may hear you, and, if necessary, give two or three
Sabbath evenings to the subject. If there is anything in
this tract that will help you, use it freely.  It will be no
plagiarism; for this is one of the objects of its preparation.
As stated in the advertisements, this and others of the
series are "designed to aid Christian pastors in meeting
the various forms of skepticism and irreligion so rife in
our country at the present time." If, then, you find anything in these pages that you can use to the glory of God
in preaching, appropriate it as freely as if found in any
library, or by personal and original investigation. And
may the God of our fathers bless you in every effort to
do your whole duty in his holy fear!
2. After preaching upon the subject, you may deem it
expedient to supplement your labors by a supply of these
tracts. The printed page gives opportunity for deliberate
weighing of its contents. If this pamphlet goes into a
family, it will be read by many who will not hear the
sermons, and will remain to be read when your voice
will be heard with your present flock no more.
I speak the more freely upon this point, from the fact
that I am not the publisher of these pamphlets, and have
no profits from their sale beyond a small copy-right for the
time spent in writing it. And being in earnest upon the
general subject, and having confidence in the truth and
in the printed page, I do feel that if a copy of this
pamphlet could be placed in every Methodist family in
the land within a year from this date, it woud help to
settle this question of amusements among us for the next
twenty years. And a few dollars and a little effort
>F1
l   iF l
93 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.
ccomplish this in each individual charge in the
May we not count on the ministry to stand
as one man in this emergency, till the whole
lall again see that, whatever others may do,
odist Episcopal Church is not to become a fra f prayerless, card-playing, tippling, dancing and
oing professors?  If the enemy comes in like a
us lift up a standard against him.
appeal to ALL METHODISTS to act wisely and reli  this hour of peril.  Ponder the truths you have
ding-the intrinsic evils of fashionable amusehe voice of the Bible-the voice of those who
er you in the Lord-the voice of reason and connd the vows you are under to your Maker, and
urselves "on the Lord's side" in this matter, in
1 deed, and by influence and example.
h it does not become us to claim to be more rehan other evangelical denominations, it is not
to say that we have, so far, as a Church, a good
efore God and man upon this subject, and that,
he Friends or Quakers, we are the last denomihich the irreligious world expect to see strike our
sin and worldly folly. This is seen in the fact that
ill ridiculed for our peculiarities in this respect;
from the fact that though little is thought of it
e ungodly see a Unitarian or an Episcopalian
or at a theatre, the same thing in a Methodist.is
with hisses of derision or a shout of satanic
Why is this, if it be not that the world expect
b ings of us as a people?  Here, then, arises a
s sponsibility. We are regarded as the chief moral -
ter in this land against sinful amusements in the
bQth on account of our professed position and
pon the subject, and our great numbers  and
fluence in the nation.  Other denominations,
94 
,                  * o"
,,::o
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS:
The following from Thle New  York Evangelist is toob
valuable to be lost, and may appropriately constitute the
closing page of this pamphlet:
"Any reader of The Independent, for a few months
past, might suppose that the desire for worldly amuse ments had become epidemic in the Church in spite of all
sanitary regulations. * * * This special pleading  for
amusements to relieve the surplus piety of the Church,
reminds me  of a crazy clergyman  I once met.  He
thought the process of this world's conversion altogether
too slow. He believed that the prophet had really pre dicted that a nation should be born in a day, and his
study was now to fulfil the prediction.  He  hit upon the
expedient of reforming the devil. His plan was to baptize the devil, and thereby regenerate him and take him
into the Church and make him subject to its watch and
discipline, which he thought would leave the world free
to be converted by the gospel.
"Why can't such Christians and Christian ministers as
need worldly amusements to reduce the plethora of their
piety, baptize social dissipation, and regenerate it for the
use of the Church? Then one evening of the week could
be devoted to cards, another to drams, another to prayer,
another to dancing, another to the theatre, and another
to billiards, and so on to the end of the chapter. It
might be needful at first, to quiet any existing superstition, to open each exercise with prayer, and close each
prayer-meeting with a dance, or a game of whist. Wheni
the things of the world are thus baptized and regenerated,
and taken into the Church and put under its watch and
care, surely the millenium cannot be far off."
~
96 
FINAL COUNSELS AND ENTREATIES.
who mourn over recent signs of apostasy in their own
ranks, and are struggling to avert the ingress of worldly
folly, look to us with outstretched hands and prayer,
to be faithful to our principles and our antecedents, and
to stand up firmly with them, rank to rank and hand to
hand, till victory again turns on the Lord's side.
That we are recognized as the "pioneer Church," in
revival efforts and successes, the whole world now admits,
That we are numerous, and widespread, and influential
for good or evil, is not denied. That other denominations can successfully fight the battles of truth and
righteousness in this land without us, none are willing to
affirm. Strong and true and zealous and successful as
they may  be, they look upon the M. E. Church as
the "Imperial Guard" of evangelical progress in this
country-the "forlorn hope" of the cause of God against
quietism and formality, and ritualism and Popery, and
worldliness. And if we strike our colors or waver in our
ranks, the true and faithful legions of Immanuel will
mourn and falter all over the globe. They expect us to
be true, and lean upon us on every moral battle-field.
Shall we disappoint them? May God forbid I Heaven
and earth expect every Methodist to do his duty. O
reader, if you bear that once odious and persecuted
name and symbol of self-denial, zeal, and holiness, be
faithful to your profession, your vows, your conscience, and
your God. Stand firmly for Christ and a pure Church.
"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and
thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD
shall be thy reward." May the great Head of the
Church, who died for us and rose again, imbue us all
with his own spirit, defend his Church from all evil, and
bring us, at last, to the land of pure, spiritual, and
eternal joys, for his Name's sake!
95
j,~