D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.
Wherever the fanatics of the Galilean church have trampled the flowers of earth, the wasted gardens have been covered with a rank thicket of weeds. Outlawed freedom has given way to the caprice of despots and the license of crime; outraged common sense has yielded to the vagaries of superstition; the suppression of healthful recreation has avenged itself in the riots of secret vice. The history of alcoholism proves that every revival of asceticism has been followed by an increase of intemperance, as inevitably as the obstruction of a natural river-bed would be followed by an inundation. When the convent-slaves of the Middle Ages had been deprived of every chance of devoting a leisure hour to more healthful recreations, neither the rigor of their vows nor the bigotry of their creed could prevent them from drowning their misery in wine. When the Puritans of the seventeenth century had turned Scotland into an ecclesiastic penitentiary, the burghers of the Sabbath-stricken towns sought refuge in the dreamland of intoxication. The experience of many centuries has, indeed, forced the priesthood of southern Europe to tolerate Sunday recreations as a minor evil. In Spain the bull-rings of the larger cities open every Sunday at 2 P.M. In Italy the patronage of Sunday excursions and Sunday theaters is limited [[210]]only by the financial resources of their patrons. In France Sunday is by large odds the gayest day in the week. In the large cities of Islam the muftis connive at Sunday dances and Sunday horse-races; and as a consequence a much less pardonable abuse of holidays is far rarer in southern Europe than in the cities of the Sabbatarian north, the consumption of Sunday intoxicants being larger in Great Britain than in France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Italy taken together. Climatic causes may have their share in effecting that difference; another cause was revealed when the followers of Ibn Hanbal attempted to enforce the asceticism of their master upon the citizens of Bagdad. Ibn Hanbal, the Mohammedan Hudibras, used to travel from village to village, with a horde of bigots, breaking up dance-houses, upsetting the tables of the confectionery pedlers, pelting flower-girls, and thrashing musicians, and when the revolt of a provincial city resulted in the death of the “reformer,” his fanatical followers assembled their fellow-converts from all parts of the country, and raided town after town, till they at last forced their way into the capital of the caliphate. The recklessness of their zeal overcame all resistance, but the completeness of their triumph led to a rather unexpected result. Every play-house of the metropolis was not only closed, but utterly demolished; musicians were jailed; dance-girls were left to choose between instant flight and crucifixion; showmen were banished from all public streets; but the dwellings of private citizens were less easy to control, and those private citizens before long evinced a passionate [[211]]and ever-increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. Elders of the mosque were seen wallowing in their gutters, howling blasphemies that would have appalled the heart of the toughest Giaour; dignitaries of the green turban staggered along under the weight of a wine-skin, or waltzed about in imitation of the exiled ballet performers. The Hanbalites convoked tri-weekly, and at last daily, prayer-meetings, but things went from bad to worse, till a counter-revolution finally restored the authority of the old city government, and the flight of the fanatics was attended with a prompt decrease both of spiritual and spirituous excesses.