“Oh! you shall know all about it: but first we must arrange the parts. You, Pat, shall be the thief, and I will be the judge—no, you shall be the judge and I the thief!” He was interrupted by a burst of laughter.
“Be quiet, will you?—who’ll be the policeman?”
“I! I!” cried several of the children, eager to join in the proposed play.
“Now, Sam, you shall be the fat landlady,”—there was another roar of merriment, louder than before;—“for you must know that the thief is to get drunk; that’s how he is to be taken by the policeman; and he staggers here and there,”—Bat began to imitate the unsteady movements of an intoxicated man, amid the renewed mirth of the children;—“and when they seize him he calls out a great oath—you shall hear it all just as I heard it.”
“I hope not,” said Thorn, very quietly, raising his eyes from his book. The boys were quiet in a moment: they had almost forgotten the presence of their teacher.
“Why, sir, do you think that there is any harm?” said Bat Nayland: “it does not make us thieves to have a little fun about them.”
“It lessens your horror for their crime; and remember the words in the Bible, Fools make a mock at sin. Can you imagine any true child of God laughing at theft, drunkenness, and swearing?”
There was profound silence in the room.
“This is one cause, I believe, why penny theatres are one of the most fruitful sources of vice and ruin to those who attend them. Wickedness, instead of appearing hateful as it does in God’s Word, is made amusing, and even sometimes attractive; and those who willingly place themselves in the way of being corrupted by such sights, only mock the Holy One when they pray, Lead us not into temptation.
