And where your feet go, there others will follow. "Is Miss Hope going to such and such a performance?" inquired a young man of me. I said no. He stood gravely thinking, and the talk drifted on. Then suddenly I heard him say—to himself as it were:—"Then I will not go either!"—
Persuasions, entreaties, ridicule, are nothing, mean nothing, if only you stand firm. And I have known gentlemen spend their strength in entreaties, and then when the lady held out in her quiet refusal, they said afterwards to other people that they liked to see any one true to his principles.
Staying once with some friends of rather free opinions and practice, Priscilla was beset to go with them on a certain evening to the theatre. So eager were the words, so well-loved the friends, that at last she grew desperate. Turning round upon the head of the house, she said: "Do you really want me to go?"—He looked at her, sat back in his chair in silence, then answered soberly: "Well, I guess I'd just as lieve you didn't!"
Depend upon it, the very people who press you hardest, professing to see "no harm," will feel they have lost something if you make them think the King's Country is just like their own. Whatever has happened to your moral sense, they know that the theatre is no place for a true-hearted servant of the Lord Jesus, if the Master is all he is represented to be. If they met you there unawares, it would be with a thrill not of pleasure but of pain.
Let me repeat my question, Is it as a Christian you go to the theatre? can you go and keep your armour bright? does the helmet of salvation rest securely on your head? Is the girdle of truth,—truth of life, purpose, and heart,—fast bound? the breastplate of righteousness burnished, the shield of faith ready against every dart that may fly in that great building? Are they the shoes of peace on which you go in? not pleasure, but peace? Is it the sword of the Spirit with which you meet and parry the thrusts of idleness, folly, mischief? Ah you know better! When you go to the theatre these defences are left at home, as not fit for the occasion. The house is built and managed and filled in the interests of the enemy; and of course your uniform is out of place. Tired Church members, do you go there for rest?
[1] Job xiii. 27.
Games.
Dr. Skinner[1] used to say that all games of chance were unlawful. For inasmuch as there is no chance in the economy of this world, all use of dice or lottery in any shape is really an appeal to him of whom it is said:
"The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." [2]
And you will agree with me that this is not a thing to be done lightly.