In turning up the soil of the reclaimed desert they will unearth the foundations of buried temples, temples once sacred to the worship of gods whose prophets drenched the world with blood to enforce the observance of circumcision rites, wafer rites, and immersion rites, and filled their scriptures with minute instructions for the ordinances of priests and the mumbling of prescribed prayers. In musing over the ruins of such temples, the children of the future will have a chance for many profitable meditations—the reflection, for instance: From what mistakes those alleged saviors might have saved the world if their voluminous gospels had devoted a single page to an injunction against the earth-desolating folly of forest-destruction!
CHAPTER XVII.
RECREATION.
A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
The indoor occupations of civilized life imply the necessity of providing artificial substitutes for the opportunities of physical exercise, which men in a state of nature can find abundantly in the course of such healthful pursuits as hunting, fishing, and primitive agriculture. For similar reasons civilization ought to compensate the lost chance of outdoor sports which only the favorites of fortune can afford [[204]]to combine with the exigencies of city life. To the children of nature life is a festival; outdoor recreations, exciting sports, offer themselves freely and frequently enough to dispense with artificial supplements; but the dreariness of workshop life makes those substitutes a moral as well as physical necessity. Under the influence of unalloyed drudgery the human soul withers like a plant in a sunless cave, and weariness of heart reacts on the body in a way analogous to the health-undermining effect of sorrow and repeated disappointment. To the unbiased judgment of our pagan forefathers the necessity of providing city dwellers with opportunities for public recreation appeared, indeed, as evident as the necessity of counteracting the rigors of the higher latitudes with contrivances for a supply of artificial warmth. The cities of ancient Greece had weekly and monthly festivals, besides the yearly reunions of competing athletes and artists, and once in four years the champions of the land met to contest the prize of national supremacy in the presence of assembled millions. Hostilities, even during the crisis of civil war, were suspended to insure free access to the plains of Corinth, where the Olympic Games were celebrated with a regularity that made their period the basis of chronological computation for a space of nearly eight hundred years. When Rome became the capital of the world, the yearly disbursements for the subvention of free public recreations equaled the tribute of a wealthy province. There were free race courses, gymnasia, music halls, and wrestling-ring; free public baths and magnificent amphitheaters for [[205]]the exhibition of free dramatic performances, gladiatorial combats, and curiosities of art and natural history. Every proconsul of a foreign province was instructed to collect wild animals and specimens of rare birds and reptiles; every triumphator devoted a portion of his spoils to a celebration of free circenses—“circus games”—by no means limited to the mutual slaughter of prize fighters, but including horse races, concerts, trials of skill, and new arts. It would be a mistake to suppose that the liberality of such establishments offered a premium on idleness. The immense increase of the metropolitan population justified the constant extension of that liberality, but even after the erection of permanent amphitheaters the vigilance of public censors discouraged mendicancy; the complaints of wives, creditors, and landlords against habitual idlers were made the basis of penal proceedings, and from the total appropriations for the support of free municipal institutions the overseers of the poor deducted considerable sums for purposes of public charity.
Nor did the citizens of the metropolis monopolize the privilege of free public amusements. At the time of the Antonines not less than fifty cities of Italy alone had amphitheaters of their own, and the smallest hamlet had at least a palaestra, where the local champions met every evening for a trial of strength and skill.