Even heathen moralists and philosophers have condemned the stage as tending to corrupt public morals. This was the ground taken by Plato, Seneca, and Cicero, two thousand years ago. The early Christian writers, the fathers of the Church, denounced the theater. It is safe to say that the piety and intelligence of the Church have always condemned it. John Wesley, the founder of our Church, gave his judgment in no equivocal terms: "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."
Truly, the play-house is no place for a follower of Christ. Like the Babylon of the Revelator, it is "the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." And so we add the warning uttered by "another voice from heaven," "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
Even if the plays could be so far reformed as not directly to cater to the vicious and the corrupt; if the foul birds of prey that perch aloft could be driven from the nests which they have occupied so long, still the theater would not be a good place of resort for those who feel that they possess immortal souls. The late hours, the expense of time and money, the character of the general audience, and the insensible and yet powerful effect of contact with them; the premature development and overgrowth of the passions, the distaste created for the quiet pleasures which are safest and best for soul and body, the rapidity with which the love of noise, show, and excitement becomes an overmastering passion, too strong to be controlled by duty, conscience, parental authority, or parental remonstrances and tears, conspire to render attendance at the theater ruinous to many and dangerous to all. Let no Christian go to the play-house even once. If the patronage of those who go but once, "just to see how it looks," could be wholly withdrawn, all the theaters would feel the loss, and some would be compelled to close their doors. Why should you make even one contribution to keep in motion the remorseless jaws which have devoured so many victims? Why should you lend your example, even once, to encourage the inconsiderate and the inexperienced to form the habit of attending the theater? Why consent to act, even once, as decoy duck, to lure many, it may be, to their destruction?
[CHAPTER IV.]
HORSE-RACING.
"And so shall be the plague of the horse." Zech. xiv, 15.
The horse is, doubtless, a noble beast; but, by some strange fatality, all sorts of thieves and cheats gather round him while living, as do the hungry crows when he is dead. Horse-racing may claim a place among popular amusements, since there is probably nothing, except an execution, more certain to attract a crowd. In many of the States of the Union horse-racing has been prohibited by law, because of the numberless evils connected with it, and the total absence of good. Within a few years, however, the thing has been revived under another name. State and county fairs are now held for the encouragement of agriculture, and specimens of various farm products are exhibited to edify the novice and quicken the zeal of the ambitious cultivator. Horses, of course, form a prominent feature of these exhibitions. But a horse can only be half seen till he is seen in motion, and so little "trials of speed," as they were delicately termed, were given just to add a little interest to the show. These trials of speed usurped more and more time and space, until they have in many cases swallowed up every thing else, and brought back the old-style horse-race, with its crowds, excitement, villainy, and vice of every kind, and, in fact, every thing but the name. An "Agricultural Fair" now means a plow, a pumpkin, a pig, and two hundred and fifty trotting horses. These fairs are almost invariably conducted with especial reference to the racing, and not unfrequently are engineered wholly by the jockeys themselves.