Religion And Amusement.
An Essay, Delivered at the International Convention of Young Men's Christian Associations,
Held In Albany, June 1, 1866.
The religious thought of the age must soon face this subject more fairly than it has yet done; and seek for some more satisfactory adjustment of it. At present its status is very indefinite. The church is by no means at one concerning it. The pulpit too often evades it. Private Christians waver between the results of independent thought and of early education, undecided whether to approve or condemn; while extremists take advantage of this hesitation to lay down the sternest dogmas, and to thunder denunciations at every head that will not bow to their ipse dixit. The questions at issue are not to be dismissed with a sneer at fanaticism and over-scrupulousness on the one hand, and with a protest against unwarrantable liberality on the other. The whole subject must be reëxamined with reference to fundamental gospel principles by both parties, in [pg 010] a spirit of Christian moderation, and with the desire of ascertaining not only what is safe, but what is right.
To prosecute thoroughly such an examination within the limits assigned me, is, of course, impossible. I can only deal with a few of the great principles underlying the case, and urge their application to a single practical question which has arisen in the experience of our own, and it may be, of other Christian associations.
The idea of development, which is perhaps the fundamental one of Christianity, has been to a very great extent swallowed up in the idea of safety. It is not an uncommon error to regard Christianity almost exclusively in a defensive aspect; the Christian merely as a safe man, protected by Divine safe-guards from temptation, rescued by Divine mercy from the terrors of death and judgment. Correspondingly with this mistake, the tendency has grown to strengthen the defenses of character, rather than to foster its growth. To keep it from temptation, rather than to teach it to overcome temptation. To teach it its danger from the world, rather than its duty to the world. Consequently we have heard more about keeping unspotted from the world, than of going into all the world, and [pg 011] preaching the gospel to every creature. More about coming out and being separate, than of knowing the truth which shall make free. More of separating wheat from tares, than of leavening lumps.
The false instinct of self-preservation, which sent the Romanist into cloisters and convents, and tore him from the sweet sanctities of domestic life, has perpetuated itself more than some of us think in Protestant thought and church legislation. And in nothing has this tendency revealed itself more distinctly than in the matter of amusements. For amusement, having the effect to make men feel kindly toward the world, and, more readily than duty, falling in with human inclination, has been regarded as unsafe, and therefore as a thing to be kept at arm's length by the church, and admitted to her folds only under the strictest surveillance, and in gyves and handcuffs.
The developments of this spirit are so familiar that I need not stop to enumerate them. The important thing now is to discover the right stand-point for discussion. And here let me say what, until recently, I had supposed there was no need of saying: that amusement is a necessity of man's nature as truly as food, or drink, or [pg 012] sleep. Physiology, common sense, experience, philosophy, are all at one on this point. Man needs something besides change of employment. He needs something pursued with a view solely to enjoyment. Those who deny this are ignorant of the simplest fundamental laws of mind and matter. Men who assert publicly that they need no amusements, and “want to die in the harness,” will have the opportunity of dying in the harness some years earlier than would be demanded in the ordinary course of nature. Nature will not suffer even zealous Christian men to violate this law with impunity. She forbids man to labor continuously, and if he persists in disregarding her prohibition, she will revenge herself by imbecility, uselessness, or death.
This must be assumed in all discussions of the subject; and it being a religious, no less than a physical truth, it throws into new prominence the question, how, as Christians, we are to discharge this duty without being led away by the temptation which adjoins it so closely.
Let it be borne in mind that we are not now dealing with individual cases of conscience, but with general laws. While then there is obviously a distinction between amusements—while it is granted that some develop greater capabilities of [pg 013] abuse than others, the attempt to adjust this question on the basis of discriminating between amusements must result in failure. It always has, and it always will. This basis is secure only in a question between an innocent amusement, and one involving a palpable violation of the law of God. The advocate of any particular amusement is, on this ground, shut up to the necessity of proving that what he approves and practices is absolutely pure, and incapable of perversion. The moment it is admitted that it can, by any possibility, be turned to base uses, the lists are thrown open to all corners, and the utterly insoluble question arises, just what degree of capacity for perversion entitles an amusement to approval or rejection? Insoluble, I say, because, not to speak of any other difficulty, one is obliged to confront the fact that no one amusement presents a similar temptation to abuse to all alike. That in which the slightest indulgence might tend to lead one man to ruinous excess, excites no interest in another. It might possibly be dangerous for one man to play at backgammon, while to another it would prove no amusement, but only a tedious method of killing time. On this ground, in short, it is utterly impossible to adjust this matter satisfactorily or consistently. The only consistent [pg 014] or safe rule in this view of the case, is rigorously to exclude all, because all are partakers of the universal taint of sin.