Card-playing.
I can find little to say in favor of this form of amusement. It contains no exercise for the body. It continues the cramped attitudes to which most people are condemned during the day.
It certainly contributes nothing to the higher forms of enjoyment. It stimulates emulations, which St. Paul enumerates among things to be avoided; it is the accompaniment of gambling and low society; and, while we must admit that a pack of cards in itself is not evil, yet it can be and often is made most detrimental to the best interests of morality and righteousness.
The young woman who respects her own intellectual and moral powers will see little charm in manipulating cards in a way to gain a momentary success over another and perhaps arousing unkind feelings, it may be even passions, that may culminate in bloodshed.
Theatre-going.
It is natural that we should enjoy pictorial representation of human life with living actors and audible words; and, understanding this, many good people have had the hope that the stage might be purified and made a teacher of morals. Certainly valuable lessons of life might be most strongly presented in this concrete form, and thus appeal with wonderful power to the young and inexperienced. But that it might be so used does not insure that it will be, and observation shows us that it is not.
The modern play concerns itself principally with a delineation of those phases of life which we condemn when they become reality, and the teaching power of the stage becomes a lesson in wrongdoing which to the young and inexperienced is potent in its suggestiveness.
The costumes of actresses are often immodest, and many of these women are immoral in character. It would not be just to condemn all actors with the sweeping assertion of immorality, but all will admit that the temptations are great, and that great moral force is needed to resist the influences that lead towards wrong.
That many of our great actors will not permit their children to become actors, or, in some cases, even to enter the theatre as a witness of its performances, speaks strongly on the matter.
In the consideration of this subject the girl may safely decide that she will not be a permanent loser if she is not a frequenter of the theatre. It is safer to keep the mind pure and untainted from all pictures of sin, more especially if they are made attractive by the glamour of jewels and silken attire, of music, dancing, and lifelike portrayal.