Then, of the little time, they leave to yourselves, they disable you, in some degree, for making the proper use. For they dissipate the attention; they relax the nerves of industry and application; they spread a languor over all the faculties, and make the exertion of them, to any valuable purpose, painful at least, if not impossible. We hear it generally observed, that there is a scarcity of able men in all the departments of life. Can it be otherwise, when the vigour of the mind, which should nourish all great and laudable efforts, which is so requisite to push the active powers of invention, or recollection, to their full extent, is wasted on trifles, is checked by frivolous habits, and left to languish under them?
Or say, that you have force of mind enough to elude this so natural effect of dissipation, is it nothing that, by giving your countenance to it, you draw in weaker spirits to make the dangerous experiment? that you help to propagate the enfeebling passion through all quarters, till, from this authorized scene of vanity, the Capital, the contagion spreads (as we see it now does) to the smaller towns, and even to private houses, in the remotest provinces? that you contribute to make respectable I know not what frivolous and worthless arts, and, of course, to multiply the professors of them, to the great discouragement and decay of useful industry? that you hurt the interests of society, by giving an air of importance to the veriest trifles, and by diverting on these the attention, and the passion, that should regularly, and would otherwise, exert themselves on nobler objects?
I might push these questions still further. For I remember what history attests, and what wise men have said, on the chapter of polite arts and elegant amusements.
“They tell us, how sad a sign[246] of the times it is, when they grow into general repute among us; that from incessantly indulged appetites (let the object of them be what it will) such an impotence of mind may follow, such a lust of gratification, such an impatience of controuling a predominant fancy, as shall overleap all the fences of discretion and virtue. The dæmon of taste, say they, shall be obeyed, in defiance of every private and public duty, till distress, disgrace, and infamy break in upon us; till we seek the relief of our wants in fraud and rapine, involve the public ruin in our own, and, in the end, rush blindfold, through an extreme of profligacy, to desperation.”
To this effect, and in this tone, have some inveighed against our more refined and elegant amusements. But I return to what are commonly known by that name: and with respect to these, allow me to say that the life of man is a serious thing[247]: so serious, that dissolute, I mean, untempered, continued mirth, or pleasure, is not of a piece with it[248]. Our virtue, our hopes, nay, our present happiness depends on keeping the mind in a firm and steady frame. Whatever encroaches on this manliness of temper, is pernicious, and unchristian.
I will indulge the extreme candour to suppose, that, in a constant round of lawful amusements, you do not forget, or intermit your moral and religious duties. But with what spirit are they performed? With disgust, I doubt; but certainly, with indifference. Nor is this the worst. Temptations are to be expected in this life: and in what condition are we to meet them? Nay, we expose ourselves to needless temptation, even in the midst of these lawful pleasures; and we bring no power with us, hardly the inclination, to withstand it. The present scene distracts the mind, and fascinates the senses. And, in this delirium of the whole man, without God in his thought, or heaven in his eye, what wonder if he become the sport, and, almost before he is aware, the victim of every passion!
Still he is not happy in this feverish state: at most, he but forgets himself, for a moment: and the intervals of his amusement, which, in the nature of things, must be many and long, are filled with disgust and languor. Nay, the very amusement wears out by frequent repetition. And then such a sickliness of mind succeeds, and such a weariness of living on in a too much used and exhausted world, as is insupportable and fatal to him[249].
You see then there are many good reasons, which shew the inexpediency of prosecuting even lawful pleasures with an unrestrained passion. But, if all others were away, there is ONE consideration still behind, and of so much weight, that St. Paul scruples not to make a distinct argument of it, and to press it on the Corinthian Christians, as fully decisive of the point in question—All things are lawful for me; but I WILL NOT BE BROUGHT UNDER THE POWER OF ANY—And to unfold this argument is what I proposed to myself
2. Under the second head of this discourse.
It should be the ambition of every man to preserve the independency of his own mind on all his natural or acquired inclinations. The dignity of his character depends on this supremacy: and his virtue is no longer secure, than while he retains the power, on all occasions, to exert it.