"I have just received," said Mr. Roscoe, "an invitation from Mr. Denham to attend a private ball at his house; and he hopes that you, my dear Sophia, will accompany me and your mamma. I fear, from some incidental remarks which you have made at different times, that such amusements have lost their charm; but I hope that your good sense has overcome your scruples, and that you will not hesitate to comply with my request. I ask it as a personal favour."
"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Roscoe, "I hope you will; your father and I have had much conversation together on the subject, and we both think you can do it and be very religious too. You know that religion is not to deprive us of any enjoyments. Indeed, I think when such religious people as we have always been indulge ourselves in these fashionable amusements, we do more to recommend religion than such austere professors as our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens."
To which Miss Roscoe replied: "I certainly think that religious people ought to recommend religion by their cheerfulness and their pleasantry, as well as by their strict moral deportment; but I do not see how that religion, which requires us to avoid a conformity to the vain customs of the world, can be recommended by a compliance with them. If we do as others do, we shall be thought like them; and I am sure, from my personal knowledge, that those who find pleasure in balls and theatrical amusements are as averse to the religion of the Bible as those who openly and avowedly reject it."
"My dear," said Mrs. Roscoe, "I hope you do not intend to say that all who avail themselves of such recreations are destitute of religion. I do not like such sweeping charges. You would condemn some of the most amiable and virtuous persons living!"
"A person may be amiable without being religious, and virtuous, even while he rejects as fabulous that scheme of salvation which we admit to be true. If, then, we admit it to be true, does it not become us, if we wish to preserve consistency, to conform ourselves to its preceptive parts? And does it not require us to become a peculiar people? And in what can that peculiarity be manifested but by an entire avoidance of the habits and customs which the world sanctions? You know, mamma, that I often acted a most prominent part in these scenes of fashionable gaiety, and that I intermingled with the indiscriminate throng, participating in the glow of feeling enkindled in their breast, and am, therefore, intimately familiar with the moral qualities and the religious sentiments of those who derive their highest gratification from such sources; and while I would proceed with great caution in invading the province of the heart, yet it is my decided opinion that no person who has ever felt the transforming influence of divine truth can sanction them."
Mr. Roscoe remarked: "I grant, my Sophia, that a superior mind will look with indifference on such frivolous amusements, and that many who resort to them are impelled more by custom than inclination; yet I do not perceive that they can injure the religious tone of the mind. I have been as firm a believer in the divine origin of the Bible, and the mission and death of our Saviour, after my return from a ball, as before I went, though I confess my time could have been more profitably occupied."
"And I am sure," said Mrs. Roscoe, "that I have felt as religious at the opera as ever I felt at church; my heart has been elated with gratitude to the Almighty for permitting us to enjoy such recreations."
"I do not suppose, my dear father, that going to a ball or the opera would shake your belief in the divine mission of Jesus Christ; but I presume that you do not imagine that He would attend them if He were on earth! and ought a disciple to go where his Lord would not go? I grant that that religion which consists only in a speculative belief may not be injured by such amusements; but I am conscious that they produce and nourish sentiments and feelings which are not only unconsonant, but directly opposed to the spirit of vital Christianity. I could not pass from the gaieties of a ball-room to anticipate the happiness of heaven, nor retire, after the fatigues of a lengthened dance, to hold spiritual communion with the Holy One."
"But where," said Mrs. Roscoe, "is the necessity of being always religious? Is the world to be turned into a convent, and are we all to become either nuns or monks—forbidden to taste of any of the pleasures of life, and doomed to perpetual fastings and prayers? What! religion every day, and all day long! Why, my Sophia, your remarks alarm me."
"I am sorry, my dear mamma, that I should cause you any alarm, but I assure you that there is no occasion for it; the religion which has given me a distaste for pleasures so ephemeral and unsatisfactory, has opened to me sources of enjoyment of a much higher order. I do not stoop to earth or any of its gay scenes for mental bliss, but arise to intercourse with the Great Invisible. I no longer seek for religious impressions amidst the forms and ceremonies of an external devotion, but in the exercise of that faith which brings remote objects near, and which invests those which are unseen with a more attractive power than those which are visible. I no longer hover in a state of uncertainty respecting my final destiny, for I enjoy the bright beamings of that hope which is full of immortality; and can attest that now my mental happiness is more pure, elevated, and stable, than it was when I was a devotee to fashionable amusements."