“OH! THAT THEATRE!”
“Oh! that theatre!” said an agonized mother of a felon son, “he was a virtuous, kind youth till the theatre proved his ruin.” Professor Knowles states that at a juvenile prison, it was ascertained that a large proportion of the boys began their careers in vice by stealing money to buy theatre tickets. A keeper of another juvenile prison in Boston gave testimony that of twenty young men confined for crime, seventeen confessed that they were first tempted to steal by a desire to purchase tickets to visit the theatre. Of fifteen young men from the country, employed in a publishing house in New York, thirteen within a few years were led to destruction by the play-houses.
O, my boy, do as Bishop Vincent said when asked by a friend if he should go to such a place of amusement, “Better not. Better not, because of its fascination which hinders rather than helps; better not, because vice is often made to look like virtue; better not, because of its many degraded actors and patrons, whose company one cannot afford to keep; better not, because of the hours it consumes which could be more profitably utilized; better not, because of vulgar expressions frequently used; better not, better not.”
THE DANCE.
Don’t go to the dance. “Why, the Bible itself defends this amusement,” is frequently said. “Did not the Hebrews dance when they emerged from the Red Sea? Did not David dance before the ark? Was not Socrates taught it by Aspasia, and was it not held in veneration by Plato and other philosophers?” Yes, but dancing, my boy, was much different in Bible times than it is to-day. It was because of deliverances from or a victory over an enemy. No case but one is found in the Bible where promiscuous dancing was indulged in, and that is called “the wicked dance.” Ever since the daughter of Herodias danced off the head of John the Baptist, it has degenerated; and as Cicero addressed a grave reproach to consul Gabinus for having danced, so would the writer sound the danger trumpet with the words: “Beware! Beware!”
When Moscow was burning, the historian tells us, a party was dancing in the palace right over a gunpowder magazine of which they were ignorant. The flames came on, and Carnot said, “Let us have one dance more,” and they shouted all through the palace, “One dance more!” The music played, the feet bounded, the laughter rang. But suddenly, through the smoke and fire and thunder of the explosion, death and eternity broke in. “One dance more” has been the ruin of many a young man, the deathblow of many a good reputation, the cause of many a jealousy which ended in crime and the murderer of many a virtue which bid fair to distinguish the noble youth.
BE CAREFUL.
O, my boy, be careful of your amusements. If there is a tendency to injure the morals, shun them as a plague. Orange trees cannot live and bear fruit in Labrador, neither can piety thrive amidst frivolities and liberties which attack modesty of person and honesty of purpose. Shun amusements if they are indulged in for mere killing of time.
“Time is eternity,
Pregnant with all eternity can give,