This

warfare. And whoever brings himself to exercise this habitual self-denial, even in doubtful cases, will soon learn from happy experience, that in many instances abstinence is much more easily practised than temperance. There is in this case no excited sensibility to allay; there is no occasional remorse to be quieted; there is no lost ground to be recovered, no difficult backing out, only to get again to the same place where we were before. observation adopted into practice might, it is presumed, effectually abolish the qualifying language of many of the more sober frequenters of the theatre, "that they go but seldom, and never but to a good play." We give these moderate and discreet persons all due praise for comparative sobriety. But while they go at all, the principle is the same; for they sanction, by going sometimes, a diversion which is not to be defended on strict Christian principles. Indeed, their acknowledging, that it should be but sparingly frequented, probably arises from a conviction that it is not quite right.

I have already remarked, that it is not the object of this address to pursue the usual track of attacking bad plays, of which the more prudent and virtuous seldom vindicate the principle, though they do not always scrupulously avoid attending the exhibition. I impose rather on myself the unpopular task of animadverting on the dangerous effects of those which come under the description of good plays; for from those chiefly arises the danger (if danger there be) to good people.

Now, with all the allowed superiority justly ascribed to pieces of a better cast, it does not seem to be a complete justification of the amusement, that the play in question is more chaste in the sentiment, more pure in the expression, and more moral in the tendency, than those which are avowedly objectionable; though I readily concede all the degrees of

distinction, and very important they are, between such compositions and those of the opposite character. But the point for which I am contending is of another and of a distinct nature; namely, that there will, generally speaking, still remain, even in tragedies, otherwise the most unexceptionable, provided they are sufficiently impassioned to produce a powerful effect on the feelings, and have spirit enough to deserve to become popular; there will still remain an essential radical defect. What I insist on is, that there, almost inevitably, runs through the whole web of the tragic drama, (for to this least blameable half of stage composition I confine my remarks, as against comedy still stronger objections may be urged,) a prominent thread of false principle. It is generally the leading object of the poet to erect a standard of honour in direct opposition to the standard of Christianity; and this is not done subordinately, incidentally, occasionally; but worldly honour is the very soul, and spirit, and life-giving principle of the drama. Honour is the religion of tragedy. It is her moral and political law. Her dictactes form its institutes. Fear and shame are the capital crimes in her code. Against these, all the eloquence of her most powerful pleaders, against these her penal statutes, pistol, sword, and poison, are in full force. Injured honour can only be vindicated at the point of the sword; the stains of injured reputation can only be washed out in blood. Love, jealousy, hatred, ambition, pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the rank of splendid virtues, and form a dazzling system of worldly morality, in direct contradiction to the spirit of that religion whose characteristics are "charity, meekness, peaceableness, long-suffering, gentleness, forgiveness." "The fruits of the Spirit," and the fruits of the stage, if the parallel were followed up, as it might easily be, would per

haps exhibit as pointed a contrast as human imagination could conceive.

I by no means pretend to assert that religion is excluded from tragedies; it is often incidentally introduced; and many a period is beautifully turned, and many a moral is exquisitely pointed, with the finest sentiments of piety. But the single grains of this counteracting principle, scattered up and down the piece, do not extend their antiseptic property in a sufficient degree to preserve from corruption the body of a work, the general spirit and leading tempers of which, as was said above, are evidently not drawn from that meek religion, the very essence of which consists in "casting down high imaginations :" while, on the other hand, the leaven of the predominating evil secretly works and insinuates itself, till the whole mass becomes impregnated by the pervading principle. Now, if the directing principle be unsound, the virtues growing out of it will be unsound also; and no subordinate merit, no collateral excellencies, can operate with effectual potency against an evil which is of prime and fundamental force and energy, and which forms the very essence of the work.

A learned and witty friend, who thought differently on this subject, once asked me if I went so far as to think it necessary to try the merit of a song or a play by the ten commandments. To this may we not venture to answer, that neither a song nor a play should at least contain any thing hostile to the ten commandments. That, if harmless merriment be not expected to advance religion, we must take care that it do not oppose it; that if we concede, that our amusements are not expected to make us better than we are, ought we not to condition that they do not make us worse than they find us? If so, then, whatever pleasantry of idea, whatever gaiety of sentiment, whatever airiness of

expression we innocently admit, should we not jealously watch against any unsoundness in the general principle, any mischief in the prevailing tendency?

We cannot be too often reminded, that we are to an inconceivable degree the creatures of habit. Our tempers are not principally governed, nor our characters formed, by single marked actions; nor is the colour of our lives often determined by prominent detached circumstances; but the character is gradually moulded by a series of seemingly insignificant but constantly recurring practices, which, incorporated into our habits, become part of ourselves.

Now, as these lesser habits, if they take a wrong direction, silently and imperceptibly eat out the very heart and life of vigorous virtue, they will be almost more sedulously watched by those who are careful to keep their consciences tenderly alive to the perception of sin, (however they may elude the attention of ordinary Christians,) than actions which deter by bold and decided evil.

When it is recollected how many young men pick up their habits of thinking and their notions of morality from the playhouse, it is not perhaps going too far to suspect, that the principles and examples exhibited on the stage may contribute in their full measure and proportion towards supplying a sort of regular aliment to the appetite (how dreadfully increased!) for duelling, and even suicide. For, if religion teaches, and experience proves, the immense importance to our tempers and morals of a regular attendance on public worship, which attendance is only required of us one day in a week; and if it be considered how much the heart and mind of the attentive hearer become gradually imbued with the principles infused by this stated, though unfrequent attendance; who, that knows any thing of the nature of

the human heart, will deny how much more deep and lasting will be the impression likely to be made by a far more frequent attendance at those places, where sentiments of a direct contrary tendency are exhibited; exhibited, too, with every addition which can charm the imagination and captivate the senses. Once in a week, it may be, the young minds are braced by the invigorating principles of a strict and self-denying religion: on the intermediate nights, their good resolutions (if such they have made) are melted down with all that can relax the soul, and dispose it to yield to the temptations against which it was the object of the Sunday's lecture to guard and fortify it. In the one case, there is every thing held out which can inflame or soothe corrupt nature, in opposition to those percepts which, in the other case, were directed to subdue it. And this one grand and important difference between the two cases should never be overlooked, that religious instruction, applied to the human heart, is seed sown in an uncultivated soil, where much is to be cleared, to be broken up, and to be rooted out, before good fruit will be produced: whereas the theatrical seed, by lighting on the fertile soil prepared by nature for the congenial implantation, is likely to shoot deep, spread wide, and bring forth fruit in abundance.

But, to drop all metaphor.They are toldand from whose mouth do they hear it ?-that "blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, and the peace-makers." Will not these, and such like humbling propositions, delivered one day in seven only, in all the sober and beautiful simplicity of our church, with all the force of truth indeed, but with all its plainness also, be more than counterbalanced by the speedy and much more frequent recurrence of the nightly exhibition, whose precise object it too often is, not only to preach, but t