actresses, the female characters were represented by youths. With respect to the change of dress, I am aware the Mosaic law condemns the custom; the reason for which, those versed in the Jewish antiquities, customs and manners, can probably furnish us. I profess my ignorance.-I only know we do not practice the purifications, and the many peculiar and minute regulations to be found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Sth. "Because these plays dull and damp devotion and seriousness, which is, and ought to be, the indelible character of christians."

We do not wish to damp pure devotion; on the contrary, it is our desire to fan the flame. We certainly are averse to dull

*Female characters were not represented by women upon the english stage until after the restoration.

seriousness. For my own part, Madam, sincerely do I wish the word banished from our vocabulary.-There are at present as many absurdities, impertinences, and follies concealed under the epithet serious, as under that of shaker.

9th." Because it is a disparagement to God, to lift up those hands to applaud a player, which we lift up to the throne of grace.

Ah! my good father, it is not the lifting up the hands but the elevation of the heart that will be acceptable to thy judge and mine!-The mahometans and the eastern idolators lay a stress upon the application and religious uses of the hands, but the enlightened christian looks with contempt and pity upon such puerilities.If the mind is sincerely devout, the hands will follow in correspondent movements;— nor will it ever be required at the

throne of mercy, what was their previous occupation.

10th. "Because experience shows how the DEVIL hath sometime possessed christians in a play-house, and being afterwards cast out, confessed that he had reason to enter them, because he found them in his own place*."

* Tertullian very gravely gives us the instance in the following style:

"A certain woman went to the play-house, and brought THE DEVIL HOME with her. And when the unclean spirit was pressed in the exorcism, and asked how he DURST ATTACK a christian?-I have done nothing (says he) but what I can justify-for I seized her upon my own ground."

De Spectaculus, Cap. 26.

But why should this excite surprise? John Wesley in the eighteenth century, declared in the presence of a numerous company (Dr. Coke being one) that the whole bench of bishops together,

F

Oh Madam! what a foolish Devil! Had he kept his own council, what noble sport he would have had upon his royal manor !-To scare the game from his net,

could not invalidate the reality of WITCHCRAFT !!! He then told a most extraordinary story of a supposed murder, which I would relate, but I wish to supply its place with a tale recited by a PREACHER, at the same meeting. The subject is a HAUNTED HOUSE, near Dungannon, in the North of Ireland.

"An officer, quartered at that town, one evening when rather pot-valiant, went, by himself, to the haunted house, knocked at the door, and demanded to see the ghost. An old woman who opened the door of the cabin, warned him to repress his curiosity, for that the GHOST, if provoked, might make him repent his intrusion however, he still presisting, she gave him at length admittance; and he advanced into the middle of the floor, when, to his great terror and astonishment, he found himself violently assailed by a shower of POTATOES from an invisible hand, issuing from the roof!-On which he rushed forward for shelter, and thrust his HEAD up the wide funnel of the chimney; but the GHOST still pursued him with fresh

shows him to have been then a very silly Devil indeed, I fancy since that period he is grown a great deal wiser, for he now makes sure of his prey, without acquainting us whether he takes it from the tabernacle or the play-house.

11th, "Because no man can serve two masters, God and the World, as those christians pretend to do that frequent both the church and stage*."

showers of POTATOES down the CHIMNEY, until at length he fled out of the house, battered and bruised, swearing that he got proof enough of the ghost on his head and shoulders."

Dr. Hale's Methodism Inspected, Part 2nd, p. 42.

* I wonder they have never pressed the Decalogue into the service. Thou shalt not steal-would evidently apply to the author.

Thou shalt not commit murder-might be very appropriately applied to the actors.