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to God, and really devoted to Christ, an unendurable discord between such things and the inner life is apparent.

A healthy and happy religious life avoids these extremes. Its possessor, fears God but is not afraid of him, loves him but also reveres him, confides fully in him but has respect to the condition on which his promises are made. He begins and ends the day with earnest secret prayer; and whenever conscious of needing special help, guidance, or comfort, he calls upon God. The public services of the sanctuary are delightful to him, and he is always strengthened and encouraged by the communion of saints and the worship of God. He aims to be a genuine philanthropist, ever ready to aid others, and is as anxious to confer spiritual benefits upon them as to relieve their physical necessities. He attends strictly to business, but, regarding it as a means to an end, does not become its slave. Social intercourse is pleasant to him, and his moral and spiritual instincts lead him to select the refined, the intelligent, the pure, instead of the coarse or corrupt. All physical and sensuous gratifications

are enjoyed in their place and proportion, and kept in due subordination. He indulges in nothing pernicious, in nothing that violates the precepts of Christ, that injures others, or destroys his influence as a Christian. And he is ready, at the proper time, for special labors in the Church to promote the conversion of men. Naturally a youth will give more time to pleasure and society than a man in the prime of life, who will be more closely occupied with the cares of business; while the aged should cultivate a quiet and contemplative spirit as the great change approaches.

This healthy and happy religious life is not morbid, because not disproportionate. It develops man symmetrically, admits of the greatest happiness, and introduces no elements of misery. It gives the greatest influence for good, and is the religion of Christ and his apostles. But it is impossible to graft Theater-going upon it without destroying the original stock. For Theater-going, as a habit and for the love of it, implies either inactivity or dullness of the conscience, else the spectator would be pained by every element of immorality and irrelig

ion. While he who returns from an average play will hardly pray, even if he takes the time to " say his prayers;" and a willingness to be delighted by the progress of such events and characters as are delineated in the Theater implies such an easy view of human nature in general that no motives will exist to prompt to special efforts to lead men to repentance. He who can laugh at sin or a sinful character will never feel an agony of soul to save the sinner.

If it be said that there are persons who "love the 'Black Crook' and yet are zealous members of Churches, laboring to save men," it is replied that they are so few that they must be classed with other unnatural instances which shed no light on the tendency of influences. But it will hardly be found that such persons have any heart for private, personal, earnest expostulations; their zeal usually evaporates in singing, speaking, and praying in public, while the texture of their general religious character is defective.

Thus have we tried to show why it is that he who attempts to find a place in his religious life

for Theater-going hazards the destruction of its purity, and consistency, and power. Nor does he lose any thing of value if he renounces the Theater forever. For the more closely we examine the acts of self-denial required of the Christian, the more obvious it becomes that those which are demanded by our personal necessities in the religious life, bear the same relation to our growth that pruning does to the growth and fruit-bearing qualities of a tree: therefore Christ said, "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he [the Father] taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit:" while those acts of self-denial required by our relation to others pertain to superfluities, and rarely or never to any thing of really great importance.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE OPEN FIELD OF CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE.

WE

stitute.

E are sometimes told that if the Church prohibits the Theater it should furnish a sub

This requirement has a plausible sound, but nothing more. The function of the Church is not to map out the whole sphere of possible activity and erect at every turn sign-boards warning individuals away from certain points, and at the same time indicating just what walks may be permitted. Nor is the individual Christian to be treated as an imbecile, but as a rational and responsible being. "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil," or as some think it should be rendered, "from every form of evil," are not only commands, but constitute the great charter of Christian liberty. It is to be presumed that if the Church protests against intemperance, that the Christian who practices temperance will not need to have a substitute furnished to him

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