rinth, Athens, Thessalonica, Philippi, Alexandria, and Rome; in all the principal cities of the Roman empire, at the time when the early apostles preached the Gospel of Christ. Dramatic writers, the effects of their works, and the various exhibitions of the Theatre, had long been known in the world. The Stage was a distinct institution, then, as now, peculiar in its qualities, important in its operation, and a powerful engine either for good or evil. To a considerable extent it had occupied the time, and affected the characters and actions of men. According to some writers, it had already exercised a baneful influence on the destinies of nations.

If it were a mere ordinary pastime, insignificant in its nature, and scarcely bearing upon either policy or morals, it might be passed over altogether, or included in a general allusion. But it appears to its opponents such an unmixed mass of evil, that language can scarcely supply them with adequate terms in which to express their condemnation. According to them, it is "utterly pernicious in its operation;""the stronghold of Satan ;" "one of the broadest avenues which lead to destruction ;"† only to be justified by condemning the Bible;" "the school of debauchery and nursery of pro

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siring him that he would not adventure himself into the Theatre."-This was at Ephesus.-See Acts, xix. 29, 31.

* Athens and Rome.

+ Rev. J. A. James.

faneness,"" not to be attended without a manifest. departure from God;" "we may as soon attempt to reform the gambler or the thief;"*"it is unchangeable in its character as a pander to the vitiated taste of the ungodly multitude;" "the history of its results is written in blood;"† "one playhouse ruins more souls than fifty churches are able to save;""plays are one of the most successful engines of vice that Satan ever invented;"§ "it is utterly impossible for the soul to find enjoyment at the same time in the Bible and the Theatre;" "the morality of the stage is mere worldly sophistry;" "its pretended religion abominable blasphemy;" and finally, according to the pious Mr. Law, "there is as much justice and tenderness in telling every player his employment is abominably sinful, and inconsistent with the Christian, as in telling the same thing to a thief." If these are fair deductions, drawn from reason and evidence, untinctured by prejudice or fanaticism, and consistent with the true spirit of Christian moderation, then is the Theatre indeed a leviathan in wickedness. It is not merely sinful, but a concentration of every known sin; not simply criminal, but an embodied essence of every crime forbidden in the Ten Commandments; in

*Dr. Timothy Dwight.

† Dr. Bennett.

§ Rev. George Burder.

Judge Bulstrode.

short, a wide-spreading pestilence, more fatal than the blast of the Simoon, or the poison of the Upas tree. Now, I ask, is it conceivable that an institution so unparalleled in evil, so utterly irreclaimable, so certainly leading to destruction, should have escaped direct and individual denouncement? Above all other precepts, "Go not to the Theatre, it is the straight road to perdition," would have proceeded from the lips of the Saviour, and have been reiterated by his apostles. The command would have been clear, distinct, and positive, as the hand writing on the wall to the eye of the inspired prophet. No "spirit of laws, containing general principles of morality,"* could possibly suffice for an individual case so monstrous, so surpassing in wickedness. The extreme point to which the enemies of the Stage carry its inherent depravity and fatal consequences, renders the absence of a distinct prohibition in the sacred writings the more striking, and gives it double force as an argument against them. If a general caution against undefined sin can include an instance so appalling as this is represented, the Decalogue itself is superfluous, and the special crimes therein denounced require no more than a gentle admonition. "But," says Dr. Bennett, "you assert that stage entertainments are not contrary to Scrip

* Dr. Bennett.

ture, because there is no express censure of them in the sacred volume; then will you come to the conclusion, that nothing is criminal but what is there distinctly and by name prohibited? If so, you conclude gambling to be no crime. If so, the cruel exposure of infants, so common in Heathen lands, in the days of the apostles, was not censured by them. If so, casting human beings to fight with beasts of prey, for the amusement of imperial and other spectators, was not reprehensible. If so, even suicide itself is defensible, being no where forbidden by name." In reply to this, I close with these arguments, and I think I can shew that they are neither sound nor analogous. A learned divine says, "Whoever expects to find in the Scriptures a specific direction for every moral doubt that arises, looks for more than he will meet with." There is no question that this is strictly true, but leading crimes and vices cannot be included as mere "moral doubts." There is no leading crime of which human nature is capable, that is not distinctly or by name prohibited in the Scriptures, and none more clearly than those which Dr. Bennett has here proposed as exceptions. What is gambling? The desire of obtaining that which belongs to another, without giving an equivalent for it. This is manifestly coveting our neighbour's

* Archdeacon Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, Book I. c. iv.

goods, not "loving our neighbour as ourself," and therefore distinctly and repeatedly prohibited.* What is exposing an infant to perish? Infanticide, a child-murder. What is casting a man into an arena, to be devoured by wild beasts? Unless as a just sentence of established law, it is simple murder. What is suicide? Self-murder. Now, all these are merely modifications of the same crime, and are by name prohibited in the sixth commandment, which says, "Thou shalt not kill;"† or, as it is rendered in our liturgy, in the words of the Saviour, "Thou shalt do no murder." I am aware that on the question of suicide a great authority, Archdeacon Paley, differs from this conclusion. "I acknowledge," says he, "that there is not to be found in Scripture sufficient evidence to prove that the case of suicide was in the contemplation of the law which prohibited murder; § any inference, therefore, which we deduce from Scripture can be sustained only by construction and implication: that is to say, although they who were authorized to instruct mankind have not decided a question

* See Dr. Watts on the Improvement of the Mind, Part II. c. v. where this question is argued scripturally.

† Exodus, xx. 13.

St. Matthew, xix, 18.-See Dr. Watts's "Defence against the Temptations to Self-Murder;" in which he argues, that it is included in the canon, "Thou shalt do no murder." "Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!"-Hamlet, Act i. S. 2.

D