A ROD IN THE HAND OF A FOOL.

259

That rod in the hand of love rectified all, and by thus adopting the heavenly guide-the Bible—a happy home, and lives of honoured usefulness resulted.

Again: a Christian parent was reduced to the necessity of chastising one of his sons who had transgressed a family law, and the painful duty was calmly and judiciously done, like one discharging an imperative responsibility. The fault was explained; its sin was pointed out; the rod was produced; a prayer was offered to God for a blessing on his own ordinance of correction, and the wayward one was both punished and reclaimed. Such is the Divine method, as opposed to the human substitutes; and were parents guided by reason, as they should be, which of the two would be preferred -the method which God appoints and employs, or the guidance of passionate affection? How different then the Scriptural appliance from that brutal treatment which warranted one young criminal to exclaim, "Oh, sir, whipping will do me no good. I know all about that. I have had enough of it before!"-and another to affirm, "My father licked me with a rope till the blood ran down my back, and my stepmother was watching!" This is the correction of the Slave Ship and the Middle Passage; the other, of affection, pained perhaps to agony, yet doing its duty at once to God's truth and to the young.

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AMUSEMENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.

AMUSEMENTS FOR HOME.

Luther-Calvin-Brainerd-Infant Happiness-The Right Path made Plain-The Theatre-The Ball-room-Games of Chance - Real Amusements-Bodily Activity-Rural Scenes-Music-The Microscope-The Telescope- The Menagerie The Garden-Parental Parties-The Children of the Godly-Examples -John Newton-Montague Stanley-Rowland Hill-Legh Richmond.

THE world too often attaches no notion to earnest, spiritual religion but that of bondage and gloom. Men's accounts of it are caricatures; their estimate is a prejudice or an antipathy, in as far as it is not ignorance. They regard the truth of God in its simplicity and power as fanaticism, and feel it to be altogether fettering.

On the other hand, they who know the truth, and whom the truth makes free, may enjoy the life that now is, as God's gift, with a fine and a delicate relish. To them, godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of two lives-the present, and that which is to come.* Luther, for example, was a genial, joyous man, and likely to knit young and old to him by such a tie as renders two souls one-a love at once heart-deep and constraining. And Calvin, stern bigot as he is commonly supposed to have been, actually invented a new game by which he and his colleagues might unbend after their more severe employments, while they kept aloof from all that bore the mark of the world's frivolities. David

* 1 Tim. iv. 8.

THE WORLD'S RESORTS.

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Brainerd, also, the devoted, the self-sacrificing, the honoured of God above most of the sons of men, has said that "diversions, rightly managed, increased rather than diminished his spirituality." As even the earth needs rest and change, if we would not see it producing only weeds, man needs relaxation, else premature disease would ensue, and Christians therefore seek to prevent that result by unbending.

The minds of

They carry that spirit into their Homes. neither parents nor children can bear a perpetual strain, and it were cruel to repress the jubilee of young souls—the loud laugh, even though it should bespeak the vacant mindcharacteristic of healthy, happy infancy. Home should be a scene of joy, chastened, no doubt, by the fear of God, yet radiant and cordial withal. Above all spots on earth, it should be the scene where men

"Sun them in the light of happy faces,"

and this raises the question, What should be the amusements of a Christian Home? What may a believer in Jesus countenance as relaxations for his children? In what may he lead the way, during the hours or the days when households unbend?

The answer must vary according to the rank of the Home; but there are principles which no difference in rank can modify, and these may be briefly indicated.

First, Christian parents would find their path made plain and easy could they at once establish the rule, that wherever the world resorts for amusement, their children shall never appear. This may seem hard, but it is as needful for the young mind as absence from pest-houses is needed for the body. According to the Bible, it is simply impossible for the Christian to coalesce with the world, in any matter where

he has the power of choice. If there be a spontaneous coalition, then there is kindredness. If there be kindredness, then Christ and Belial can be combined. Where the Christian cannot go as a Christian, he should never choose to resort at all; and this would infinitely simplify the course at once of the parent and the child. Whatever attractions there may be in

"Katterfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonder, wondering for his bread,"

a believer will desire some better kind of pastime for his children, and will resolutely seek it.

On this subject, one well qualified to speak has said— "Within the hallowed walls of that house, which Jesus has honoured as the habitation of his Spirit, resolve that there shall be no parties where he is not welcome as the first and most honoured guest: no society in which he is not wished or cannot be asked to take the foremost place: no amusements calculated or contrived to shut him out from your hearts, as if you deemed him 'an intruder on your joys,' or wished to be happy in forgetfulness or independence of him: no reading or conversation which you would not wish him to hear, because you feared that he would listen to it with an angry frown in a word, no plans unregulated by his approbation-no pursuits unhallowed by his blessing-no pleasures unsanctified by his smile."

Now, this general rule disposes of a hundred casuistical cases. No doubt, if we are not averse to skim the verge of the forbidden, reasons may be found for frequenting equivocal scenes; and the world, rejoicing in the countenance of a reputed Christian, will hail and commonplace his arguments

* See "Jesus Invited to the Marriage," also, "The Forbidden Marriage,"—two solemn "Meditations," by Rev. Hugh White.

for meeting worldly men upon their own favourite ground. But such arguments are only cobwebs for weak minds, or minds willing to be entangled; and even though the men who use them may be able to stop short of the forbidden, many of those who are cheered by such examples cannot : they will not: they may plunge over the precipice to whose verge they have been conducted; they quote the favourite authority, and then dive into the bottomless abyss.

Secondly, The theatre, as it now exists, is at once to be abandoned by every friend of the young and of the soul. It is needless to speak of some ideal condition of a theatre, such as Utopianism loves to depict, though the picture be only a refuge of lies. In pleading for such an ideal, men forget that it has no existence, and they ignore the real-the real pollution—the real blasphemy—the real profligacy—the real ruin which are paramount in theatres and their purlieus. We just take the theatre as it has been, as it is, and is likely to continue. We look at its neighbourhoods in London, and in every city which a theatre pollutes, and we are blind if we do not notice that it is invariably a focus of moral abomination-the mother of guilt and of misery. It panders to the vilest passions; it fosters blasphemy; it cherishes hatred to God's truth; it multiplies temptation; it helps to fill our jails, and to people our penal colonies: for it patronises vice in some of its most revolting forms. We do not speak of what takes place behind the scenes, or of its debasing effects upon actors.* We speak only of what is plain, patent, and undeniable-established by police-books, by criminal calendars, and by Botany Bay; and urge the questions as others

It is well known that a celebrated tragedienne of a past age forbade her daughter ever to appear in the green-room.