But we will trace the conduct of the parents still farther. We will get into their company at their own houses; and here we shall very soon discover, how wearisome they consider every hour, that is spent in the bosom of their families, when deprived of their accustomed amusements; and with what anxiety they count the time, when they are to be restored to their favourite rounds of pleasure. We shall find no difficulty in judging also from their conversation, the measure of their thought or their solicitude about their children. A new play is sure to claim the earliest attention or discussion. The capital style, in which an actor performed his part on a certain night, furnishes conversation for an hour. Observations on a new actress perhaps follow. Such subjects appear more interesting to such persons, than the innocent conversation, or playful pranks, of their children. If the latter are noisy, they are often sent out of the room as troublesome, though the same parents can bear the stunning plaudits, or the discordant groans and hissings of the audience at the theatre. In the mean time their children grow up, and in their turn, are introduced by their parents to these amusements, as to places, proper for the dissipation of vacant hours; till, by frequent attendances, they themselves lose an affection for home and the domestic duties, and have in time as little regard for their parents, as their parents

appear to have had for them. Marrying at length, not for the enjoyment of domestic society, they and their children perpetuate the same rounds of pleasure, and the same sentiments and notions.

To these instances many indeed might be added, by looking into the family-histories of those, who are in the habit of frequenting theatres in search of pleasure, by which it would appear, that such amusements are not friendly to the cherishing of the domestic duties and affections, but that, on the other hand, in proportion as they are followed, they tend to sap the enjoyments of domestic life. And here it may be observed, that of all the amusements, which go to the making up of the round of pleasures, the theatre has the greatest share in diverting from the pleasures of home. For it particularly attracts and fascinates, both from the nature, and the diversity, of the amusements it contains. It is also always open, in the season, for resort. So that if private invitations. to pleasure should not come in sufficiently numerous, or should be broken off by the indisposition of the parties, who give them, the theatre is always ready to supply any vacancy, that may be occasioned in the round.

VOL.

SECT. VI.

Quakers conceive they can sanction no amusements, but such as could have originated in christian minds-exhibitions of the drama could have had, they believe, no such origin-early christians abandoned them on their conversion-arguments of the latter on this subject, as taken from Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius and others.

THE Quakers conceive, as a christian society, that they ought to have nothing to do with any amusements, but such as christians could have invented themselves, or such as christians could have sanctioned, by becoming partakers of them. But they believe that dramatic exhibitions are of such a nature as men of a christian spirit could never have invented or encouraged, and that, if the world were to begin again, and were to be peopled by pure christians, these exhibitions could never be called into existence there.

This inference, the Quakers judge to be deducible from the nature of a christian mind. A man, who is in the habit, at his leisure hours, of looking into

the vast and stupendous works of creation, of contemplating the wisdom, goodness, and power of the creator, of trying to fathom the great and magnificent plans of his providence, who is in the habit of surveying all mankind with the philosophy of revealed religion, of tracing, through the same unerring channel, the uses and objects of their existence, the design of their different ranks and situations, the nature of their relative duties and the like, could never, in the opinion of the Quakers, have either any enjoyment, or be concerned in the invention, of dramatic exhibitions. To a mind, in the habit of taking such an elevated flight, it is supposed that every thing on the stage must look little, and childish, and out of place. How could a person of such a mind be delighted with the musical note of a fiddler, the attitude of a dancer, the impassioned grimace of an actor? How could the intrigue, or the love-sick tale of the composition please him? or how could he have imagined, that these could be the component parts of a christian's joys?

But this inference is considered by the Quakers to be confirmed by the practice of the early chris' ians. These generally had been Pagans. They had of course Pagan dispositions. They followed Pagan amusements, and, among these, the exhibitions of the stage. But soon after their conversion, that is,

when they had received new minds, and when they had exercised these on new and sublime subjects, or, on subjects similar to those described, or, in other words, when they had received the regenerated spirit of christians, they left the amusements of the stage, notwithstanding that, by this act of singularity in a sensual age, they were likely to bring upon themselves the odium and the reproaches of the world,

But when the early christians abandoned the theatre, they abandoned it, as the Quakers contend, not because, leaving Paganism they were to relinquish all customs that were Pagan, but because they saw in their new religion, or because they saw in this newness of their minds, reasons, which held out such amusements to be inadmissible, while they considered themselves in the light of christians. These reasons are sufficiently displayed by the writers of the second, third, and fourth centuries; and as they are alluded to by the Quakers, though never quoted, I shall give them to the reader. He will judge by these, how far the ancient coincide with the modern christians upon this subject; and how far these argu, ments of antiquity are applicable to modern times.

The early christians, according to Tertullian, Menucius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius, and others, believed, that the "motives for going to these amusements were not of the purest sort. People went to