men." He goes on to say that it would be a positive affront "to embalm, in cold print, the rancid innuendoes or the intimate indecencies" of a certain play - one of the most popular of the modern dramas of license.
3. A certain French writer of plays has himself given an indubitable proof of the immoral tendency of many plays. Why did he forbid his children to witness the performances of the dramas which he had written? For no other reason, than because he believed that their attendance at the theater on those occasions would be injurious to their morals. What a testimony does this afford to the deleterious character of too many plays!
Never go to a play that is performed at a theater of doubtful reputation.
4. Be on your guard lest your love for the theater develop into a passion. Seek rather to take delight in simple pleasures, which are within the reach of every one. Take delight in beholding the beauteous sights which God offers to our view in the works of creation. Strive by the practice of virtue to be yourself a spectacle to angels and to men. Thus will you, when the toil and suffering of life shall have come to an end, attain to that infinitely glorious sight, the vision of God.
Why should we fear youth's draught of joy,
If pure, would sparkle less?
Why should the cup the sooner cloy,
Which Christ hath deigned to bless?- Keble.
Lift, O Christian, lift thine eyes
To thy home beyond the skies;
Eternal bliss awaits thee there
With which earth's joys can not compare.
