limitations belongs
chiefly if not entirely to the individual Christian conscience. I have
said that the tendency of religious teaching with reference to this and
kindred subjects has been to make the idea of _safety_ more prominent than
that of _development_. Yet I do not overlook, as was implied in the
remarks of one who objected to my views, the defensive aspect of the
gospel. I admit both the fact and its urgent necessity I could not do
otherwise, knowing that the heart is deceitful, and remembering the prayer
which Christ puts into every man's mouth, "Lead us not into temptation." I
am pleading for the restraints as well as for the privileges of the gospel
in the matter of men's amusements; for more and not less care and
watchfulness to be brought to bear upon their future regulation.

But withal, I am not bound to abandon the general gospel principle of
purging amusements by a closer contact of religion with them, because in
certain cases this regulation becomes a matter of extreme difficulty and
delicacy; because I cannot precisely say _how_ the gospel leaven is to be
conveyed into certain forms of amusement. Just as consistently might I
have refused to denounce slavery as a crime against God and humanity
because I could not prescribe an effectual scheme for abolishing it. And
that such difficulties do arise in the applications of this principle, I
freely admit.

There, for example, is the theatre. I believe this principle applies to
that as well as to any other amusement. For myself I wish that I could
occasionally see Shakespeare interpreted by the best histrionic talent,
with all adjuncts of scenery and costume. To me it would be a rich
pleasure and a source of intellectual improvement. But as the theatre is
now conducted and sustained, I am clearly of the opinion that no Christian
ought to frequent it. He cannot do so without, I think, in the great
majority of instances, committing himself to very much that is indecent
and coarse. And just how this difficulty is to be surmounted, how
scholarly, Christian men who love such entertainments and are qualified to
profit by them, are to be furnished with them freed from their abuses, I
am not now prepared to say. I think it might be done; but the theatre, as
it now is, is no place for a Christian.

This, however does not, as before observed, in the least invalidate the
general principle. It is merely a question of means. Nor, as was very
roundly asserted, does the