read about total depravity--and cheer up. In moments of great
sorrow they think of the tale of non-elect infants, and their hearts
overflow with a kind of joy.

They cannot imagine why people wish to attend the theatre when they
can read the "Confession of Faith," or why they should feel like
dancing after they do read it.

It is very sad to think of the young men and women who have been
eternally ruined by witnessing the plays of Shakespeare, and it is
also sad to think of the young people, foolish enough to be happy,
keeping time to the pulse of music, waltzing to hell in loving
pairs--all for the glory of God, and to the praise of his glorious
justice. I think, too, of the thousands of men and women who, while
listening to the music of Wagner, have absolutely forgotten the
Presbyterian creed, and who for a little while have been as happy
as if the creed had never been written. Tear down the theatres,
burn the opera houses, break all musical instruments, and then let
us go to church.

I am not at all surprised that the General Assembly took up this
progressive euchre matter. The word "progressive" is always
obnoxious to the ministers. Euchre under another name might go.
Of course, progressive euchre is a kind of gambling. I knew a
young man, or rather heard of him, who won at progressive euchre
a silver spoon. At first this looks like nothing, almost innocent,
and yet that spoon, gotten for nothing, sowed the seed of gambling
in that young man's brain. He became infatuated with euchre, then
with cards in general, then with draw-poker in particular,--then
into Wall Street. He is now a total wreck, and has the impudence
to say that is was all "pre-ordained." Think of the thousands and
millions that are being demoralized by games of chance, by marbles
--when they play for keeps--by billiards and croquet, by fox and
geese, authors, halma, tiddledywinks and pigs in clover. In all
these miserable games, is the infamous element of chance--the raw
material of gambling. Probably none of these games could be played
exclusively for the glory of God. I agree with the Presbyterian
General Assembly, if the creed is true, why should anyone try to
amuse himself? If there is a hell, and all of us are going there,
there should never be another smile on the human face. We should
spend our days in sighs, our nights in tears. The world should go
insane. We find strange combinations--good men with bad creeds,
and bad