s.
There can be no dispute concerning the true end of recreations. They are
intended to refresh our exhausted bodily or mental powers, and to
restore us, with renewed vigour, to the more serious occupations of
life. Whatever, therefore, fatigues either body or mind, instead of
refreshing them, is not fitted to answer the designed purpose. Whatever
consumes more time, or money, or thought, than it is expedient (I might
say _necessary_) to allot to mere amusement, can hardly be approved by
any one who considers these talents as precious deposits for the
expenditure of which he will have to give account. Whatever directly or
indirectly must be likely to injure the welfare of a fellow creature,
can scarcely be a suitable _recreation_ for a Christian, who is "to love
his neighbour as himself;" or a very consistent _diversion_ for any one,
the business of whose life is to diffuse happiness.

But does a Christian never relax? Let us not so wrong and vilify the
bounty of Providence, as to allow for a moment that the sources of
innocent amusement are so rare, that men must be driven, almost by
constraint, to such as are of a doubtful quality. On the contrary, such
has been the Creator's goodness, that almost every one, both of our
physical and intellectual, and moral faculties (and the same may be said
of the whole creation which we see around us) is not only calculated to
answer the proper end of its being, by its subserviency to some purpose
of solid usefulness, but to be the instrument of administering pleasure.

Not content
With every food of life to nourish man,
Thou mak'st all nature beauty to his eye
And music to his ear.

Our Maker also, in his kindness, has so constructed us, that even mere
vicissitude is grateful and refreshing--a consideration which should
prompt us often to seek, from a prudent _variation_ of _useful
pursuits_, that recreation, for which we are apt to resort to what is
altogether, _unproductive_ and _unfruitful_.

Yet rich and multiplied are the springs of innocent relaxation. The
Christian relaxes in the temperate use of all the gifts of Providence.
Imagination, and taste, and genius, and the beauties of creation, and
the works of art, lie open to him. He relaxes in the feast of reason, in
the intercourses of society, in the sweets of friendship, in the
endearments of love, in the exercise of hope, of confidence, of joy, of
gratitude, of universal good will