Tired Church Members | Page 8

girl come to you, frightened at things she had permitted at a ball the night before, entreating to know if you thought them "very bad"?
Examine it, test it for yourself; only be honest. Can you dance "in armour"? crowned and shielded and shining with "the hope of salvation," with "righteousness" and "faith"? Are your shoes "peace"? peace of heart, of conscience. Is your belt the girdle of "truth"? Can you "shew your colours" in the throng? Dare you? Are they not rather trailing in the dust, or quietly pocketed, or left at home? Think honestly, and answer to yourself how it is. As in feasting, so here: you cannot dance all night with people, and next day warn them against "the world, and the things of the world," and even hope to be listened to. "I am as good as most Church members,"--ah how often we teachers and talkers meet that rebuff! And how well the Lord knew when he said:
"He that is not with me, is against me."
"Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" [16]
"A time to dance."--Yes: whenever, and wherever, you can do it as the whole-souled servant of Christ. And how about dancing at home, among ourselves, as people say?--Without going any further, one thing forbids it all. If you dance anywhere,--you, a professing Christian,--in the eyes of the world you dance everywhere. The world allows no middle ground for Christians. "I saw her dancing,"--and nobody stops to inquire when, or with whom, or how. So that there is nothing for you but this:
"Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." [17]

[1] Eccle. iii. 1.
[2] Eccle. iii. 4.
[3] Ps. cxlix. 3.
[4] Ps. cl. 2, 4.
[5] Isa. lxi. 3.
[6] I Pet. ii. 9.
[7] Ex. xv. 20.
[8] Ex. xv. 20.
[9] Judges xi. 3.
[10] I Sam. xviii. 6
[11] II Sam. vi. 14.
[12] Luke xv. 11.
[13] Ps. xxx. 11.
[14] Ex. xxxii. 6
[15] Ex. xv. 19.
[16] James iii. 11.
[17] Prov. iv. 15.

Theatres.
If I say that it degrades oneself to find pleasure in degrading things or degraded people, you will perhaps admit the fact but deny that it has any application to theatre-going. Is it not a fashionable, intellectual, and what not, amusement? Let us see.
Many of you who yet are theatre-goers, know well that you would feel yourselves degraded if even a dear friend went on the stage.
"She has trailed an honoured name in the dust,"--so have I heard the comment, from one who was not even a personal friend. "She might at least have taken another name!"--And the speaker was not brought up among Puritans, and belonged to a Church which--as a Church--has no fear of the theatre. I think occasional indulgence was common enough in the family. And the young actress had done nothing but become an actress, keeping her own name. Friends are mortified,--and yet friends go to see, and to help along.
"But what shall actors do?" you say; "it is their way of getting a livelihood." No, not if support were given only to other ways. A man may make a round sum at a rowing match which cripples his strength for life; or by leaping across Passaic Falls, till he breaks his neck; he may set up for a wizard or a conjuror or a quack doctor,--he may pick your pocket or fire your house,--all in the way of business. The only question is in which way will you help him on. Things must be judged of quite apart from their money-making results. The old African maker of "greegrees" (charms) burns them all when she becomes a Christian; and the young carpenter just converted under Mr. Moody's preaching, gives up his only job because he can not do it for Christ, and will not even drive a nail in the scaffolding about a theatre. For the money that changes hands there, is the price of "the souls of men."
You do not believe all this: you do not believe that evil can hide among such fascinations. And for the actors, they are not men and women! Are they not kings and queens and fairies? The glamour of their dress, the strangeness of the scenes, the un-everyday tragic or fantastic air of it all; with sometimes the witchery of music or the wonders of artistic effect, lay a spell upon your common sense. Do I not know? Have I not seen young Christian girls from the country a standing jest with people who knew the world, because--beginning with what the laughers called "a holy horror" of the theatre--they yielded and went "just once." Then, "only once more,"--and then presently would go every night, to see everything!
When Miriam was six years old, some acquaintances over-persuaded her father to let them take her to see Cinderella,--Cinderella and some part of Der