in

be?' Ay! who does know indeed? Ah! if you only knew, if the dense veil of ignorance could be lifted from your eyes, if you could only see Morality aided by Truth, and not by Shams, you would see that the Devil has no better friend than this sour, unlovely, diseased Seriousness, which parades around young and old Pharisees, exclaiming to others: 'Stand apart, I am holier than thou!' Yet lest I, sinner that I am, may not be accused of seeking wittingly or unwittingly to injure the good cause, I hereby protest that I am in no wise responsible for any of the innovations (if such they be) on old forms, express or implied, direct or indirect, in these chapters, since all which I have asserted has been said to all intents and purposes by pious and reverend clergymen, who have battled right bravely for Joyousness, and for the whole Hilariter doctrine, velis remisque. Yes, even since I concluded that last paragraph, with its 'probatum est,' there came into my hands a fresh proof, in the shape of a little book, entitled, 'The Christian Law of Amusement,' by the Reverend James Leonard Corning, Pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, New-York. A brave heart this same Corning; one who fights as manfully for Nature and Recreation, as one of the Misguided ever fought for the Un-natural and Heart-crushing and Grim. With right good will does he plunge into the thickest of the fight, slapping a weak brother here and a pig-headed brother there; showing them how in their practice of life they do devil-service, in pretending to serve GOD, and sacrifice to wicked forms what they should offer to the HOLY SPIRIT. And that it may be all fair and square between us, O religious reader! I now hand you over to the following extracts from Corning, that the odium theologicum, if any there must be, may rest on theological shoulders well able to bear it.

THERE is a law of the human economy not covering so wide a field as the law of rest and labor, but a law no less established by the CREATOR than they. It is the law of Recreation; if you please, the law of play.

'It would be a flagrant error to regard either (sleep or play) as unworthy our nature, since GOD has ordained that both are essential.

'There is a certain class of mental philosophers, who make mirth a distinct faculty of the human mind. We need not adopt this theory, though if we were to judge of the reality of a faculty by outward manifestations alone, we could hardly withhold our

assent.

All that we wish to insist upon is, that mirthfulness is a state of mind which is demanded by the very constitution of Man. The CREATOR, in making Man, designed not only that he should work and sleep, but that likewise he should play. If any one suggests, that people do not need to be exhorted to the duty of play, since a great proportion of the dwellers upon earth do nothing but play, I reply, that there is a vast number of people, morbidly conscientious, who have an idea, more or less distinct, that mirthfulness does in some way or other conflict with true Christian sobriety.

‘Something analogous to recreation is demanded and actually experienced by every creature that GOD has made.

'The very inanimate things of Nature have their play. In that beautiful figure of Holy Writ, where all the trees of the field' are spoken of as 'clapping their hands,' we have a picture of Nature at play. So in the clouds chasing each other across the sky; in the winds tossing and whirling the autumn leaves mid-air; in the waves leaping to-and-fro, and dashing their sparkling spray upon the beach; in all these we have ru

dimentary though distinct signs of the great law of recreation which pervades inanimate Nature. If we ascend to the Animal Kingdom, we see the law more palpably developed; and that which in the inanimate world was but dimly foreshadowed, in this department of being becomes more strikingly manifest. Not a living creature that God ever made, from the ephemeron that is born at noon-day, and at eventide goes to its grave, to the elephant and the leviathan, but compensates for the wear and tear of life by joyful sport. And the lambs skipping and gambolling in your meadows, and the birds cleaving the sky with songs, are only types of the law of recreation, which knows no exception through all the Animal Kingdom.

'But it will be said in reply to this, that these are lower orders of being, and it does not follow that man needs amusement because animals need it. I reply, that in no order of earthly beings is the instinct of mirthful activity seen in such high development as in Man. It has been said, that man is the only creature that laughs, and this healthful and exhilarating exercise indicates the height to which the mirthful instinct rises in his mental constitution. So far is mirthfulness from being a contradiction of man's intellectual and moral nature, that it is demanded by it. It is just because man is the highest order of earthly beings, that he can least of all dispense with recreation. If the mere muscular labor of brutes needs to be compensated by recreation, shall recreation be thought unnecessary for or unworthy of a being, who, in addition to muscular labor, has to undergo the far more heavy and exhausting toil of mind? No, indeed. You might limit the life of a horse or an ox to the two chapters of work and sleep, leaving recreation entirely out, with far less injury and violence to its constitution than would be inflicted upon man, if you should apply such legislation to his earthly being.

'Is not the world full of examples, where men have sacrificed health, and at length life itself, by a vain attempt to work without play? This is the curse which is inflicted upon very many of the laboring classes, that the whole of life with them is work, with no leisure left for play.

'Those parents who restrain the recreative propensities of their children, by forcing their intellects to precocious development, do so in violation of God's laws, and invariably they meet their just retribution in the sacrifice of their children's health or lives. Show me a child who, when its school-fellows are out in the play-ground, sits meditating at home like another NEWTON, or in solemn study, like a monk counting his beads, and though his parents may say, 'What a remarkably intellectual and religious boy we have!' I tell you that unless GOD's physical laws are out of course, that child will be likely to die of scrofula, or inhabit an insane asylum. His very sobriety and excessive thoughtfulness clearly indicate that the brain is absorbing all the vital energy to itself, and if this process is not checked, insanity or premature death will be the sure result.

'It is certainly most devoutly to be wished, that parents would regard it as a religious duty to spend vastly more thought than they do at present upon the physical education of their children. And let me add that the chief way to do this is, to obey the divine law, which has made play and pastime the grand preliminaries to a long, active, and useful life.

'I wish now to observe, that mirthful recreation, being the grand preparation for the establishment of physical health, is likewise an essential condition to its preservation to a good old age. Without it bodily vigor will inevitably suffer a premature decay, as is shown not only by the constitution of man, but likewise by wide observation.

'People who adopt the rule of all work, and no play, will be short-lived. Of this fact the American people are now furnishing to the world a remarkable example. The two great chapters of our social life are care and work. On this broad theatre of enterprise, where wealth and honor hold out such flattering promises to the eager aspirant,

ambition stretches its sinews and girds up its loins for the most persevering and laborious endeavor. There is not a spot on earth where toil of muscle and mind is carried to a pitch so engrossing and exhausting as here. In Germany, Switzerland, and France, pastimes and sports are almost as thoroughly incorporated into the social fabric as they were into that of ancient Greece or Rome. Our progressive and busy civilization will not shelter such trifles beneath its broad ægis. Whatever social recreations prevail among our adult population, are for the most part crowded into our large cities, and there they are debased to purposes of hypocritical politeness, extravagance, love of display, and beastly gluttony.'

And here, resting for a moment from citation, I may ask, what created this excess of coarse, feverish, furious amusement, with all its election rum-riots and prize-fighting, and fire-engine murders, if it was not 'Seriousness,' which, by banning all amusement. dancing, music, profane poetry, and art — drove men into extremes? As I live, I believe that Pharisaism is accountable before GOD for nine-tenths of it. Who are the most desperate recruits in the service of mad beastly dissipation, if not the children of those who make home dismal?

'So that our national life has become a great ponderous mass of propelling machinery, with its immense revolving shafts, and its wheels and axles, all creaking and grinding with perpetual buzz, and not a drop of oil to lubricate piston or pivot. Hence we present to the world the melancholy picture of a nation blessed with resources of knowledge, invention and enterprise unparalleled in the history of the world, yet wearing out and running into premature senility with fearful rapidity, by sheer force of uncompensated care and toil.

'If mirthful recreation is essential to physical health, as it surely is, and that to the very latest period of life, then it cannot in any way conflict with the health of the soul.

'God has made all the parts of the human constitution coördinate and harmonious, and the promotion of the vigor of one part can in no way be inconsistent with the welfare of the whole organism.

'What do we infer from all this? We infer that mirthful recreation is not only lawful for, but is morally obligatory upon, every rational being. It not only does not conflict with religion, but it is one of its great demands. It is not only permitted to a Christian man to divert himself, but it is his most solemn duty; solemn duty, I say, for there are some people who are dying for want of recreation, but who never can be got to obey the imperative demands of their nature, unless they hear the very thunders of Sinai rattling over their heads, and the voice of the MOST HIGH commanding them out of their frozen propriety and austere behavior.

'Perhaps some of my readers may think that I am, in these observations, erecting a man of straw, just for the sake of knocking him down. 'Are there any,' it may be inquired, 'who would abolish all the sportive recreations of man?' I believe there are a great many who have such mistaken notions of the laws of the human mind, and the divinely constituted demands of the human constitution, physical, mental, and moral, that they would think the world had made a real advance toward primeval holiness if there was not a sport or pastime known from the equator to either pole; if mankind had bid farewell to amusement, and left it to birds, and fishes, and kittens.

'I believe, moreover, that there is a vast multitude of young persons, just commencing a religious life, whose consciences are morbidly sensitive about the lawfulness of the exercise of their mirthful instincts; who, when these instincts press in them near to bursting, feel almost as if a magazine of powder were about to explode within

them; who, when pressed by their natural impulses to laughing sport, feel somehow or other as if they were treading on the margin of a precipice; who, though they cannot say positively what evil to body, mind, or soul, results from an occasional play-spell in the dull routine of life, yet are afraid there is an evil somewhere, and as a consequence never enter with heartiness into a mirthful exercise, and hence do not get half the benefit from it that they ought to; and what is more, always engage in such an exercise in violation of their consciences.

'And I do know, from very considerable observation, that it is an idea widely prevalent with young people, that religion consists in austere sobriety, in rigid sepulchral gravity; that the more they are like monks the nearer they will approach the beau ideal of Gospel believers.'

And here I pause to correct a trifling error. Let me say, from observation, that Mr. Corning quite unintentionally libels the monks terribly, Ascetic monks there are, but by far the great proportion of those in Europe are far from having learned the art of injecting the poison of sad, serious unhappiness into every fibre of the heart, as I have seen done among hundreds of woeful pietists in America, and especially among those who were qualifying themselves to become clergymen. And, as our author adds, 'that thousands of youth are repelled from religion by such false notions, cannot be doubted.' As little can a practical man of the world doubt that one single 'believer,' soured by this righteousness over-much, does as much, ay, more harm in a community than ten heedless sinners.

'It cannot be denied that these mistaken notions with regard to the requisitions of a religious life, have been very widely disseminated by much of our current religious biography. Take the Memoirs of such a man as PAYSON -a man for whose austere melancholy, a weak stomach instead of divine grace ought to have had the credit; and how many unthinking persons have drawn the impression from a view of his character, that the more closely the wings of natural glee were clipped, the more nimbly a man might soar in pious communings to the throne of GOD.

'It is sad that so profound a religious writer as JOHN FOSTER should have frowned indignantly upon youthful sports. Says his biographer, PETER BAYNE: . . 'Amusements were, on the whole, an eye-sore to him; even the sports and dances of children he looked on with a scowl of disapproval and discontent.' He saw what was bad in amusements, but not what was good; he perceived not the end they serve in the present economy. He fixed his eye too exclusively on the hollowness of worldly courtesy, and, while he sneered it away, he told us not what to put in its place.'

Mr. Corning very correctly points out, that the 'pietistic'—not pious-opposition to amusements and cheerfulness, has little or no effect on the gross and more repulsive forms of folly, even among believers themselves. Many, he says, who believe that dancing is sinful still load themselves with diamonds and lace to extravagance for ostentation's sake, to provoke envy; gorge themselves at late suppers, and are servile to fashion in a thousand forms.

'If you could blot out all the mirthful instincts of the human soul, you could not cure the great abuses connected with what are called fashionable amusements. You would not destroy the corrupting influence of the theatre, you would not make the opera less objectionable, you would not make our large evening entertainment of style

less noted for extravagance, gluttony, and hypocrisy. These things are no arguments against amusements at all. They are, as we before observed, legitimate arguments against mental intoxication and servility to custom and ambitious love of display.'

And now, reader, be so kind as to pause for an instant, and recal that in the earlier pages of this chapter I charged the grim Pharisaism of this country with straining at gnats and swallowing camels; with passing by terrible social and political abuses, 'the active burning evils,' without comment in sermons, while their strength is given to flat abstractions. This I said, but I confess that when I wrote it, I had no idea of going so far, or of accusing so many as this American clergyman does in the following extracts. Certainly I can not have erred very widely in any thing that I have said of the influence of camel-swallowing when a well-informed Presbyterian divine speaks so positively :

'And here, just as well as any where else, I wish to put in a remark upon a very current mode of religious teaching, concerning the sins of our large evening social entertainments. It is to me a matter of surprise, that so much has been said about the least of these evils, and so little about the greatest of them. I cannot help thinking that many Christian people have a wrong standard of judgment in reference to this great subject, else we should not see such egregious mistakes in moral measurement. Let me explain myself. Did you ever hear a sermon preached specifically on the sinful excess of ornament and attire connected with large parties?

เ

Again, did you ever hear a sermon, or read a tract, on the wickedness of a system of late hours, on the dreadful sin of thus undermining physical health by depriving the body of rest, during the period when God designed it to sleep?

'Again, did you ever hear a sermon, or read a tract, upon the monstrous crime of gormandizing, and that at the most unseasonable hour of the day, universally prevalent at our fashionable entertainments?

'Again, did you ever hear a sermon, or read a tract, designed to show the tendency of our parties, as they are at present constructed, to create and nurture a politeness as hollow and false as the bosom of JUDAS ISCARIOT? If you have heard sermons or read tracts on these crying evils, you have been more thorough in your literary research than I have been.'

I have quoted copiously from this book, in order to clearly and fully establish what I have advanced as to the existence in this country of a deep undercurrent of wretchedness and intolerable melancholy, flowing from what was in the olden time a strengthening fountain of austerity, but which is now changed to literal poison. It was necessary to make evident to the reader, who has not himself analyzed the subject, that all the doleful poetry and newspaper wailing, and phantom caterwauling of our 'Muse's sextons,' had quite a peculiar support; that there is good strong reason for their existence, other than that 'rich melancholy of the Anglo-Saxon mind,' which some derive from beer, and some from fogs. That certainly exists; it existed, as one may see plain, and marked in his lyrics, in the days of doleful Cadmon. But our American sorrow has a virulence of its own; far transcending aught dreamed of by Burton, and finding no place among the humors of Jonson or Shakspeare.

I urge nothing against this Sorrow, as a thing of the past. It had its mis