not very strong at first, rather diminishes than increases by time; they live so much in the world, and so little together, that to stand well with their own set continues the favour ite project of each; while to stand well with each other is considered as an under part of the plot in the drama of life. Whereas, did they start in the conjugal race with the fixed idea that they were to look to each other for their chief worldly happiness, not only prisciple, but prudence, and even selfishness, would convince them of the necessity of sed

ify the same habits. Now a passion for gratifying vanity, and a spirit of dissipation is a passion of the same kind; and therefore, though for a few weeks, a man who has chosen his wife in the public haunts, and this wife a woman made up of accomplishments, may, from the novelty of the connexion and of the scene, continue domestic; yet in a little time she will find that those passions, to which she has trusted for making pleasant the married life of her husband, will crave the still higher pleasures of the club; and while these are pursued, she will be consign-ulously cultivating each other's esteem and ed over to solitary evenings at home, or driven back to the old dissipations.

affection as the grand means of promoting that happiness. But vanity, and the desire of flattery and applause, still continue to op erate. Even after the husband is brough to feel a perfect indifference for his wife, be still likes to see her decorated in a style which may serve to justify his choice. He encourages her to set off her person, not so much for his own gratification, as that his self-love may be flattered, by her continuing to attract the admiration of those whose opinion is the standard by which he meas ures his fame, and which fame is to stand him in the stead of happiness. Thus is she ne cessarily exposed to the two-fold temptation of being at once neglected by her husband and exhibited as an object of attraction to One great cause of the want of attach- other men. If she escape this complicated ment in these modish couples is, that by liv- danger, she will be indebted for her preser ing in the world at large, they are not driv-vation not to his prudence, but to her own en to depend on each other as the chief source principles. of comfort. Now it is pretty clear, in spite of modern theories, that the very frame and being of societies, whether great or small, public or private, is jointed and glued together by dependence. Those attachments, which arise from, and are compacted by, a sense of mutual wants, mutual affection, mutual benefit, and mutual obligation, are the cement which secure the union of the family

To conquer the passion for club gratifications, a woman must not strive to feed it with sufficient aliment of the same kind in her society, either at home or abroad; she must supplant and overcome it by a passion of a different nature, which Providence has kindly planted within us; I mean by inspiring him with the love of fire-side enjoyments. But to qualify herself for administering these she must cultivate her understanding, and her heart, and her temper, acquiring at the same time that modicum of accomplishments suited to his taste, which may qualify her for possessing, both for him and for herself, greater varieties of safe recreation.

as well as of the state.

In some of these modish marriages, instead of the decorous neatness, the pleasant intercourse, and the mutual warmth of communication of the once social dinner; the late and uninteresting meal is commonly hurried over by the languid and slovenly pair, that the one may have time to dress for his club, and the other for her party. And in these cold abstracted tetes a tetes, they often take as little pains to entertain each other, as if the one was precisely the only human being in the world in whose eyes the other did not feel it necessary to appear agreeable.

Unfortunately, when two young persons of the above description marry, the union is sometimes considered rather as the end than the beginning of an engagement; the at- Now if these young, and perhaps really tachment of each to the other is rather view- amiable persons could struggle against the ed as an object already completed, than as imperious tyranny of fashion, and contrive to one which marriage is to confirm more close-pass a little time together, so as to get ac ly. But the companion for life is not always quainted with each other; and if each would chosen from the purest motive; she is se- live in the lively and conscientious exercise lected, perhaps, because she is admired by of those talents and attractions which they other men, rather than because she possesses sometimes know how to produce on occasions in an eminent degree those peculiar quali- not quite so justifiable; they would, I am ties which are likely to constitute the indi- persuaded, often find out each other to be vidual happiness of the man who chooses very agreeable people. her. Vanity usurps the place of affection; delighted and delighting, receiving and be and indolence swallows up the judgment. stowing happiness, would no longer be drivNot happiness, but some easy substitute for en to the necessity of perpetually escaping happiness is pursued; and a choice which from home as from the only scene which of may excite envy, rather than produce satisfers no possible materials for pleasure. The faction, is adopted as the means of effecting

it.

"The pair, not matched but joined, set out separately with their independent and individual pursuits. Whether it made a part of their original plan or not, that they should be indispensably necessary to each others com fort, the sense of this necessity, probably

And both of them,

steady and growing attachment, improved by unbounded confidence and mutual interchange of sentiments; judgment ripening and experience strengthening that esteem which taste and inclination first inspired each party studying to promote the eternal as well as temporal happiness of the other each correcting the errors. improving the

THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE.

He

principles, and confirming the faith of the they seem compelled to suffer, but from beloved object: this would enrich the feeling which they are eager to escape, as really deheart with gratifications which the insolvent taining them from some positive joy to which world has not to bestow: such an heart they are flying in the next crowd; till, if he would compare its interesting domestic scenes met them there, he would find the compowith the vapid pleasures of public resort, nent parts of each precisely the same. till it would fly to its own home, not from would hear the same stated phrases internecessity but from taste; not from custom, rupted, not answered, by the same stated replies, the unfinished sentence driven adbut choice; not from duty, but delight. It may seem a contradiction to have assert-verse to the winds,' by pressing multitudes; ed, that beings of all ages, tempers and tal- the same warm regret mutually exchanged ents, should with such unremitting industry by two friends (who had expressly denied to follow up any way of life, if they did not each other all the winter) that they had not find some enjoyment in it: yet I appeal to met before; the same soft and smiling sorthe bosoms of these incessant hunters in the row at being torn away from each other now; chase of pleasure, whether they are really the same avowed anxiety to renew the meethappy. No:-in the full tide and torrent of ing, with perhaps the same secret resolution diversion, in the full blaze of gayety and to avoid it. He would hear described with the same pathetic earnestness the difficulties splendor, of getting into this house, and the dangers of getting out of the last! the perilous retreat of chariots, and the clang of contending of former nights, effected amidst the shock coachmen! a retreat indeed effected with a skill and peril little inferior to that of the ten thousand, and detailed with far juster triumph for that which happened only once British heroines every night. There is one in a life to the Grecian hero, occurs to these point of resemblance, indeed, between them, in which the comparison fails; for the commander with a mauvaise honte at which a true female veteran would blush, is remarkable for never naming himself.

:

6

The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy? But there is an anxious restlessness excited by the pursuit, which, if not interesting, is bustling. There is the dread, and partly the discredit, of being suspected of having one hour unmortgaged, not only to successive, but contending engagements; this it is, and not the pleasure of the engagement itself, which is the object-There is an agitation in the arrangements which imposes itself on the vacant heart for happiness. There is a tumult kept up in the spirits which is a busy though treacherous substitute for comfort.The multiplicity of solicitations sooths vaniWith mysterious reverence' I forbear to ty. The very regret that they cannot be all accepted has its charms; for dignity is flattered because refusal implies importance, and descant on those serious and interesting rites, pre-engagement intimates celebrity. Then for the more august and solemn celebration there is the joy of being invited when others of which, Fashion nightly convenes these are neglected; the triumph of showing our splendid myriads to her more sumptuous less modish friend that we are going where she temples. Rites! which, when engaged in cannot come; and the feigned regret at be- with due devotion, absorb the whole soul, indeed those of love, and peace, and kinding obliged to go, assumed before her who is and call every passion into exercise, except half wild at being obliged to stay away.-There is the secret art of exciting envy in ness, and gentleness. Inspiring rites! which the very act of bespeaking compassion; and stimulate fear, rouse hope, kindle zeal, of challenging respect by representing their quicken duiness, sharpen discernment, exin short, in the due performance of which engagements as duties, oppressive indeed but ercise memory, inflame curiosity! indispensable-These are some of the supplemental shifts for happiness with which all the energies and attentions, all the powVanity contrives to feed her hungry followers and abilities, all the abstraction and exertion, all the diligence and devotedness, all ers, too eager to be nice.* In the succession of open houses, in which the sacrifice of time, all the contempt of ease, pleasure is to be started and pursued on any all the neglect of sleep, all the oblivion of given night, the actual place is never taken care, all the risks of fortune (half of which, into the account of enjoyment: the scene of if directed to their true objects, would which is always supposed to lie in any place change the very face of the world) all these where her votaries happen not to be. Plea are concentrated to one point; a point in sure has no present tense; but in the house which the wise and the weak, the learned which her pursuers have just quitted, and in and the ignorant, the fair and the frightful, the house to which they are just hastening, a the sprightly and the dull, the rich and the one common and uniform equality; an stranger might conclude the slippery goddess poor, the patrician and the plebeian, meet in had really fixed her throne, and that her worshippers considered the existing scene, which equality as religiously respected in these so

Rites !

lemnities, in which all distinctions are level

*The precaution which is taken against the led at a blow (and of which the very spirit possibility of being unengaged by the long interval therefore is democratical) as it is combatted between the invitation and the period of its ac- in all other instances.

complishment, reminds us of what historians re

mark of the citizens of ancient Crotona, who Behold four kings, in majesty rover'd, used to send their invitations a year before the With hoary whiskers and a forked beard;

time, that the guests might prepare both their And four fair queens, whose hands sustain a flow's, dress and their appetite for the visit, The expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;

VOL. I.

52

Four knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand;
And party-colour'd troops, a shining train,
Drawn forth to combat on the velvet plain.*

CHAP. XVIII.

On public amusements.

studies, or disqualify the mind for religious exercises, it is an intimation that they have been too much indulged, and under such cir cumstances, it might be the part of christian circumspection to inquire if the time devoted to them ought not to be abridged. Above all, a tender conscience will never lose sight of one safe rule of determining in all doubtful cases: if the point be so nice that though It is not proposed to enter the long con- we hope upon the whole there may be no tested field of controversy as to the individ-harm in engaging in it, we may at least be always quite sure that there can be no harm ual amusements which may be considered as safe and lawful for those women of the higher in letting it alone. The adoption of this simclass who make a strict profession of Chris-ple rule would put a period to much unpro. fitable casuistry. tianity. The judgment they will be likely The principle of being responsible for the to form for themselves on the subject, and the plan they will consequently adopt, will use of time once fixed in the mind, the con depend much on the clearness or obscurity of scientious Christian will be making a contin their religious views, and on the greater or ual progress in the great art of turning time less progress they have made in their Chris- to account In the first stages of her religion It is in their choice of amuse- she will have abstained from pleasures which ments that you are able, in some measure to began a little to wound the conscience, or get acquainted with the real dispositions of which assumed a questionable shape; but mankind. In their business, in the leading she will probably have abstained with regret, and with a secret wish that conscience could employments of life, their path is in a good have permitted her to keep well with pleas degree chalked out for them: there is in this But you may discern respect a sort of general character; where-ure and religion too. in the greater part, more or less, must coin-in her subsequent course that she has reachcide. But in their pleasures the choice is ed a more advanced stage, by her beginning to neglect even such pleasures or employ voluntary, the taste is self-directed, the propensity is independent; and of course the ments as have no moral turpitude in them, habitual state, the genuine bent and bias of but are merely what are called innocent. the temper, are most likely to be seen in This relinquishment arises, not so much from those pursuits which every person is at liber- her feeling still more the restraints of religion, as from the improvement in her reli ty to choose for himself. gious taste

tian course.

She

Pleasures cannot now attach When a truly religious principle shall have her merely from her being innocent, unless acquired such a degree of force as to produce that conscientious and habitual im- they are likewise interesting, and to be interprovement of time before recommended. it esting, they must be consonant to her superinduced views. She is not contented to will discover itself by an increasing indifference and even deadness to those pleasures spend a large portion of her time harmlessly, which are interesting to the world at large. it must be spent profitably also. Nay, if she A woman under the predominating influence be indeed earnestly pressing towards the of such a principle, will begin to discover mark,' it will not be even enough for her that that the same thing which in itself is inno- her present pursuit be good if she be convinced that it might be still better. Her cent may yet be comparatively wrong will begin to feel that there are many amuse- contempt of ordinary enjoyments will in ments and employments which, though they crease in a direct proportion to her increas ed relish for those pleasures which religion have nothing censurable in themselves, yet if they be allowed to intrench on hours which enjoins and bestows. So that at length if it ought to be dedicated to still better purpowere possible to suppose that an angel could ses; or if they are protracted to an undue come down to take off as it were the interlength; or above all, if by softening and re- dict, and to invite her to resume all the pleas ures she had renounced, and to resume them laxing her mind and dissipating her spirits, they so indispose her for better pursuits as with complete impunity; she would reject to render subsequent duties a burden, they the invitation, because, from an improvebecome in that case clearly wrong for her, ment in her spiritual taste, she would despise whatever they may be for others. Now as those delights from which she had at first abtemptations of this sort are the peculiar dan-stained through fear. Till her will and affec gers of better kind of characters, the sacrifice tions come heartily to be engaged in the ser

of such little gratifications as may have no vice of God, the progress will not be com great harm in them, come in among the dai-fortable; but when once they are so engaged, the attachment to this service will be cordily calls to self-denial in aChristian.

The fine arts, for instance, polite litera-al, and her heart will not desire to go back ture, elegant society, these are among the and toil again in the drudgery of the world. lawful, and liberal, and becoming recrea- For her religion has not so much given her tions of higher life; yet if even these be a new creed, as a new heart, and a new life. cultivated to the neglect or exclusion of seAs her views are become new, so her temrerer duties; if they interfere with serious pers, dispositions, tastes, actions, pursuits, choice of company, choice of amusements, are new also; her employment of time is

Rape of the Lock.

sires, heavenly tempers, and holy habits, with an invariable desire of pleasing God, and a constant fear of offending him. A real christian, whose heart is thoroughly imbued with this principle, can no more return to the amusements of the world, than a philosopher can be refreshed with the diversions of the vulgar, or a man be amused with the recreations of a child. The New Testament is not a mere statute book: it is not a table where every offence is detailed, and its corresponding penalty annexed: it is not so much a compilation, as a spirit of laws: it does not so much prohibit every individual

changed, her turn of conversation is altered; old things are passed away, all things are become new. In dissipated and worldly society, she will seldom fail to feel a sort of uneasiness, which will produce one of these two effects; she will either, as proper seasons present themselves, struggle hard to introduce such subjects as may be useful to others, or, supposing that she finds herself unable to effect this, she will as far as she prudently can, absent herself from all unprofitable kind of society. Indeed her manner of conducting herself under these circumstances may serve to furnish her with a test of her own sincerity. For while people are con-wrong practice, as suggest a temper and imtending for a little more of this amusement, and pleading for a little extension of that gratification, and fighting in order that they nay hedge in a little more territory to their pleasure ground, they are exhibiting a kind of evidence against themselves, that they are not yet renewed in the spirit of their Inind.'

*

plant a general principle with which every wrong practice is incompatible. It did not, for ins ance, so much attack the then reigning and corrupt fashions, which were probably, like the fashions of other countries, temporary and local, as it struck at the worldliness, which is the root and stock from which all corrupt fashions proceed.

It has been warmly urged as an objection The prophet Isaiah, who addressed himto certain religious books, and particularly self more particularly to the Israelitish woagainst a recent work of high worth and ce- men, inveighed not only against vanity, luxlebrity, by a distinguished layman, that they ury, and immodesty, in general; but with have set the standard of self-denial, higher great propriety censured even those precise than reason or even than Christianity re-instances of each, to which the women of quires. The works do indeed elevate the rank, in the particular country he was adgeneral tone of religion to a higher pitch dressing, were especially addicted; nay, he than is quite convenient to those who are at enters into the minute detail* of their very infinite pains to construct a comfortable and personal decorations, and brings specific comprehensive plan which shall unite the charges against several instances of their questionable pleasures of this world with the levity and extravagance of apparel; meanpromised happiness of the next. I say it has ing, however, chiefly to censure the turn of been sometimes objected, even by those rea- character which these indicated But the ders who, on the whole, greatly admire the gospel of Christ, which was to be addressed particular work alluded to, that it is unrea- to all ages, stations, and countries, seldom sonably strict in the perceptive and prohib- contains any such detailed animadversions; itory parts; and especially that it individual- for though many of the censurable modes ly and specifically forbids certain fashiona- which the prophet so severely reprobated, ble amusements, with a severity not to be continued probably to be still prevalent in found in the Scriptures; and is scrupulously Jerusalem in the days of our Saviour, yet rigid in condemning diversions against which how little would it have suited the universalnothing is said in the New Testament. Each ity of his mission, to have confined his preachobjector, however, is so far reasonable, as ing to such local, limited, and fluctuating only to beg quarter for her own favourite di-customs! not but there are many texts version, and generously abandons the defence which actually do define the christian conof those in which she herself has no particu- duct as well as temper, with sufficient parlar pleasure. ticularity to serve as a condemnation of maBut these objectors do not seem to under-ny practices which are pleaded for, and oftstand the true genius of Christianity. They en to point pretty directly at them. do not consider that it is the character of the It would be well for those modish chrisgospel to exhibit a scheme of principles of tians who vindicate excessive vanity in dress, which it is the tendency to infuse such a spirit of holiness as must be utterly incompatible, not only with customs decidedly vicious, but with the very spirit of worldly pleasure. They do not consider that Christianity is neither a table of ethics, nor a system of opinions, nor a bundle of rods to punish, nor an exhibition of rewards to allure, nor a scheme of restraints to terrify, nor merely a code of laws to restrict; but it is a new principle infused into the heart by the word and the spirit of God; out of which principle will inevitably grow right opinions, renewed affections, correct morals, pure de

*Practical View, &c. by Mr. Wilberforce.

expense, and decoration, on the principle of their being mere matters of indifference, and no where prohibited in the gospel, to consider that such practices strongly mark the temper and spirit with which they are connected, and in that view are so little creditable to the christian profession, as to furnish a just subject of suspicion against the piety of those who indulge in them.

Had Peter, on that memorable day when he added three thousand converts to the church by a single sermon, narrowed his subject to a remonstrance against this diversion, or that public place, or the other

*Isaiah, chap. iii..

indignation on many things which were prac tised in the Circensian games; yet, instead of pruning this corrupt tree, and singling out even the inhuman gladiatorial sports for the object of his condemnation, he laid his axe to the root of all corruption, by preach ing to them that Gospel of Christ of which he was not ashamed,' and showing to them that believed, that it was the power of God and the wisdom of God.' Of this gospel the great object was, to attack not one popular evil, but the whole body of sin. Now the doctrine of Christ crucified, was the most appropriate means for destroying this; for by what other means could the fervid ima gination of the apostle have so powerfully inforced the heinousness of sin, as by insist ing on the costliness of the sacrifice which was offered for its expiation? It is somewhat remarkable, that about the very time of his preaching to the Romans, the public taste had sunk to such an excess of depravity, that the very women engaged in those shocking encounters with the gladiators.

vain amusement, it might indeed have suited the case of some of the female Jewish converts who were present, but such restrictions as might have been appropriate to them, would probably not have applied to the cases of the Parthians and Medes, of which bis audience was partly composed; or such as might have belonged to them, would have been totally inapplicable to the Cretes and Arabians; or again, those which suited these would not have applied to the Elamites and Mesapotamians. By such partial and cir cumscribed addresses, his multifarious audience, composed of all nations and countries, would not have been, as we are told they were, pricked to the heart.' But when he preached on the broad ground of general repentance and remission of sins in the name of Jesus Christ,' it was no wonder that they all cried out, What shall we do?' These collected foreigners, at their return home, must have found very different usages to be corrected in their different countries; of course a detailed restriction of the popular abuses at Jerusalem, would have been of But, in the first place, it was better that little use to strangers returning to their re- the right practice of his hearers should grow spective nations. The ardent apostle, there- out of the right principle; and next, his spe fore, acted more consistently in communica- cifically reprobating these diversions might ting to them the large and comprehensive have had this ill-effect, that succeeding ages, spirit of the gospel which should at once in- seeing that they in their amusements came volve all their scattered and separate duties, somewhat short of those dreadful excesses of as well as reprove all their scattered and the polished Romans, would only have plum. separate corruptions, for the whole always ed themselves on their own comparative su includes a part, and the greater involves the periority; and on this principle, even the less. Christ and his disciples, instead of lim- bull fights of Madrid might in time bave had iting their condemnation to the peculiar van- their panegyrists. The truth is, the apostle ities reprehended by Isaiah, embraced the knew that such abominable corruptions very soul and principle of them all, in such could never subsist together with Christian exhortations as the following: Be ye not ty, and in fact, the honour of abolishing conformed to the world :- If any man love these barbarous diversions, was reserved for the world, the love of the Father is not in Constantine, the first Christain emperor. him: The fashion of this world passeth Besides, the apostles, by inveighing against away.' Our Lord and his apostles, whose some particular diversions, might have seem future unselected audience was to be made ed to sanction all which they did not actually up out of the various inhabitants of the whole censure: and as, in the lapse of time, and world, attacked the evil heart, out of which the revolutions of governments, custorns all those incidental, local, peculiar, and pop-change and manners fluctuate, had a minute ular corruptions proceeded.

In the time of Christ and his immediate followers, the luxury and intemperance of the Romans had arisen to a pitch before unknown in the world; but as the same gospel, which its Divine Author and his disciples were then preaching to the hungry and necessitous, was afterwards to be preached to high and low, not excepting the Roman emperors themselves; the large precept, Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,' was likely to be of more general use, than any separate exhortation to temperance, to thankfulness, to moderation, as to quantity or expense; which last indeed must always be left in some degree to the judgment and circumstances of the individual.

When the apostle of the Gentiles visited the Saints of Caesar's household,' he could hardly fail to have heard, nor could he have heard without abhorrence, of some of the fashionable amusements in the court of NeTo. He must have reflected with peculiar

reprehension of the fashions of the then existing age been published in the New Testa ment, that portion of scripture must in time have become obsolete, even in that very same country, when the fashions themselves should have changed. Paul and his brother apostles, knew that their epistles would be the oracles of the Christian world, when these temporary diversions would be forgotten. In consequence of this knowledge, by the universal precept to avoid the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; they have prepared a lasting antidote against the principle of all corrupt pleasures, which will ever remain equally applicable to the loose fashions of all ages, and of every coun try, to the end of the world.

Therefore, to vindicate diversions which are in themselves unchristian, on the pretended ground that they are not specifically condemned in the gospel, would be little less absurd than if the heroes of Newmarket should bring it as a proof that their periodical meetings are not condemned in scripture.