A History of Quakerism

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CHAP. II … SECT. I.

Games of chance—Quakers forbid cards, dice, and other similar amusements—also, concerns in lotteries—and certain transactions in the stocks—they forbid also all wagers, and speculations by a monied stake—the peculiar wisdom of the latter prohibition, as collected from the history of the origin of some of the amusements of the times.

When we consider the depravity of heart, and the misery and ruin, that are frequently connected with gaming, it would be strange indeed, if the Quakers, as highly professing Christians, had not endeavoured to extirpate it from their own body.

No people, in fact, have taken more or more effectual measures for its suppression. They have proscribed the use of all games of chance, and of all games of skill, that are connected with chance in any manner. Hence cards, dice, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and all the amusements, which come under this definition, are forbidden.

But as there are certain transactions, independently of these amusements, which are equally connected with hazard, and which individuals might convert into the means of moral depravity and temporal ruin, they have forbidden these also, by including them under the appellation of gaming.

Of this description are concerns in the lottery, from which all Quakers are advised to refrain. These include the purchase of tickets, and all insurance upon the same.

In transactions of this kind there is always a monied stake, and the issue is dependent upon chance. There is of course the same fascinating stimulus as in cards, or dice, arising from the hope of gain. The mind also must be equally agitated between hope and fear; and the same state of desperation may be produced, with other fatal consequences, in the event of loss.

Buying and selling in the public stocks of the kingdom is, under particular circumstances, discouraged also. Where any of the members of the society buy into the stocks, under the idea, that they are likely to obtain better security, or more permanent advantages, such a transfer of their property is allowable. But if any were to make a practice of buying or selling, week after week, upon speculation only, such a practice would come under the denomination of gaming. In this case, like the preceding, it is evident, that money would be the object in view; that the issue would be hazardous; and, if the stake or deposit were of great importance, the tranquillity of the mind might be equally disturbed, and many temporal sufferings might follow.

The Quakers have thought it right, upon the same principle, to forbid the custom of laying wagers upon any occasion whatever, or of reaping advantage from any doubtful event, by a previous agreement upon a monied stake. This prohibition, however, is not on record, like the former, but is observed as a traditional law. No Quaker-parent would suffer his child, nor Quaker-schoolmaster the children entrusted to his care, nor any member another, to be concerned in amusements of this kind, without a suitable reproof.

By means of these prohibitions, which are enforced, in a great measure, by the discipline, the Quakers have put a stop to gaming more effectually than others, but particularly by means of the latter. For history has shewn us, that we cannot always place a reliance on a mere prohibition of any particular amusement or employment, as a cure for gaming, because any pastime or employment, however innocent in itself, may be made an instrument for its designs. There are few customs, however harmless, which avarice cannot convert into the means of rapine on the one hand, and of distress on the other.

Many of the games, which are now in use with such pernicious effects to individuals, were not formerly the instruments of private ruin. Horse-racing was originally instituted with a view of promoting a better breed of horses for the services of man. Upon this principle it was continued. It afforded no private emolument to any individual. The by-standers were only spectators. They were not interested in the victory. The victor himself was remunerated not with money, but with crowns and garlands, the testimonies of public applause. But the spirit of gaming got hold of the custom, and turned it into a private diversion, which was to afford the opportunity of a private prize.

Cock-fighting, as we learn from Ælian, was instituted by the Athenians, immediately after their victory over the Persians, to perpetuate the memory of the event, and to stimulate the courage of the youth of Greece in the defence of their own freedom; and it was continued upon the same principle, or as a public institution for a public good. But the spirit of avarice seized it, as it has done the custom of horse-racing, and continued it for a private gain.

Cards, that is, European cards, were, as all are agreed, of an harmless origin. Charles the sixth, of France, was particularly afflicted with the hypochondriasis. While in this disordered state, one of his subjects invented them, to give variety of amusement to his mind. From the court they passed into private families. And here the same avaricious spirit fastened upon them, and, with its cruel talons, clawed them, as it were, to its own purposes, not caring how much these little instruments of cheerfulness in human disease were converted into instruments for the extension of human pain.

In the same manner as the spirit of gaming has seized upon these different institutions and amusements of antiquity, and turned them from their original to new and destructive uses, so there is no certainty, that it will not seize upon others, which may have been innocently resorted to, and prostitute them equally with the former. The mere prohibition of particular amusements, even if it could be enforced, would be no cure for the evil. The brain of man is fertile enough, as fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another. And if all the games, now in use, were forbidden, it would be still fertile enough to invent others for the same purposes. The bird that flies in the air, and the snail, that crawls upon the ground, have not escaped the notice of the gamester, but have been made, each of them, subservient to his pursuits. The wisdom, therefore, of the Quakers, in making it to be considered as a law of the society, that no member is to lay wagers, or reap advantage from any doubtful event, by a previous agreement upon a monied stake, is particularly conspicuous. For, whenever it can be enforced, it must be an effectual cure for gaming. For we have no idea, how a man can gratify his desire of gain by means of any of the amusements of chance, if he can make no monied arrangements about their issue.

SECT. II.

The first argument for the prohibition of cards, and of similar amusements, by the Quakers, is—that they are below the dignity of the intellect of man, and of his moral and christian character—sentiments of Addison on this subject.

The reasons, which the Quakers give for the prohibition of cards, and of amusements of a similar nature, to the members of their own society, are generally such as are given by other Christians, though they make use of one, which is peculiar to themselves.

It has been often observed, that the word amusement is proper to characterize the employments of children, but that the word utility is the only one proper to characterize the employment of men.

The first argument of the Quakers, on this subject, is of a complexion, similar to that of the observation just mentioned. For when they consider man, as a reasonable being, they are of opinion, that his occupations should be rational. And when they consider him as making a profession of the Christian religion, they expect that his conduct should be manly, serious, and dignified. But all such amusements, as those in question, if resorted to for the filling up of his vacant hours, they conceive to be unworthy of his intellect, and to be below the dignity of his Christian character.

They believe also, when they consider man as a moral being, that it is his duty, as it is unquestionably his interest, to aim at the improvement of his moral character. Now one of the foundations, on which this improvement must be raised, is knowledge. But knowledge is only slowly acquired. And human life, or the time for the acquisition of it, is but short. It does not appear, therefore, in the judgment of the Quakers, that a person can have much time for amusements of this sort, if he be bent upon obtaining that object, which will be most conducive to his true happiness, or to the end of his existence here.

Upon this first argument of the Quakers I shall only observe, lest it should be thought singular, that sentiments of a similar import are to be found in authors, of a different religious denomination, and of acknowledged judgment and merit. Addison, in one of his excellent chapters on the proper employment of life, has the following observation: "The next method, says he, that I would propose to fill up our time should be innocent and useful diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures, to be altogether conversant in such diversions, as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them, but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine: but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation, but what is made up of a few game-phrases, and no other ideas, but those of red or black spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is short?"

SECT. III.

Cards on account of the manner in which they are generally used, produce an excitement of the passions—historical anecdotes of this excitement—this excitement another cause of their prohibition by the Quakers, because it unfits the mind, according to their notions, for the reception of religious impressions.

The Quakers are not so superstitious as to imagine that there can be any evil in cards, considered abstractedly as cards, or in some of the other amusements, that have been mentioned. The red or the black images on their surfaces can neither pollute the fingers, nor the minds, of those who handle them. They may be moved about, and dealt in various ways, and no objectionable consequences may follow. They nay be used, and this innocently, to construct the similitudes of things. They may be arranged, so as to exhibit devices, which may be productive of harmless mirth. The evil, connected with them, will depend solely upon the manner of their use. If they are used for a trial of skill, and for this purpose only, they will be less dangerous, than where they are used for a similar trial, with a monied stake. In the former case, however, they may be made to ruffle the temper, for, in the very midst of victory, the combatant may experience defeat. In the latter case, the loss of victory will be accompanied by a pecuniary loss, and two causes, instead of one, of the excitement of the passions, will operate at once upon the mind.

It seldom happens, and it is much to be lamented, either that children, or that more mature persons, are satisfied with amusements of this kind, so as to use them simply as trials of skill. A monied stake is usually proposed, as the object to be obtained. This general attachment of a monied victory to cards is productive frequently of evil. It generates often improper feelings. It gives birth to uneasiness and impatience, while the contest is in doubt, and not unfrequently to anger and resentment, when it is over.

But the passions, which are thus excited among youth, are excited also, but worked up to greater mischief, where grown up persons follow these amusements imprudently, than where children are concerned. For though avarice, and impatience, and anger, are called forth among children, they subside sooner. A boy, though he loses his all when he loses his stake, suffers nothing from the idea of having impaired the means of his future comfort, and independence. His next week's allowance, or the next little gift, will set him right again. But when a grown up person, who is settled in the world, is led on by these fascinating amusements, so as to lose that which would be of importance to his present comfort, but more particularly to the happiness of his future life, the case is materially altered. The same passions, which harass the one, will harass the other, but the effects will be widely different. I have been told that persons have been so agitated before the playing of the card, that was to decide their destiny, that large drops of sweat have fallen from their faces, though they were under no bodily exertions. Now, what must have been the state of their minds, when the card in question proved decisive of their loss? Reason must unquestionably have fled. And it must have been succeeded instantly either by fury or despair. It would not have been at all wonderful, if persons in such a state were to have lost their senses, or, if unable to contain themselves, they were immediately to have vented their enraged feelings either upon themselves, or upon others, who were the authors, or the spectators, of their loss.

It is not necessary to have recourse to the theory of the human mind, to anticipate the consequences, that would be likely to result to grown up persons from such an extreme excitement of the passions. History has given a melancholy picture of these, as they have been observable among different nations of the world.

The ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, played to such desperation, that, when they had lost every thing else, they staked their personal liberty, and, in the event of bad fortune, became the slaves of the winners.

D'Israeli, in his curiosities of literature, has given us the following account. "Dice, says he, and that little pugnacious animal, the cock, are the chief instruments employed by the numerous nations of the east, to agitate their minds, and ruin their fortunes, to which the Chinese, who are desperate gamesters, add the use of cards. When all other property is played away, the Asiatic gambler does not scruple to stake his wife, or his child, on the cast of a dye, or on the strength and courage of a martial bird. If still unsuccessful, the last venture is himself."

"In the island of Ceylon, cock-fighting is carried to a great height. The Sumatrans are addicted to the use of dice. A strong spirit of play characterizes the Malayan. After having resigned every thing to the good fortune of the winner, he is reduced to a horrid state of desperation. He then loosens a certain lock of hair, which indicates war and destruction to all he meets. He intoxicates himself with opium, and working himself to a fit of frenzy, he bites and kills every one, who comes in his way. But as soon as ever this lock is seen flowing, it is lawful to fire at the person, and to destroy him as soon as possible."

"To discharge their gambling debts, the Siamese sell their possessions, their families, and at length themselves. The Chinese play night and day, till they have lost all they are worth, and then they usually go and hang themselves. In the newly discovered islands of the Pacific Ocean, they venture even their hatchets, which they hold as invaluable acquisitions, on running matches. We saw a man, says Cooke, in his last voyage, beating his breast and tearing his hair in the violence of rage, for having lost three hatchets at one of these races, and which he had purchased with nearly half of his property."

But it is not necessary to go beyond our own country for a confirmation of these evils. Civilized as we are beyond all the people who have been mentioned, and living where the Christian religion is professed, we have the misfortune to see our own countrymen engaged in similar pursuits, and equally to the disturbance of the tranquillity of their minds, and equally to their own ruin. They cannot, it is true, stake their personal liberty, because they can neither sell themselves, nor be held as slaves. But we see them staking their comfort, and all their prospects in life. We see them driven into a multitude of crimes. We see them suffering in a variety of ways. How often has duelling, with all its horrible effects, been the legitimate offspring of gaming! How many suicides have proceeded from the same source! How many persons in consequence of a violation of the laws, occasioned solely by gaming, have come to ignominious and untimely ends!

Thus it appears that gaming, wherever it has been practised to excess, whether by cards, or by dice, or by other instruments, or whether among nations civilized or barbarous, or whether in ancient or modern times, has been accompanied with the most violent excitement of the passions, so as to have driven its votaries to desperation, and to have ruined their morality and their happiness.

It is upon the excitement of the passions, which must have risen to a furious height, before such desperate actions as those, which have been specified, could have commenced, that the Quakers have founded their second argument for the prohibition of games of chance, or of any amusements or transactions, connected with a monied stake. It is one of their principal tenets, as will be diffusively shewn in a future volume, that the supreme Creator of the universe affords a certain portion of his own spirit, or a certain emanation of the pure principle, to all his rational creatures, for the regulation of their spiritual concerns. They believe, therefore, that stillness and quietness, both of spirit and of body, are necessary for them, as far as these can be obtained. For how can a man, whose earthly passions are uppermost, be in a fit state to receive, or a man of noisy and turbulent habits be in a fit state to attend to, the spiritual admonitions of this pure influence? Hence one of the first points in the education of the Quakers is to attend to the subjugation of the will; to take care that every perverse passion be checked; and that the creature be rendered calm and passive. Hence Quaker children are rebuked for all expressions of anger, as tending to raise those feelings, which ought to be suppressed. A raising even of their voices beyond due bounds is discouraged, as leading to the disturbance of their minds. They are taught to rise in the morning in quietness, to go about their ordinary occupations with quietness, and to retire in quietness to their beds. Educated in this manner, we seldom see a noisy or an irascible Quaker. This kind of education is universal among the Quakers. It is adopted at home. It is adopted in their schools. The great and practical philanthropist, John Howard, when he was at Ackworth, which is the great public school of the Quakers, was so struck with the quiet deportment of the children there, that he mentioned it with approbation in his work on Lazarettos, and gave to the public some of its rules, as models for imitation in other seminaries.

But if the Quakers believe that this pure principle, when attended to, is an infallible guide to them in their religious or spiritual concerns; if they believe that its influences are best discovered in the quietness and silence of their senses; if, moreover, they educate with a view of producing such a calm and tranquil state; it must be obvious, that they can never allow either to their children, or to those of maturer years, the use of any of the games of chance, because these, on account of their peculiar nature, are so productive of sudden fluctuations of hope, and fear, and joy, and disappointment, that they are calculated, more than any other, to promote a turbulence of the human passions.

SECT. IV.

Another cause of their prohibition is, that, if indulged in, they may produce habits of gaming—these habits after the moral character-they occasion men to become avaricious—dishonest—cruel—and disturbers of the order of nature—observations by Hartley from his essay on man.

Another reason, why the Quakers do not allow their members the use of cards, and of similar amusements, is, that, if indulged in, they may produce habits of gaming, which, if once formed, generally ruin the moral character.

It is in the nature of cards, that chance should have the greatest share in the production of victory, and there is, as I have observed before, usually a monied stake. But where chance is concerned, neither victory nor defeat can be equally distributed among the combatants. If a person wins, he feels himself urged to proceed. The amusement also points out to him the possibility of a sudden acquisition of fortune without the application of industry. If he loses, he does not despair. He still perseveres in the contest, for the amusement points out to him the possibility of repairing his loss. In short, there is no end of hope upon these occasions. It is always hovering about during the contest. Cards, therefore, and amusements of the same nature, by holding up prospects of pecuniary acquisitions on the one hand, and of repairing losses, that may arise on any occasion, on the other, have a direct tendency to produce habits of gaming.

Now the Quakers consider these habits as, of all others, the most pernicious; for they usually change the disposition of a man, and ruin his moral character.

From generous-hearted they make him avaricious. The covetousness too, which they introduce as it were into his nature, is of a kind, that is more than ordinarily injurious. It brings disease upon the body, as it brings corruption upon the mind. Habitual gamesters regard neither their own health, nor their own personal convenience, but will sit up night after night, though under bodily indisposition, at play, if they can only grasp the object of their pursuit.

From a just and equitable they often render him a dishonest person. Professed gamesters, it is well known, lie in wait for the young, the ignorant, and the unwary: and they do not hesitate to adopt fraudulent practices to secure them as their prey. In toxication has been also frequently resorted to for the same purpose.

From humane and merciful they change him into hard hearted and barbarous. Habitual gamesters have compassion foe neither men nor brutes. The former they can ruin and leave destitute, without the sympathy of a tear. The latter they can oppress to death, calculating the various powers of their declining strength, and their capability of enduring pain.

They convert him from an orderly to a disorderly being, and to a disturber of the order of the universe. Professed gamesters sacrifice every thing, without distinction, to their wants, not caring if the order of nature, or if the very ends of creation, be reversed. They turn day into night, and night into day. They force animated nature into situations for which it was never destined. They lay their hands upon things innocent and useful, and make them noxious. They by hold of things barbarous, and render them still more barbarous by their pollutions.

Hartley, in his essay upon man, has the following observation upon gaming.

"The practice of playing at games of chance and skill is one of the principal amusements of life. And it may be thought hard to condemn it as absolutely unlawful, since there are particular cases of persons, infirm in body and mind, where it seems requisite to draw them out of themselves by a variety of ideas and ends in view, which gently engage the attention.—But the reason takes place in very few instances.—The general motives to play are avarice, joined with a fraudulent intention explicit or implicit, ostentation of skill, and spleen, through the want of some serious, useful occupation. And as this practice arises from such corrupt sources, so it has a tendency to increase them; and indeed may be considered as an express method of begetting and inculcating self-interest, ill will, envy, and the like. For by gaming a man learns to pursue his own interest solely and explicitly, and to rejoice at the loss of others, as his own gain, grieve at their gain, as his own loss, thus entirely reversing the order established by providence for social creatures."

CHAP. IV. SECT. I.

The theatre—the theatre as well as music abused—plays respectable in their origin—but degenerated—Solon, Plato, and the ancient moralists against them—particularly immoral in England in the time of Charles the second—forbidden by George Fox—sentiments of Archbishop Tillotson—of William Law—English plays better than formerly, but still objectionable—prohibition of George Fox continued by the Quakers.

It is much to be lamented that customs, which originated in respectable motives, and which might have been made productive of innocent pleasure, should have been so perverted in time, that the continuation of them should be considered as a grievance by moral men. As we have seen this to be the case, in some measure, with respect to music, so it is the care with respect to plays.

Dramatic compositions appear to have had no reprehensible origin. It certainly was an object with the authors of some of the earliest plays to combine the entertainment with the moral improvement of the mind. Tragedy was at first simply a monody to Bacohus. But the tragedy of the ancients, from which the modern is derived, did not arise in the world, till the dialogue and the chorus were introduced. Now the chorus, as every scholar knows, was a moral office. They who filled it, were loud in their recommendations of justice and temperance. They inculcated a religious observance of the laws. They implored punishment on the abandoned. They were strenuous in their discouragement of vice, and in the promotion of virtue. This office therefore, being coeval with tragedy itself, preserves it from the charge of an immoral origin.

Nor was comedy, which took its rise afterwards, the result of corrupt motives. In the most ancient comedies, we find it to have been the great object of the writers to attack vice. If a chief citizen had acted inconsistently with his character, he was ridiculed upon the stage. His very name was not concealed on the occasion. In the course of time however, the writers of dramatic pieces were forbidden to use the names of the persons, whom they proposed to censure. But we find them still adhering to the same great object, the exposure of vice; and they painted the vicious character frequently so well, that the person was soon discovered by the audience, though disguised by a fictitious name. When new restrictions, were afterwards imposed upon the writers of such pieces, they produced a new species of comedy. This is that which obtains at the present day. It consisted of an imitation of the manners of common life. The subject, the names, and the characters, belonging to it, were now all of them feigned. Writers, however, retained their old object of laughing at folly and of exposing vice.

Thus it appears that the theatre, as far as tragedy was employed, inculcated frequently as good lessons of morality, as heathenism could produce, and as far as comedy was concerned, that it became often the next remedy, after the more grave and moral lectures of the ancient philosophers, against the prevailing excesses of the times.

But though the theatre professed to encourage virtue, and to censure vice, yet such a combination of injurious effects was interwoven with the representations there, arising either from the influence of fiction upon morals, or from the sight of the degradation of the rational character by buffoonery, or from the tendency of such representations to produce levity and dissipation, or from various other causes, that they, who were the greatest lovers of virtue in those days, and the most solicitous of improving the moral condition of man, began to consider them as productive of much more evil than of good. Solon forewarned Thespis, that the effects of such plays, as he saw him act, would become in time injurious to the morals of mankind, and he forbade him to act again. The Athenians, though such performances were afterwards allowed, would never permit any of their judges to compose a comedy. The Spartans under Lycurgus, who were the most virtuous of all the people of Greece, would not suffer either tragedies or comedies to be acted at all. Plato, as he had banished music, so he banished theatrical exhibitions from his pure republic. Seneca considered, that vice made insensible approaches by means of the stage, and that it stole on the people in the disguise of pleasure. The Romans, in their purer times, considered the stage to be so disgraceful, that every Roman was to be degraded, who became an actor, and so pernicious to morals, that they put it under the power of a censor, to control its effects.

But the stage, in the time of Charles the second, when the Quakers first appeared in the world, was in a worse state than even in the Grecian or Roman times. If there was ever a period in any country, when it was noted as the school of profligate and corrupt morals, it was in this reign. George Fox therefore, as a christian reformer, could not be supposed to be behind the heathen philosophers, in a case where morality was concerned. Accordingly we find him protesting publicly against all such spectacles. In this protest, he was joined by Robert Barclay and William Penn, two of the greatest men of those times, who in their respective publications attacked them with great spirit. These publications shewed the sentiments of the Quakers, as a religious body, upon this subject. It was understood that no Quaker could be present at amusements of this sort. And this idea was confirmed by the sentiments and advices of several of the most religious members, which were delivered on public occasions. By means of these publications and advices the subject was kept alive, till it became at length incorporated into the religious discipline of the Quakers. The theatre was then specifically forbidden; and an inquiry was annually to be made from thenceforward, whether any of the members of the society had been found violating the prohibition.

Since the time of Charles the second, when George Fox entered his protest against exhibitions of this sort, it must certainly be confessed, that an alteration has taken place for the better in the constitution of our plays, and that poison is not diffused into morals, by means of them, to an equal extent, as at that period. The mischief has been considerably circumscribed by legal inspection, and, it is to be hoped, by the improved civilization of the times. But it does not appear by any historical testimony we have, that a change has been made, which is at all proportioned to the quantity of moral light, which has been diffused among us since that reign. Archbishop Tillotson was of opinion, "that plays might be so framed, and they might be governed by such rules, as not only to be innocently diverting, but instructive and useful to put some follies and vices out of countenance, which could not perhaps be so decently reproved, nor so effectually exposed or corrected any other way." And yet he confesses, that, "they were so full of profaneness, and that they instilled such bad principles into the mind, in his own day, that they ought not to have been tolerated in any civilized, and much less in a Christian nation." William Law, an eminent divine of the establishment, who lived after Tillitson, declared in one of his publications on the subject of the stage, that "you could not then see a play in either house, but what abounded with thoughts, passages, and language contrary to the Christian religion." From the time of William Law to the present about forty years have elapsed, and we do not see, if we consult the controversial writers on the subject, who live among us, that the theatre has become much less objectionable since those days. Indeed if the names only of our modern plays were to be collected and published, they would teach us to augur very unfavourably as to the morality of their contents. The Quakers therefore, as a religions body, have seen no reason, why they should differ in opinion from their ancestors on this subject: and hence the prohibition which began in former times with respect to the theatre, is continued by them at the present day.

SECT. II.

Theatre forbidden by the Quakers on account of the manner of the drama—first, as it personates the character of others—secondly, as it professes to reform vice.

The Quakers have many reasons to give, why, as a society of christians they cannot encourage the theatre, by being present at any of its exhibitions. I shall not detail all of them for the reader, but shall select such only, as I think most material to the point.

The first class of arguments comprehends such as relate, to what may be called the manner of the drama. The Quakers object to the manner of the drama, or to its fictitious nature, in consequence of which men personate characters, that are not their own. This personification they hold to be injurious to the man, who is compelled to practise it. Not that he will partake of the bad passions, which he personates, but that the trick and trade of representing what he does not feel, must make him at all times an actor; and his looks, and words, and actions, will be all sophisticated. And this evil will be likely to continue with him in the various changes of his life.

They hold it also to be contrary to the spirit of Christianity. For men who personate characters in this way, express joy and grief, when in reality there may be none of these feelings in their hearts. They express noble sentiments, when their whole lives may have been remarkable for their meanness, and go often afterwards and wallow in sensual delights. They personate the virtuous character to day, and perhaps to-morrow that of the rake, and, in the latter case, they utter his profligate sentiments, and speak his profane language. Now Christianity requires simplicity and truth. It allows no man to pretend to be what he is not. And it requires great circumspection of its followers with respect to what they may utter, because it makes every man accountable for his idle words.

The Quakers therefore are of opinion, that they cannot as men, either professing christian tenets, or christian love, encourage others to assume false characters, or to ⁵ personate those which are not their own.

They object also to the manner of the drama, even where it professes to be a school for morals. For where it teaches morality, it inculcates rather the refined virtue of heathenism, than the strict, though mild discipline of the gospel. And where it attempts to extirpate vice, it does it rather by making it ridiculous, than by making men shun it for the love of virtue. It no where fixes the deep christian principle, by which men are bound to avoid it as sin, but places the propriety of the dereliction of it rather upon the loss of reputation among the world, than upon any sense of religious duty.

SECT. III.

Theatre forbidden an account of the internal contents of the drama—both of those of tragedy—and of comedy—these contents hold out false morals and prospects—and weaken the sinews of morality—observations of Lord Kaimes upon the subject.

The next class of arguments is taken from the internal contents of the drama.

The Quakers mean that dramatic compositions generally contain false sentiments, that is, such as christianity would disapprove; that, of course they hold out false prospects; that they inculcate false morals; and that they have a tendency from these, and other of their internal contents, to promote dissipation, and to weaken the sinews of morality in those who see them represented upon the stage.

Tragedy is considered by the Quakers, as a part of the drama, where the hero is generally a warrior, and where a portion of human happiness is made to consist of martial glory. Hence it is considered as frequently inculcating proud and lofty sentiments, as cherishing a fierce and romantic spirit, as encouraging rival enmities, as holding of no importance the bond of love and union between man and man. Now as christianity enjoins humility, peace, quietness, brotherly affection, and charity, which latter is not to be bounded by the limits of any country, the Quakers hold as a christian body, that they cannot admit their children to spectacles, which have a tendency to engender a disposition opposite to these.

Comedy is considered as holding out prospects, and inculcating morals, equally false and hurtful. In such compositions, for example, a bad impression is not uniformly given of a bad character. Knavery frequently accomplishes its ends without the merited punishment. Indeed treachery and intrigue are often considered but as jocose occurrences. The laws of modern honour are frequently held out to the spectator, as laws that are to influence in life. Vulgar expressions, and even swearing are admitted upon the stage. Neither is chastity nor delicacy always consulted there. Impure allusions are frequently interwoven into the dialogue, so that innocence cannot but often blush. Incidents not very favourable to morals, are sometimes introduced. New dissipated characters are produced to view, by the knowledge of which, the novice in dissipation is not diverted from his new and baneful career, but finds only his scope of dissipation enlarged, and a wider field to range in. To these hurtful views of things, as arising from the internal structure, are to be added those, which arise from the extravagant love-tales, the ridiculous intrigues, and the silly buffoonery of the compositions of the stage.

Now it is impossible, the Quakers contend, that these ingredients, which are the component parts of comic amusements, should not have an injurious influence upon the mind that is young and tender and susceptible of impressions. If the blush which first started upon the cheek of a young person on the first hearing of an indecorous or profane sentiment, and continued for some time to be excited at repetitions of the same, should at length be so effectually laid asleep, that the impudent language of ribaldry can awaken it no more, it is clear, that a victory will have been gained over his moral feelings: and if he should remember (and what is to hinder him, when the occurrences of the stage are marked with strong action, and accompanied with impressive scenery) the language, the sentiments, the incidents, the prospects, which dramatic pieces have brought before him, he may combine these, as they rise to memory, with his own feelings, and incorporate them imperceptibly into the habits and manners of his own life. Thus, if vice be not represented as odious, he may lose his love of virtue. If buffoonery should be made to please him, he may lose the dignity of his mind. Love-tales may produce in him a romantic imagination. Low characters may teach him low cunning. If the laws of honour strike him as the laws of refined life, he may become a fashionable moralist. If modes of dissipation strike him us modes of pleasure in the estimation of the world, he may abandon himself to these, and become a rake. Thus may such representations, in a variety of ways, act upon the moral principle, and make an innovation there, detrimental to his moral character.

Lord Kaimes, in his elements of criticism, has the following observations.

"The licentious court of Charles the second, among its many disorders, engendered a pest, the virulence of which subsists to this day. The English comedy, copying the manners of the court, became abominably licentious; and continues so with very little softening. It is there an established rule to deck out the chief characters with every vice in fashion however gross; but as such characters, if viewed in a true light, would be disgustful, care is taken to disguise their deformity under the embellishments of wit, sprightliness and good humour, which, in mixed company makes a capital figure. It requires not much thought to discover the poisonous influence of such plays. A young man of figure, emancipated at last from the severity and restraint of a college education, repairs to the capital disposed to every sort of excess. The play-house becomes his favourite amusement, and he is enchanted with the gaiety and splendour of the chief personages. The disgust which vice gives him at first, soon wears off to make way for new notions, more liberal in his opinion, by which a sovereign contempt of religion, and a declared war upon the chastity of wives, maids and widows, are converted from being infamous vices to be fashionable virtues. The infection spreads gradually through all ranks and becomes universal. How gladly would I listen to any one, who should undertake to prove, that what I have been describing is chimerical! But the dissoluteness of our young men of birth will not suffer me to doubt its reality. Sir Harry Wildair has completed many a rake; and in the suspicious husband, Ranger, the humble imitator of Sir Harry, has had no slight influence in spreading that character. What woman, tinctured with the play-house morals, would not be the sprightly, the witty, though dissolute Lady Townley, rather than the cold, the sober, though virtuous Lady Grace? How odious ought writers to be who thus employ the talents they have from their maker most traitorously against himself, by endeavouring to corrupt and disfigure his creatures! If the comedies of Congreve did not rack him with remorse in his last moments, he must have been lost to all sense of virtue."

SECT. IV.

The theatre forbidden—because injurious to the happiness of man by disqualifying him for the pleasures of religion—this effect arises from its tendency to accustom individuals to light thoughts—to injure their moral feelings—to occasion an extraordinary excitement of the mind—and from the very nature of the enjoyments which it produces.

As the Quakers consider the theatre to have an injurious effect on the morality of man, so they consider it to have an injurious effect on his happiness. They believe that amusements of this sort, but particularly the comic, unfit the mind for the practical performance of the christian duties, and that as the most pure and substantial happiness, that man can experience, is derived from a fulfilment of these, so they deprive him of the highest enjoyment of which his nature is capable, that is, of the pleasures of religion.

If a man were asked, on entering the door of the theatre, if he went there to learn the moral duties, he would laugh at the absurdity of the question; and if he would consent to give a fair and direct answer, he would either reply, that he went there for amusement, or to dissipate gloom, or to be made merry. Some one of these expressions would probably characterise his errand there. Now this answer would comprise the effect, which the Quakers attach to the comic performances of the stage. They consider them as drawing the mind from serious reflection, and disposing it to levity. But they believe that a mind, gradually accustomed to light thoughts, and placing its best gratification in light objects, must be disqualified in time for the gravity of religious exercise, and be thus hindered from partaking of the pleasures which such an exercise must produce.

They are of opinion also, that such exhibitions, having, as was lately mentioned, a tendency to weaken the moral character, must have a similarly injurious effect. For what innovations can be made on the human heart, so as to seduce it from innocence, that will not successively wean it both from the love and the enjoyment of the Christian virtues?

The Quakers also believe, that dramatic exhibitions have a power of vast excitement of the mind. If they have no such power, they are insipid. If they have, they are injurious. A person is all the evening at a play in an excited state. He goes home, and goes to bed with his imagination heated, and his passions roused. The next morning he rises. He remembers what he has seen and heard, the scenery, the language, the sentiments, the action. He continues in the same excited state for the remainder of the day. The extravagant passions of distracted lovers, the wanton addresses of actors, are still fresh upon his mind. Now it is contended by the Quakers, that a person in such an excited state, but particularly if the excitement pleases, must be in a very unfavourable state for the reception of the pure principle, or for the promotion of the practical duties of religion. It is supposed that if any religious book, or if any part of the sacred writings, were handed to him in these moments, he would be incapable of enjoying them; and of course, that religious retirement, which implies an abstraction from the tilings of the world, would be impracticable at such a season.

The Quakers believe also, that the exhibitions of the drama must, from their own nature, without any other consideration, disqualify for the pleasures of religion. It was a frequent saying of George Fox, taken from the apostle Peter, that those who indulged in such pleasures were dead, while they were alive; that is, they were active in their bodies; they ran about briskly after their business or their pleasures; they shewed the life of their bodily powers; but they were extinct as to spiritual feeling. By this he meant that the pleasures of the theatre, and others of a similar nature, were in direct opposition to the pleasures of religion. The former were from the world worldly. They were invented according to the dispositions and appetites of men. But the latter were from the spirit spiritual. Hence there was no greater difference between life and death, than between these pleasures. Hence the human mind was made incapable of receiving both at the same time; and hence the deeper it were to get into the enjoyment of the former, the less qualified it must become of course for the enjoyment of the latter.

SECT. V.

Theatre forbidden—because injurious to the happiness of man by disqualifying him for domestic enjoyments—Quakers value these next to the pleasures of religion—sentiments of Cowper—theatre has this tendency, by weaning gradually from a love of home—and has it in a greater degree than any other of the amusements of the world.

The Quakers, ever since the institution of their society, have abandoned the diversions of the world. They have obtained their pleasures from other quarters. Some of these they have found in one species of enjoyment, and others in another. But those, which they particularly prize, they have found in the enjoyment of domestic happiness; and these pleasures they value next to the pleasures of religion.

But if the Quakers have been accustomed to place one of the sources of their pleasures in domestic happiness, they may be supposed to be jealous of every thing that appears to them to be likely to interrupt it. But they consider dramatic exhibitions, as having this tendency. These exhibitions, under the influence of plot, dialogue, dress, music, action, and scenery, particularly fascinate. They excite the person, who has once seen them, to desire them again. But in proportion as this desire is gratified, or in proportion as people leave their homes for the amusements of the stage, they lose their relish, and weaken their powers, of the enjoyment of domestic society: that is, the Quakers mean to say, that domestic enjoyments, and those of the theatre, may become, in time, incompatible in the same persons; and that the theatre ought, therefore, to be particularly avoided, as an enemy, that may steal them, and rob them of those pleasures, which experience has taught them to value, as I have observed before, next to the pleasures of religion.

They are of opinion also, that dramatic exhibitions not only tend, of themselves, to make home less agreeable, but that they excite a craving for stimulants, and, above all, teach a dependence upon external objects for amusement. Hence the attention of people is taken off again to new objects of pleasure, which lie out of their own families, and out of the circle of their friends.