"And so shall be the plague of the horse." Zech. xiv, 15.
Thehorse is, doubtless, a noble beast; but, by some strange fatality, all sorts of thieves and cheats gather round him while living, as do the hungry crows when he is dead. Horse-racing may claim a place among popular amusements, since there is probably nothing, except an execution, more certain to attract a crowd. In many of the States of the Union horse-racing has been prohibited by law, because of the numberless evils connected with it, and the total absence of good. Within a few years, however, the thing has been revived under another name. State andcounty fairs are now held for the encouragement of agriculture, and specimens of various farm products are exhibited to edify the novice and quicken the zeal of the ambitious cultivator. Horses, of course, form a prominent feature of these exhibitions. But a horse can only be half seen till he is seen in motion, and so little "trials of speed," as they were delicately termed, were given just to add a little interest to the show. These trials of speed usurped more and more time and space, until they have in many cases swallowed up every thing else, and brought back the old-style horse-race, with its crowds, excitement, villainy, and vice of every kind, and, in fact, every thing but the name. An "Agricultural Fair" now means a plow, a pumpkin, a pig, and two hundred and fifty trotting horses. These fairs are almost invariably conducted with especial reference to the racing, and not unfrequently are engineered wholly by the jockeys themselves.
It will hardly do for us to adopt the sneering philosophy of Democritus, and find nothing but matter of merriment in the sins and follies of our fellow-men; nevertheless, these annual country gatherings have a comic side which one must be very blind not to see. The first note of preparation is the posting of immense placards, printed in as many colors as ever Joseph's coat knew, and offering premiums—ten cents for the best plow, five cents for the biggest pumpkin, twenty cents for the fattest pig, and one thousand dollars for the horse that can trot around a certain circle in the shortest time. Every gawky boy who rejoices in the possession of a long-legged colt, reads the flaming proclamation with delight, and straightway redoubles his diligence in training his colt and himself for the grand occasion. When the eventful day comes he presents himself on the spot, sure of winning the prize, and of seeing his name exalted in the county paper next week.He finds nineteen other gawky individuals there with, nineteen other colts and the same ambitious expectations. When they have paid their proportion of the money which is to become the prize, and have entered in a book the names of their horses—names, by the way, to devise which has cost many severe mental efforts—a strange man writes the name of a horse never before heard of in that locality. The contest proceeds. The strange man, who had been so still and taciturn up to this moment, suddenly discloses amazing energy, and shows himself an adept in all that pertains to the important business in hand. He knows tricks that make the astonished rustics open their eyes wide with admiration and dismay. He confuses his competitors with his bewildering maneuvers, secures every advantage, and urges on his own nag with a clamor and an uproar which drive the others into unlawful paces, or make them bolt from the track altogether. Inshort, science distances unsophisticated nature. The strange man and the strange horse sweep around the circle and rush to the goal in triumph, while the twenty are seen struggling far in the rear, a miserable conglomerate of dust, disappointment, and profanity. Meanwhile, the half-dozen secret confederates of the successful jockey have been quietly mingling with the crowd, betting with all who were willing to risk their money, and, of course, winning every time. Thus the concourse divide into three classes, like the notes in music; thenaturalsstare, theflatsare fleeced, thesharpswin. The performance being over, the professionals joyfully divide the spoil, praising with infinite glee "the way it was done," and venting their irrepressible hilarity in stentorian laughter and clumsy imitations of Indian war-dances.
The victims return home, the wiser ones satisfied with their recent experience, and determined to sell their sulkies and breaktheir horses to the plow. The fools, on the other hand, are sure that now they know all about it. They have seen a professor of high art, and burn with ambition to be like him. They buy little caps of the same pattern, stick their hands in their pockets as nearly as possible in his style, and converse only in the phrases current in the stable. Their manners, as well as their clothes, smell strong of the horse. They devote their whole minds to the cause. They know more about the last race than the last war, and are more familiar with the names of fast trotters than with those of our great statesmen and generals. They can explain the pedigree of some favorite nag in a more satisfactory manner than they can their own, and take more pride in it. The tavern is the school where they pursue their professional studies, and the sages of the bar-room and the philosophers of the barn are their instructors. In some cases idleness, low company, and drink produce their natural fruit; the property inherited from the dead or dishonestly obtained from the living is soon squandered, the victim graduates as hostler, and, like some devotee of olden time, consecrates himself, soul and body, to the service of the brute which he admires. In others, the aspirant really reaches the high eminence at which he aims, and becomes a first-class cheat, learned in horse-craft and equally wise in the art of deceiving men—a restless operator in his chosen line of business, whose advent in a neighborhood is a signal for all to be on their guard, and at whose departure people breathe more freely.
The "Sports of the Turf," as they are called, are a mere compound of fraud and folly. Betting is the soul of horse-racing, and a thievish desire to get money without earning it is the soul of betting. How many "trials of speed" would there be if, by some method which man has never yet discovered,betting on the results could be wholly prevented? Vice in all its forms—gambling, drunkenness, lying, cheating, profanity, rioting, and fighting—are the natural adjuncts of every race-course. Human birds of prey flock to it from under the whole heavens, and gorge themselves to the full. And with all this evil it has not one redeeming feature. As an amusement it is essentially low and animal. If two horses run a race, any body who is not an idiot knows that in all probability one will come out ahead of the other; and who but an idiot will care which it is? What matters it whether a horse that belongs to some branded swindler can go a mile in three minutes or two? Why should people leave their useful employments, and assemble in thousands, from far and near, merely to see one horse beat another horse? The whole thing is senseless.
While there is not a single solid argument in its favor, there are numerous and weightyobjections against horse-racing. It involves a fearful waste. A race-horse is more expensive to keep than a family of ten children. The spectators who crowd to see the race lose time and money. The betting, inseparable from the affair, opens the floodgates of a deluge of fraud and falsehood. It fires the hearts of the ignorant and inexperienced with that dangerous temptation, a thirst for money which they have not earned. The sudden losses and gains rouse the passions, and lead to collisions, fierce and furious, between losers and winners. The vender of intoxicating drinks will be there, for he knows that his chances are best when there is most of uproar and excitement. The professional pickpocket and the gambler will be there, for they know that the crowds will yield them a rich harvest of ill-gotten gain. The public roads in the vicinity of the race-ground will be dangerous to quiet travelers, by reason of the multitude of vehicles which dash alongfuriously, the drivers crazy with excitement and drink, and the horses wild with the shouting and the lash. And children will be there, their sensitive natures receiving impressions every moment, their eyes becoming accustomed to scenes of vice, and their ears familiar with the voice of passion and profanity.
The members of the Church of Christ should never be seen at such places. If one of them attending a horse-race should die there, by casualty or sudden disease, would it be considered good taste to name the locality in the funeral discourse? Would it figure well in the published obituary? The path of duty is so plain that none need err. Let no one, for a day or an hour, leave the rock and plunge into this abyss of fraud and folly. Besides the open, visible evils which cluster about a horse-race, there are great gulfs of villainy which few know of, and yet by which many suffer. Not seldom is thematter of victory and defeat secretly arranged days and weeks before the race takes place, and the men who make the treacherous compact win their tens of thousands by betting in favor of the horse which it is agreed shall distance the others. The habit of betting is a vice which speedily destroys all truth and honor. No amusement, so called, which lives by betting will long retain even the semblance of honesty. Horse-racing is certainly not an exception to this rule. Its whole history is black with treachery and fraud. No professed follower of Christ can have any thing to do with it, either in the way of active agency or secret encouragement, without sin.
We can not close this chapter more appropriately than by quoting the emphatic words of Thomas Hughes, an able member of the British Parliament and a decided friend of the American Republic. He had seen in the public journals the statement that certain capitalists of New York were about to establish somewhere on the Hudson a race-ground, which they hoped would, in time, rival the doubtful "glories of Epsom and Ascot:"
"Heaven help you! then; for of all the cankers of our old civilization there is nothing in this country approaching in unblushing meanness, in rascality holding its head high, to this belauded institution of the British turf.
"It is quite true that a very considerable section of our aristocracy is on the turf, but with what result? Shall a man touch pitch and not be defiled? There is not a man of them whose position and character has not been lowered by the connection, while in the majority it ends in bringing down their standard of morality to that of blacklegs, and delivering over their estates into the grasp of Jew attorneys.
"The last notable instance among ourjeunesse doreeis that of the Duke of Hamilton, who succeeded to a clear £70,000 ayear, some three years ago, and who is now a pensioner of his creditors in the ring, while the old palace of the Douglas is at the order and disposition of the celebrated Mr. Padwick. This gentleman, at his Derby dinner this year, entertained three dukes, two marquises, and six earls, and I believe there was only one untitled man at the board—all of these under the thumb or anxious to cultivate the esteemed favors of this 'giver of all good things.' Just consider for one moment what our modern system of betting has brought us to. A reliabletipis that which the most scrupulous young gentleman on the turf desires above all other earthly blessings before a great race; that is to say, some private information which may enable him to overreach his dearest friend or his own brother, if he can induce him to take the odds."
"And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Exodus xxxii, 6.
Base ballmay be made a very pleasant amusement, wholly unobjectionable either in regard to health or morals. Many of our readers well remember how it used to be played by the village school-boys. Two of the best players volunteered, or were elected by acclamation, to organize the two "sides." The leaders tossed up a bat, with a mark on one side of it, to determine the first choice. The winner looked around the circle of boys and made his selection; then the other leader named a boy for his side, and soit went on, by alternate selections, till all were enrolled. The bat was again tossed up, to determine who should be "in" first, and then the play began. How they knocked the ball, and ran and threw the ball at each other, and fell down in their eagerness to avoid being hit, and laughed and shouted, and grew hot, and red, and finally weary! No crowd of excited spectators were there to applaud special acts of skill, and thus spoil the sport; no "scorer" noted down in his book the number of "runs" or of "fly-catches;" no representative of the public press was there, to prepare an extended and eloquent report, confounding simple readers with his vocabulary of new terms; no body inquired which side was victorious, and all were happy.
And in these later days, if a score of young men or older men would provide a basket of refreshments, and go out into the fields by themselves and play two or three hours, in the ancient and honorable way,carelessly, hilariously, not even noticing who makes the most "runs," they would all feel the better the next day; and the wit and humor elicited on the occasion would echo in twenty home circles for weeks to come.
But since it attained the dignity of being our "national game," base ball has become a ponderous and elaborate affair. Rules as rigid as those which govern the proceedings of the Congress of the United States are fixed, by general councils of men learned in the art, and goodly volumes are published discussing the size, shape, and weight of balls and bats, and determining the proper distances between the bases. Associations are formed, who assume a name, devise a uniform, and have initiation fees and monthly dues. The formation of the club, the selection of the members, is a very serious business, involving, as it does, the fortunes of the fame of the association in its future contests for championships and newspaper honors.Young men are in demand who are willing to devote their whole time and mental energies to the acquisition of dexterity in throwing a ball or catching it. Professional players are found, who are recruited from that idle, shiftless, and yet ambitious class of mortals who are ready to work with the energy of giants one day in the week at any useless task, provided they have the privilege of lounging about the other six days, boasting of their feats and basking in the admiration of all the little boys in the neighborhood. These professionals train as carefully as prize-fighters, and are, in fact, the same style of men drawn mild. In some cases they hire themselves to the club for a single exhibition game; in others, they engage for the season. Their pay is ridiculously high, considering the service rendered. We hear of a club that secured one player for a thousand dollars for the season. Another player was induced to change his residence from one city to another,and was set up by his employers in a store, with a stock costing fifteen hundred dollars, by way of securing his valuable aid on great occasions.
When the club is organized, there must be daily practice for the benefit of the novices. This is done often to the neglect of every thing else, to the sore annoyance of parents and employers, and when a good degree of skill is supposed to be gained another club, fifty or five hundred miles away, is invited to meet in friendly contest. The newspapers announce that the Exotics have challenged the Cupids, name the time and the place, and express an ardent hope that the weather will be propitious. The eventful day arrives; "play is called," and the contest proceeds with all spirit and vigor. They pitch, they bat, they run, they pant, they grow red in the face, they perspire, they strain their muscles and rend their garments in superhuman effort. The scorers set down their marks, the reporters of the public press scratch away at their notes, the spectators applaud. Intense excitement characterizes the entire performance. There is no brain power to spare on pleasantries, no surplus breath to waste in laughter. Awkward episodes occur. A head is broken by an erring bat, or a finger by a ball, or two players, running with upturned faces and outstretched hands to catch the same descending ball, rush together with a fearful thump, and fall backward in collapse. Perhaps proceedings are still further diversified by the occurrence of a little fight.
The game in due time ends, and one party or the other is declared victors by so many "runs," and the winners and the losers adjourn to a hotel and refresh themselves with a supper, of which wine-bibbing generally forms a prominent feature. Speeches, too, are made by the talking members of each club, expressive of the most intense admiration of each other's prowess, and breathing unutterablefriendship. The reporter, who has been presented with a complimentary ticket for this very purpose, takes notes of what is said and done, and the next morning the newspaper lays before an admiring world the important intelligence that "the pitching of the Cupids was superb, the batting of the Exotics was magnificent, the fielding of Jones and Smith elicited universal applause, the supper was all that an epicure could desire, and the wit and eloquence of Mr. Brown's speech were equaled only by the beauty and pathos of Mr. Jenkins' reply." While an agitated world is laboring with this startling announcement, the principal performers stay at home and rest, or limp wearily out to the apothecary's to make investments in pain-killers and strengthening plasters.
And this, forsooth, is the great National Game. It has scarce a single feature of real recreation. The overwrought excitement, the excessive physical exertion, the absence ofmental ease and conversational freedom condemn it. The publicity of the performance destroys all the good that might otherwise result from it, and, instead of play, makes it a mere exhibition, whose aim is not rest but notoriety, and whose effect upon the performer is not physical renewal but exhaustion. The game itself is not in fault. In its simple forms, pursued in moderation, with right associations, as a recreation, and not as an ambitious show, it can be heartily recommended to young men who need some active outdoor amusement. It may thus be made a very pleasant and not unprofitable thing. In its preposterous form, inflated into a "great national game," it is very laborious, very expensive in time and money, and not altogether safe for soul or body. It is then not an amusement, but a pretentious and useless display, whose highest reward is the shallow applause of the idle and the vain.
It may be hazardous to one's reputationfor sagacity to predict the downfall of any fashionable thing on the ground that it lacks the basis of good sense; still, I will say that the modern bubble has been blown so big, that it seems to me that it must collapse before long. If I mistake not, there are already signs of decay. Many young men, whose names are on the roll decline to play, and are active members of the club only at the supper-table. They pay their share of the expense of public games, and attend, but find it pleasant and politic to perch themselves daintily on the fence, to smoke and applaud in the shade, while their hired substitutes do the hard work in the hot sun. In due time the novelty of the whole thing will be gone, and then comes the end.
But if its having become an overgrown piece of folly were the only charge which may be made against it, base ball, even as cultivated by the clubs, might survive for a time. The expense is not in its favor. Weknow of a club where the regular annual dues are twelve dollars for each member. Besides this there is an initiation fee to be paid by beginners, and I presume extra expenses for extra occasions. The club has a hundred and fifty members, and the aggregate of regular dues can not be less than two thousand dollars a year. No doubt there are clubs whose annual expenditure amounts to three times the sum named. This certainly is a liberal price to pay for all the good gained.
There is, however, a much worse objection to base ball than the waste of money. The vices which cluster about the race-course begin to haunt the ball-ground. Thievish men find that bets can be made, and money lost and won, at a ball match as well as at a horse-race, and the same frauds and stratagems are employed. Sometimes money to the amount of fifty or even a hundred thousand dollars is staked on the result of a single match. Men do not need to bet large sums many timesbefore they are ready for any trick, however infamous, which will enable them to win. We have seen, in a former chapter, how a horse-race is sometimes secretly sold beforehand, the parties to the fraud betting accordingly, and winning every thing. The same thing is not unknown, I am told, among the ball clubs. A match is in contemplation. A club of "champions" challenge another champion club, and all possible appliances and devices are employed to attract attention, draw a crowd, and create an excitement. While the rivals are apparently burning with intense desire for victory, and determined to contend for it with heroic energy, a few members of the clubs, without the consent or knowledge of the rest, agree so to manage that the victory shall go in a certain direction, and for a share of the spoils thus surrender the one side to premeditated defeat, and crown the other with false laurels. I have heard of one case, where a match game was played and many bets werepending, and interested parties secured a given result by paying the moderate sum of three hundred dollars.
In fact, so many vices are beginning to gather about the "great national game," as some foolishly term it, that every one connected with it seems to be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Merchants and others, who employ numbers of young men, are doubtful about members of ball clubs, and reject candidates who are connected with them. This looks a little hard, but we must remember that business men want reliable, trustworthy clerks, salesmen, and book-keepers. When we are trying to learn the character of a stranger every hint is of value, and a thing about which so many things cluster can not be a recommendation.
End Chapter 5
"They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance." Job xxi, 11.
Letus now turn from outdoor diversions to those amusements which do not, of necessity, demand daylight and space for their cultivation.
Dancing is one of these; and as attempts are being made at the present time to introduce it into circles whence it has hitherto been rigidly excluded, we honor it with the first place in this part of the discussion, and propose to give it all due attention. It is presumed that the advocates of dancing will insist, at the outset, that we shall make adistinction among the various fashionable dances of the times. It is not probable that any reader of this volume will attempt to defend the "German," or round dances. It is a shameful, revolting spectacle to see a young girl whirling around in the arms of a man who perhaps an hour ago was an utter stranger to her, her head leaning upon his breast, and their whole persons in closest contact. This style is positively immodest, corrupting, offensive to morals, as well as to delicacy and refinement. How dare a young man propose any such performance to a lady for whom he has a shadow of respect? How can any young lady, who respects herself, submit to it?
But cotillons and quadrilles, we are told, are different; they are modest, graceful, and harmless. Doubtless there is a difference, and yet they differ only as the varioloid differs from the worse disease.
It is not necessary to prove that the meremotion is sinful in order to condemn it; nor need we assail the personal character of all who plead for dancing, in one form or another, as an innocent amusement. The abstract possibility of its being so practiced as to render it a healthful exercise may be admitted. I am acquainted with a gentleman of more than three-score years and ten, whose erect form and happy face, ruddy with health and radiant with kindness and inward peace, are pleasant to see. Meeting him in the street one day, I asked him how he managed to be young when he was old—how he contrived to keep up the life and bloom of Spring amid the chill winds and gathering clouds of Winter. In reply, he alluded reverently to the Divine Master, whom he serves in gladness of heart, as the source of all blessing, and then added: "I take care of my health. I take exercise. I rise early in the morning, and among the very first things that I do I put on a pair of soft slippers, go upinto the attic of my house, and then go round and round in a circle, on a gentle run, till I am in a pleasant glow. This makes me feel well and cheerful all day."
Now, if any advocate of dancing will practice it only as our aged friend practices his peculiar exercise, we bring no accusation against his sanitary measures; we have no controversy with his principles or his performances. We will even go so far as to confess the beauty of certain fancy pictures of innocent dancing in the family circle, wherein one daughter presides at the piano, and the rest of the children whirl about in their graceful evolutions, till father and mother feel the happy contagion, and, starting up, join in the mirth; and even the white-haired grandsire looks on admiringly, and keeps time with his best foot, and applauds with his cane, and then calls the household to order for evening prayers. We do not happen to know any "happy family" wheredevotion and dancing live together on such excellent terms; nevertheless, extraordinary things do occur in the world, and this may possibly be among them.
But all this does not shake the settled conviction that it would be unwise to cultivate dancing of any sort as an amusement, or even to tolerate it. The reasons upon which this conclusion is based are numerous and weighty.
1.Dancing as it is usually practiced, and will continue to be practiced, if at all, lacks the elements of true recreation.
It is folly to talk of sending children to dancing schools, and then confine their performances to the family circle. Dancing is essentially an exhibition which addresses the eye of the spectator, and craves admiration. It tends directly to cultivate the love of display and of the praise which it elicits, a passion as avaricious in its way as the miser's greed of gold. Introduce dancing generally, and of the youth who attain a degree of proficiency not a few will soon tire of the approval of the little circle, and thirst for the applause of the multitude. They who imagine that they have acquired a grace and a skill which can not fail to win the praises of all beholders, will not be content to hide their light under the bushel of home, and soon the performances in the private parlor will be considered of no account, except as rehearsals for more public displays, and the ball-room will be looked upon as the proper field where artistic ambition is to win its laurels.
And in this form dancing is detrimental to soul and body. The late hours which it involves are a fatal objection to it. The confined atmosphere in which it is practiced is injurious. The style of the refreshments common on such occasions, and the untimely hour when they are taken, increase the evil. The undue excitement exhausts instead of invigorating the vital powers. The sudden transitions from the heated ball-room to thechill night air are not safe, as many an early grave can testify. These things conspire to make a ball or a dancing party a direct attack upon the health of those who attend it. Instead of invigorating the weak, it requires vigor to endure the exhausting strain. A single night thus spent will make its visible mark upon the face. They who escape with the least injury are languid and dull, and perhaps irritable, for days afterward, while some are totally unfitted for their usual avocations, and require time to recover, as if from an attack of illness. While physical health is thus impaired or imperiled, there is no promise of mental or moral improvement to compensate the injury. There is no time for rational conversation, and any attempt in that direction would be deemed out of place. The liveliest imagination can see no moral good in the performance. The whole thing produces no higher pleasure than engine-boys feel while running in search of the fire; and in thematter of aching heads and low spirits, it is probable that those who run with the engine and those who attend the ball are about alike the next day.
2.Dancing has had a historic name.
There was, indeed, in ancient times, a solemn religious ceremony, which, through the poverty of human language, was called dancing. When Pharaoh and his host sank into the depths of the sea, while Israel stood safe upon the shore, Miriam and her maidens came forth with timbrels and with dances, and sang to the Lord a lofty anthem of praise and thanksgiving. When David brought home the ark of God he danced before it; but it was a strictly religious ceremony, nothing like the caperings and curvetings of our own day. There is no intimation whatever that Miriam and her maidens, or David, ever danced except on such occasions. Pleasure dances have been almost universally held in bad repute. The daughter of Herodiasdanced to please Herod, as he sat at the banquet, bewildered with wine; but the performer was one who could lightly ask for the life of an innocent man and a devoted servant of God; and the royal spectator was a tyrant, who could carelessly order his execution. In Rome, and Athens, and Ephesus the dancing was done by the degraded and the vile, who employed it as a means of advertising their profession. The dancers of Egypt and India at the present day are of the same character.
Now, I do not know that it would be right for me to denounce indiscriminately all who perform publicly in places of amusement in our cities and towns, yet it is safe for me to say that a dancing girl, however loudly her fame may be trumpeted by the newspapers, finds her professional reputation every-where a bar to her reception into good society. Why should it be so? It certainly is not because of the mere publicity of professionallife. If it were, then Miss Dickinson and Miss Evans, and scores of others, would find themselves in the same condemnation, instead of being honored and applauded. Why a female public lecturer should be respected, and a female public dancer despised and shunned, I can not understand, unless there is something in dancing itself, or in the character of those who have made it their profession, that has merited condemnation. Ladies of the highest respectability go to hear the lecturer, and at the close crowd around the desk to be introduced to her; other ladies, certainly no more scrupulous in regard to their associations, go to see the dancer perform, and the next day will not look at her in the street. What makes the difference? Will the apologist for dancing explain?
3.A love for dancing parties and balls is universally deemed inconsistent with the seriousness and devotion which characterize a true Christian.
Dancing is regarded as the favorite diversion of the vain and the frivolous. Nominal Christians may be found at balls and dancing assemblies, but they are persons who have no weight of Christian character, and exert no influence in favor of religion. The world, unconvicted and careless, rather likes such professors of religion, because their example is an opiate wherewith to quiet an occasional pang of conscience. The worldly and the prayerless think more favorably of themselves and of their prospects of heaven when they see that Church members resemble them so closely. But when the worldly man is convinced of sin, and desires to find pardon, he never sends for one of these unfaithful professors to give him spiritual counsel. When the wicked are about to die, they do not want prayer offered at their bedside by any of these fiddling, dancing, wine-bibbing, honorary members of the Church. They name men and women of undoubted piety. Theysuspect those who can join them in their follies and feel no condemnation. They do not estimate very highly a Christian profession which exerts so little control over those that make it. Nay, rebuke a scorner for his sins, and in many cases he will seek to defend himself by a sneering allusion to those very professors of religion who verily believe that they were making capital for their Church by showing that it can not be suspected of being "Puritanic."
4.Dancing involves undesirable associations.
We bring no indiscriminate accusations against those who love to dance. In almost every community where it is cultivated to any great extent, it will not be confined to any particular class nor to any one moral level. Still, if we are to tell the whole truth, it must be stated that dancing prevails less as you ascend the scale of virtue, intelligence, and religion, and more as you go down to explore the realms of ignorance and vice. Howevernumerous and, after their fashion, respectable its votaries may be, there is a line above which it never prevails. Like the deluge in the days of Noah, it fills the valleys first, and covers the low places; but, unlike the deluge, there are elevations which the swelling waters never reach, heights upon which the dark tide never shows even its spray. In our great cities, those sections which are recognized as the homes and dens of vice and degradation, the very region and shadow of death, abound in dance-houses; and the sound of the violin and of many trampling feet mingles nightly with the noise of rage and blasphemy, and the hoarse clamor of bloody strife. Intemperance and infamy are foul birds which agree well in the same nest with dancing. But as you ascend the scale, not only the more gross forms of vice, but the dance is left behind long before you reach the highest altitudes. The devotedly pious, the truly pure in heart, do not dance. In all ages of the Churchsuch spirits have always kept aloof from the follies of their times, and had "no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness."
They who give themselves to this amusement, therefore, turn away from the best examples of pure and undefiled religion, and the noblest, holiest fellowship within their reach. They ally themselves with the worldly, the thoughtless, the prayerless, the gay butterflies of fashion and soulless pleasure. They throw themselves among influences in the highest degree unfavorable to sober views of life, and the earnest, thorough performance of its great duties. They voluntarily leave the rock and the shore of safety to launch upon a treacherous stream, the rippling music of whose waters will soon cease, and the bloom of whose flowery banks will soon disappear, and whose current, silent but swift and strong, bear them steadily away from light and hope down to despair, remorse, and ruin.
Dancing wastes time, wastes health, scatters serious thought, compromises Christian character, leads to entangling associations with frivolous minds and careless hearts. It is as sure a foe to intellectual growth as to moral progress. Young people who are famed as "beautiful dancers" are generally good for nothing else. The time that should be devoted to something valuable is spent in practicing posture-making before a mirror, or a professor of the high art, who shows them how to step so, and so, and so; while God calls, the Savior waits, life wanes, and the tremendous realities of the eternal world every moment come nearer. Even Cicero, the heathen moralist, affirms that "no man in his senses will dance." The dancing-master is the devil's drill-sergeant, just as the theater is the devil's church.
End Chapter 6
"Abstain from all appearance of evil." 1 Thess. v, 22.
Cardsare an old game—so old that it is impossible, not only to tell to whose ingenuity we may ascribe the useless invention, but even to name the land or the age in which they originated. They may be traced, however, to Asiatic sources. For many centuries the Chinese and the Hindoos have known the game, and from them it has spread over the world. It was cultivated by the Moors in Spain, and through their agency made its way into Italy, Germany, and the other nations of the West. In some European countries the pastime was prohibited bylaw. This prohibition probably grew out of the superstitions of the times, it being an article of popular faith that games of chance were under the control of the devil, who gave success to those who sold themselves to his service. But cards gradually came into favor among the idle and the frivolous; and at last even royalty—as royalty was in those days—did not disdain to indulge in them. Samuel Pepys, in his amusing and instructive diary, records that on a certain Sunday evening in February, 1667, he found Catherine and the Queen of Charles II playing cards with the Duchess of York, and one or two more, the rooms being "full of ladies and great men." Addison, who wrote a little later, continually alludes to the game as the favorite diversion of the fashionables of his times; and such it seems to have continued among the gay and the thoughtless of English circles, till about the beginning of the present century. The love of it, however, was never universal.Horne Tooke, who assailed the corruptions and tyranny of the English Government during the reign of George III, and was fined and imprisoned sundry times for his hardihood, was once introduced to the sovereign, who entered into a careless conversation with him, and, among other things, asked him if he played cards. "May it please your Majesty," was the witty reply, "I do not know a king from a knave."
It is said that cards are stealthily creeping up into circles from which they have hitherto been religiously excluded. And here the writer is constrained to confess his lack of personal knowledge of the subject under discussion. He is, indeed, aware that individual cards have their names, and are called kings and queens, knaves and spades; that they are "shuffled" and "cut," and that a certain something is called a "trick"—doubtless very appropriately—but having no ambition to stand in the presence of kings of this particulardynasty, no desire to cultivate the acquaintance of knaves of any sort, no love of tricks of any kind, he remains in willing ignorance even unto this day. Two or three times in the course of his life, he has seen people playing cards. First, one would lay down a piece of paper with spots on it, then another player would lay down another spotted paper, and so it went on so long as he beheld the performance; but the process did not seem to him to be attended by any particular result, nor did he learn, possibly because he did not wait and watch long enough, whether the victory depended most on chance, sagacity, or mathematical calculation.
But there are facts which every body knows. Cards are the gambler's tools. They are a favorite diversion of the aimless and the idle; they have a bad name among honest people. If, as some say, they were introduced into Europe by a physician, who adopted them as a means of diverting a royal patient whoseintellect was shattered, we naturally infer that no great amount of intelligence, or strength of intellect, is needed to qualify the player. And to this inference it is not difficult to hang another—that the game is the fitting refuge of men and women who are conscious that their talents enable them to shine better in silence than in conversation. Whether, according to the rules of the play, a king is any better than a knave, or a diamond than a club, I do not claim to know, but I imagine that in playing, wit and intelligence find little more enjoyment than do the dullest and most stupid of the party.
One thing is certain, there is no true utility in the game. It invigorates neither body nor mind; it adds nothing to the store of mental wealth; and those ignorant of it lose nothing by their lack of knowledge. Again, it is certain that to some minds the game is dangerous. They are fascinated by it, led into doubtful associations and evil habits, and to ruinitself. It seems that the diversion is so barren of ideas, in itself deficient in interest, that it becomes necessary to stake small sums of money "just to give it a little life." Thus the first step is taken in the road that leads to the gambler's hell, to the great joy of the demons who there watch for victims. Like other beasts of prey, professional gamblers can not live by devouring each other. Idleness must feed upon the earnings of industry or starve. Vice must burrow into the granary which belongs to virtue. The cool and calculating gambler will be delighted to see card-playing become fashionable among all classes of society. He knows that of those who begin with playing for mere pastime, a certain proportion will be bitten by the mania for playing for money, and thus be brought within reach of his sharp, remorseless claws.
One needs but little information in regard to card-playing to entitle him to the privilege of heartily despising it. Introduced, as itwould seem, for the express purpose of reducing mental vivacity and culture to the same dead level with ignorance, it bears the semblance of an insult to any company in which it is proposed, wasting precious hours in a way which neither invigorates the body, nor supplies the mind with a single valuable idea. I do not see how any conscientious, intelligent person can deem it innocent. Fastening with a strange power upon characters of a peculiar make, and turning them into grist for the gambler's mill, no prudent person will deem it safe. Indeed, the history of every gambling den in the great cities of our own country, as well as in other lands, shows that the passion for cards, and the hope of winning money by them, often becomes an utter overmastering infatuation, almost worthy the name of insanity, which renders the victim reckless of the claims of honor, religion, and the tenderest affections of our nature, and drags him down relentlessly to his doom. Wholly barrenof good results, prodigal of the precious time which God allots for nobler purposes, void of every element of rational recreation, to right minds unsatisfactory and to some minds unsafe, we need not wonder that the degree in which card-playing has prevailed at any given period of history, is a fair index of the corruption of the age. Let no professed follower of Christ defile his or her hands with so suspicious a thing.
Chessclaims to be a more intellectual, and even more ancient, game than cards. Its history and its principles have been set forth in goodly volumes. Poetry has sung its charms. The lives of its famous players have been written and their methods described, and a whole library of its peculiar literature has grown up around it. Its admirers trace its history for five thousand years, and inform us that it originated among the acute, dreaming inhabitants of India. The chess-player plumes himself on the aristocratic character of hisfavorite amusement, as if it placed him above the level of common mortals.
In some points chess is less objectionable than cards. It does not depend on chance, and there is little opportunity to cheat. Moreover, where the players are skillful, it requires a long while to complete a game. For these reasons, as I suppose, chess has never been adopted, so far as I can learn, by the professional gambler; and, therefore, its historic name and present social standing are better. Mind challenges mind, and skill alone wins the victory in the duel of intellect. Chess is not likely to become epidemic. It is so deep a game; it demands so much of time and silence for the contest; it employs so small a number at once, that the gay and the thoughtless, who are in most danger from irrational amusements, will care little for it. Still, if the reader needs a hint, and is glancing along these pages in search of it, he may weigh the suggestions which follow.
Nobody who assumes to play chess at all is willing to be known as a poor player. To play well, or even respectably, involves a great deal of study and practice, and the spending of much time and mental energy; enough, in fact, to learn one of the dead languages. The game so taxes the intellect that it can not be resorted to as a relaxation from mental toil. There is no physical exercise in it, no courting of the sunlight and the breeze; therefore, it can not be made a good recreation for the sedentary. It conveys no new ideas, makes no additions to our accumulations of mental treasure; and, therefore, it is a poor business for those who need their leisure hours for mental improvement.
Chess is not popularly a recreation, but apastime; that is, a way of passing the time; and the time thus passed is wasted. Many a man, bewitched with chess, which has left his mind unfurnished and his heart untouched, has spent over it precious days and years,which, if rightly improved, would have made him intelligent, wise, and greatly useful in his generation. They who fear God ought not thus to waste the golden moments. If the regular duties of the day leave certain hours at our disposal, these hours are too valuable to be dreamed away over a painted board, and a handful of puppets. The sedentary need air and active exercise, which will expand the lungs, and clothe the whole frame with strength. Those whose labor is chiefly that of the hands, need books and newspapers. The student, the clerk, the apprentice, the daughter at home, have more important "moves" to make than those of the chessboard, a wiser way to employ brain power than to spend it on a laborious nothing, a better warfare to wage than the petty antagonisms of useless skill, a record to make in the Book of Life worth infinitely more than a life-long shout of this world's shallow praise of checks and champions.
Billiardsare simply big marbles, "only this and nothing more." Authorities on the subject inform us that the table for playing the game must be twelve feet long, and six feet wide, the top being of slate, covered with cloth. Around the raised edges are cushions of India rubber, and sundry pockets. Instead of employing his thumb and fingers to shoot his marble, as in the original game, the billiard player uses a stick. There are two sorts of sticks—a long one called a cue, and a short one termed a mace. One writer confesses that the cue is the thing, and the only thing, for the expert to use; but advises ladies to be content with the mace, "since to execute finely with the cue sometimes requires the assumption of attitudes which are not becoming female attire, or to the modesty of the sex." Just so. By all means, let the ladies, however ambitious, stick to the mace, even if it is "considered merely as the implement for novices." Perhaps we ought to condole withthe ladies on the distressing dilemma in which this places them. The mace confesses awkwardness; the cue is forbidden. They are doomed to remain forever novices in the higher art, or sacrifice delicacy to ambition.
But what is the game? The expert player places his hand on the table a few inches from the ball, and resting his cue upon it and bending over to look along the stick, studies the situation with the motionless attitude and fixed gaze of a hungry toad taking aim at a fly. Then with the end of his stick he strikes the ball, which, if his calculations are correct, goes in a certain direction, hits another ball, and then goes somewhere else. And this is all. It is true, to be able to make the ball go exactly in the right direction, and stop at the right point, requires, as our author declares, "immense practice;" yet the higher achievement attainable is to cause one marble to hit another, and drop into a pocket.
This statement of the true character of thegame is about all that needs to be set forth to condemn it among intelligent, thoughtful people. It has nothing in it to inform, refine, or in any way improve the mind. The only mental faculties cultivated are those which judge of distances, angles, and muscular forces. To aim at skill is to sacrifice months and years of valuable time to a very mean ambition. It is the favorite device of the saloon and the grog-shop, the bait to entice men from their homes in the evening, and keep them till midnight, drinking, smoking, and telling indecent stories. There is method and design in the pother which the newspapers make over matches and champions, as if the honor of nations were involved in the success of those who volunteer to represent them in petty contest. It is expected that the idler and the spendthrift will be attracted to the place; and in the crowd the seller of alcohol will find customers, and the swindler victims. Billiards figure very low in the scaleof amusements. Associated as it generally is with late hours, confined air, smoking and drinking, the game is detrimental to health, to morals, and to mind. Kept clear of evil associations, there is nothing in it to attract the intelligent and the thoughtful. And seeing that the righteous are generally called home when their work is done, the professor of religion, who can find nothing better to do than play billiards, need not expect to live long.