[88] 1 Pet. iii. 1.
LETTER X.
AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.
In addressing the following observations to you, I keep in mind the peculiarity of your position,--a position which has made you, while scarcely more than a child, independent of external control, and forced you into the responsibilities of deciding thus early on a course of conduct that may seriously affect your temporal and eternal interests.
More happy are those placed under the authority of strict parents, who have already chosen and marked out for themselves a path to which they expect their children strictly to adhere. The difficulties that may still perplex the children of such parents are comparatively few: even if the strictness of the authority over them be inexpedient and over strained, it affords them a safeguard and a support for which they cannot be too grateful; it preserves them from the responsibility of acting for themselves at a time when their age and inexperience alike unfit them for a decision on any important practical point; it keeps them disengaged, as it were, from being pledged to any peculiar course of conduct until they have formed and matured their opinion as to the habits of social intercourse most expedient for them to adopt. Thus, when the time for independent action comes, they are quite free to pursue any new course of life without being shackled by former professions, or exposing themselves to the reproach (and consequent probable loss of influence) of having altered their former opinions and views.
Those, then, who are early guarded from any intercourse with the world ought, instead of murmuring at the unnecessary strictness of their seclusion, to reflect with grat.i.tude on the advantages it affords them.
Faith ought, even now, to teach them the lesson that experience is sure to impress on every thoughtful mind, that it is a special mercy to be preserved from the duties of responsibility until we are, comparatively speaking, fitted to enter upon them.
This is not, however, the case with you. Ignorant and inexperienced as you are, you must now select, from among all the modes of life placed within your reach, those which you consider the best suited to secure your welfare for time and for eternity. Your decision now, even in very trifling particulars, must have some effect upon your state in both existences. The most unimportant event of this life carries forward a pulsation into eternity, and acquires a solemn importance from the reaction. Every feeling which we indulge or act upon becomes a part of ourselves, and is a preparation, by our own hand, of a scourge or a blessing for us throughout countless ages.
It may seem a matter of comparative unimportance, of trifling influence over your future fate, whether you attend Lady A."s ball to-night, or Lady H."s to-morrow. You may argue to yourself that even those who now think b.a.l.l.s entirely sinful have attended hundreds of them in their time, and have nevertheless become afterwards more religious and more useful than others who have never entered a ball-room. You might add, that there could be more positive sin in pa.s.sing two or three hours with two or three people in Lady A"s house in the morning than in pa.s.sing the same number of hours with two or three hundred people in the same house in the evening. This is indeed true; but are you not deceiving yourself by referring to the mere overt act? That is, as you imply, past and over when the evening is past; but it is not so with the feelings which _may_ make the ball either delightful or disagreeable to you; feelings, which may be then for the first time excited, never to be stilled again,--feelings which, when they once exist, will remain with you throughout eternity; for even if by the grace of G.o.d they are finally subdued, they will still remain with you in the memory of the painful conflicts, the severe discipline of inward and outward trials, required for their subjugation. Do not, however, suppose that I mean to attribute exclusive or universally injurious effects to the atmosphere of a ball-room. In the innocent smiles and unclouded brow of many a fair girl, the experienced eye truly reads their freedom from any taint of envy, malice, or coquetry; while, on the other hand, unmistakeable and unconcealed exhibitions of all these evil feelings may often be witnessed at a so-called "religious party."
This remark, however, is not to my purpose; it is only made _par parenthese_, to obviate any pretence for mistaking my meaning, and for supposing that I attribute positive sin to that which I only object to as the possible, or rather the probable occasion of sin. I always think this latter distinction a very important one to attend to in discussing, in a more general point of view, the subject of amus.e.m.e.nts of every kind: it is, however, enough merely to notice it here, while we pa.s.s on to the question which I urge upon you to apply personally to yourself, namely, whether the ball-room be not a more favourable atmosphere for the first excitement and after-cultivation of many feminine failings than the quieter and more confined scenes of other social intercourse.
It is by tracing the effect produced on our own mind that we can alone form a safe estimate of the expediency of doubtful occupations. This is the primary point of view in which to consider the subject, though by no means the only one; for every Christian ought to exhibit a readiness in his own small sphere to emulate the unselfishness of the great apostle: "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."[89] The fear of the awful threatenings against those who "offend," _i.e._ lead into sin, any of "G.o.d"s little ones,"[90] should combine with love for those for whom the Saviour died, to induce us freely to sacrifice things which would be personally harmless, on the ground of their being injurious to others.
This part of the subject is, however, of less importance for our present consideration, as from your youth and inexperience your example cannot yet exercise much influence on those around you.
Let us therefore return to the more personal part of the subject, namely, the effect produced on your own mind. I have spoken of feminine "failings:" I should, however, be inclined to apply a stronger term to the first that I am about to notice--the love of admiration, considering how closely it must ever be connected with the fatal vice of envy. She who has an earnest craving for general admiration for herself, is exposed to a strong temptation to regret the bestowal of any admiration on another. She has an instinctive exactness in her account of receipt and expenditure; she calculates almost unconsciously that the time and attention and interest excited by the attractive powers of others is so much homage subtracted from her own. That beautiful aphorism, "The human heart is like heaven--the more angels the more room for them," is to such persons as unintelligible in its loving spirit as in its wonderful philosophic truth. Their craving is insatiable, once it has become habitual, and their appet.i.te is increased and stimulated, instead of being appeased, by the anxiously-sought-for nourishment.
These observations can only strictly apply to the fatal desire for general admiration. As long as the approbation only of the wise and good is our object, it is not so much that there are fewer opportunities of exciting the feeling of envy at this approbation being granted to others; there is, further, an instinctive feeling of its incompatibility with the very object we are aiming at. The case is altogether different when we seek to attract those whose admiration may be won by qualities quite different from any connected with moral excellence. There is here no restraint on our evil feelings: and when we cannot equal the accomplishments, the beauty, and the graces of another, we may possibly be tempted to envy, and, still further, to depreciate, those of the hated rival--perhaps, worse than all, may be tempted to seek to attract attention by means less simple and less obvious. If the receiving of admiration be injurious to the mind, what must the seeking for it be!
"The flirt of many seasons" loses all mental perceptions of refinement by long practice in hardihood, as the hackneyed pract.i.tioner unconsciously deepens the rouge upon her cheek, until, unperceived by her blunted visual organs, it loses all appearance of truth and beauty.
Some instances of the kind I allude to nave come before even your inexperienced eyes; and from the shrinking surprise with which you now contemplate them, I have no doubt that you would wish to shun even the first step in the same career. Indeed, it is probable that you, under any circ.u.mstances, would never go so far in coquetry as those to whom your memory readily recurs. Your innate delicacy, your feminine high-mindedness may, at any future time, as well as at present, preserve you from the bad taste of challenging those attentions which your very vanity would reject as worthless if they were not voluntarily offered.
Nevertheless, even in you, habits of dissipation may produce an effect which to your inmost being may be almost equally injurious. You may possess an antidote to prevent any external manifestations of the poisonous effects of an indulged craving for excitement; but general admiration, however spontaneously offered and modestly received, has nevertheless a tendency to create a necessity for mental stimulants.
This, among other ill-effects, will, worst of all, incapacitate you from the appreciative enjoyment of healthy food.
The heart that with its luscious cates The world has fed so long, Could never taste the simple food That gives fresh virtue to the good, Fresh vigour to the strong.[91]
The pure and innocent pleasures which the hand of Providence diffuses plentifully around us will, too probably, become tasteless and insipid to one whose habits of excitement have destroyed the fresh and simple tastes of her mind. Stronger doses, as in the case of the opium-eater, will each day be required to produce an exhilarating effect, without which there is now no enjoyment, without which, in course of time, there will not be even freedom from suffering.
There is an a.n.a.logy throughout between the mental and the physical intoxication; and it continues most strikingly, even when we consider both in their most favourable points of view, by supposing the victim to self-indulgence at last willing to retrace her steps. This fearful advantage is granted to our spiritual enemy by wilful indulgence in sin; that it is only when trying to adopt or resume a life of sobriety and self-denial that we become exposed to the severest temporal punishments of self-indulgence. As long as a course of this self-indulgence is continued, if external things should prosper with us, comparative peace and happiness may be enjoyed--(if indeed the loftier pleasures of devotion to G.o.d, self-control, and active usefulness can be forgotten,--supposing them to have been once experienced.) It is only when the grace of repentance is granted that the returning child of G.o.d becomes at the same time alive to the sinfulness of those pleasures which she has cultivated the habit of enjoying, and to the mournful fact of having lost all taste for those simple pleasures which are the only safe ones, because they alone leave the mind free for the exercise of devotion, and the affections warm and fresh for the contemplation of "the things that belong to our peace."
Sad and dreary is the path the penitent worldling has to traverse; often, despairing at the difficulties her former habits have brought upon her, she looks back, longingly and lingeringly, upon the broad and easy path she has lately left. Alas! how many of those thus tempted to "look back" have turned away entirely, and never more set their faces Zion-ward.
From the dangers and sorrows just described you have still the power of preserving yourself. You have as yet acquired no fact.i.tious tastes; you still retain the power of enjoying the simple pleasures of innocent childhood. It now depends upon your manner of spending the intervening years, whether, in the trying period of middle-age, simple and natural pleasures will still awaken emotions of joyousness and thankfulness in your heart.
I have spoken of thankfulness,--for one of the best tests of the innocence and safety of our pleasures is, the being able to thank G.o.d for them. While we thus look upon them as coming to us from his hand, we may safely bask in the sunshine of even earthly pleasures:--
The colouring may be of this earth, The l.u.s.tre comes of heavenly birth.[92]
Can you feel this with respect to the emotions of pleasurable excitement with which you left Lady M."s ball? I am no fanatic, nor ascetic; and I can imagine it possible (though not probable) that among the visitors there some simple-minded and simple-hearted people, amused with the crowds, the dresses, the music, and the flowers, may have felt, even in this scene of feverish and dangerous excitement, something of "a child"s pure delight in little things."[93] Without profaneness, and in all sincerity, they might have thanked G.o.d for the, to them, harmless recreation.
This I suppose possible in the case of some, but for you it is not so.
The keen susceptibilities of your excitable nature will prevent your resting contented without sharing in the more exciting pleasures of the ball-room; and your powers of adaptation will easily tempt you forward to make use of at least some of those means of attracting general admiration which seem to succeed so well with others.
"Wherever there is life there is danger;" and the danger is probably in proportion to the degree of life. The more energy, the more feeling, the more genius possessed by an individual, the greater also are the temptations to which that individual is exposed. The path which is safe and harmless for the dull and inexcitable--the mere animals of the human race--is beset with dangers for the ardent, the enthusiastic, the intellectual. These must pay a heavy penalty for their superiority; but is it therefore a superiority they would resign? Besides, the very trials and temptations to which their superior vitality subjects them are not alone its necessary accompaniment, but also the necessary means for forming a superior character into eminent excellence.
Self-will, love of pleasure, quick excitability, and consequent irritability, are the marked ingredients in every strong character; its strength must be employed against itself to produce any high moral superiority.
There is an a.n.a.logy between the metaphysical truths above spoken of and that fact in the physical history of the world, that coal-mines are generally placed in the neighbourhood of iron-mines. This is a provision involved in the nature of the thing itself; and we know that, without the furnaces thus placed within reach, the natural capabilities of the useful ore would never be developed.
In the same way, we know that an accompanying furnace of affliction and temptation is necessarily involved in that very strength of character which we admire; and also, that, without this fiery furnace, the vast capabilities of their nature, both moral and mental, could never be fully developed.
Suffering, sorrow, and temptations are the invariable conditions of a life of progress; and suffering, sorrow, and temptations are all of them always in proportion to the energies and capabilities of the character.
There is another a.n.a.logy in animated nature, ill.u.s.trative of the case of those who, without injury to themselves, (the injury to our neighbour is, as I said before, a different part of the subject,) may attend the ball-room, the theatre, and the race-course. Those animals lowest in the scale of creation, those who scarcely manifest one of the energies of vitality, are also those which are the least susceptible of suffering from external causes. The medusae are supposed to feel no pain even in being devoured, and the human zoophyte is, in like manner, comparatively out of the reach of every suffering but death. Have you not seen some beings endowed with humanity nearly as dest.i.tute of a nervous system as the medusae, nearly as insusceptible of any sensation from the accidents of life. Some of these, too, may possess virtue and piety as well as the animal qualities of patience and sweetness of temper, which are the mere results of their physical organization. No degree of effort or discipline, however, (indeed they bear within themselves no capabilities for either,) could enable such persons to become eminently useful, eminently respected, or eminently loved. They have doubtless some work appointed them to do, and that a necessary work in G.o.d"s earthly kingdom; but theirs are inferior duties, very different from those which you, and such as you, are called on to fulfil.
Have I in any degree succeeded in reconciling you to the unvaryingly-accompanying penalties necessary to qualify the glad consciousness of possessing intellectual powers, a warm heart, and a strong mind? Your high position will indeed afford you far less happiness than that which may belong to the lower ranks in the scale of humanity; but the n.o.ble mind will soon be disciplined into dispensing with happiness;--it will find instead--blessedness.
If yours be a more difficult path than that of others, it is also a more honourable one: in proportion to the temptations endured will be the brightness of that "crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."[94]
But there is, perhaps, less necessity for trying to impress upon your mind a sense of your superiority than for urging upon you its accompanying responsibility, and the severe circ.u.mspection it calls upon you to exercise. Thus, from what I have above written, it necessarily follows that you cannot evade the question I am now pressing upon you by observing the effect of dissipation upon others, by bringing forward the example of many excellent women who have pa.s.sed through the ordeal of dissipation untainted, and, still themselves possessing loving hearts and simple minds, are fearlessly preparing their daughters for the same dangerous course. Remember that those from whom you would shrink from a supposed equality on other points cannot be safely taken as examples for your own course of life. Your own concern is to ascertain the effect produced upon your own mind by different kinds of society, and to examine whether you yourself have the same healthy taste for simple pleasures and unexciting pursuits as before you engaged, even as slightly as you have already done, in the dissipation of a London season.
I once heard a young lady exclaim, when asked to accompany her family on a boating excursion, "Can any thing be more tiresome than a family party?" Young as she was, she had already lost all taste for the simple pleasures of domestic life. As she was intellectual and accomplished, she could still enjoy solitude; but her only ideas of pleasure as connected with a party were those of admiration and excitement. We may trace the same feelings in the complaints perpetually heard of the stupidity of parties,--complaints generally proceeding from those who are too much accustomed to attention and admiration to be contented with the unexciting pleasures of rational conversation, the exercise of kindly feelings, and the indulgence of social habits--all in their way productive of contentment to those who have preserved their mind in a state of freshness and simplicity. Any greater excitement than that produced by the above means cannot surely be profitable to those who only seek in society for so much pleasure as will afford them _relaxation_; those who engage in an arduous conflict with ever-watchful enemies both within and without ought carefully to avoid having their weapons of defence _unstrung_. I know that at present you would shrink from the idea of making pleasure your professed pursuit, from the idea of engaging in it for any other purpose but the one above stated--that of necessary relaxation; I should not otherwise have addressed you as I do now. Your only danger at present is, that you may, I should hope indeed unconsciously, _acquire_ the habit of requiring excitement during your hours of relaxation.
In opposition to all that I have said, you will probably be often told that excitement, instead of being prejudicial, is favourable to the health of both mind and body; and this in some respects is true: the whole mental and physical const.i.tution benefit by, and acquire new energy from, nay, they seem to develop hidden forces on occasions of natural excitement; but natural it ought to be, coming in the providential course of the events of life, and neither considered as an essential part of daily food, nor inspiring distaste for simple, ordinary nourishment. I fear much, on the other hand, any excitement that we choose for ourselves; that only is quite safe which is dispensed to us by the hand of the Great Physician of souls: he alone knows the exact state of our moral const.i.tution, and the exact species of discipline it requires from hour to hour.
You will wonder, perhaps, that throughout the foregoing remonstrance I have never recommended to you the test so common among many good people of our acquaintance, viz. whether you are able to pray as devoutly on returning from a ball as after an evening spent at home? My reason for this silence was, that I have found the test an ineffectual one. The advanced Christian, if obedience to those who are set in authority over her should lead her into scenes of dissipation, will not find her mind disturbed by being an unwilling actor in the uninteresting amus.e.m.e.nts.
She, on the other hand, who is just beginning a spiritual life, must be an incompetent judge of the variations in the devotional spirit of her mind,--anxious, besides, as one should be to discourage any of that minute attention to variations of religious feeling which only disturbs and hara.s.ses the mind, and hinders it from concentrating its efforts upon obedience. Lastly, she who has never been mindful of her baptismal vows of renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil, will "say her prayers" quite as satisfactorily to herself after a day spent in one manner as in another. The test of a distaste for former simple pursuits, and want of interest in them, is a much safer one, more universally applicable, and not so easily evaded. It is equally effectual, too, as a religious safeguard; for the natural and impressible state in which the mind is kept by the absence of habitual stimulants is surely the state in which it is best qualified for the exercise of devotion,--for self-denial, for penitence and prayer.
Let us return now to a further examination of the nature of the dangers to which you may be exposed by a life of gayety--an examination that must be carried on in your own mind with careful and anxious inquiry. I have before spoken of the duty of ascertaining what effects different kinds of society produce upon you: it is only by thus qualifying yourself to pa.s.s your _own_ judgment on this important subject that you can avoid being dangerously influenced by those a.s.sertions that you hear made by others. You will probably, for instance, be told that a love of admiration often manifests itself as glaringly in the quiet drawing-room as in the crowded ball-room; and I readily admit that the feelings cherished into existence, or at least into vigour, by the exciting atmosphere of the latter cannot be readily laid aside with the ball-dress. There will, indeed, be less opportunity for their display, less temptation to the often accompanying feelings of envy and discontent, but the mental process will probably still be carried on--of distilling from even the most innocent pleasures but one species of dangerous excitement: I cannot, however, admit, that to the unsophisticated mind there will be any danger of the same nature in the one case as in the other. Society, when entered into with a simple, prayerful spirit, may be considered one of the most improving as well as one of the most innocent pleasures allotted to us. Still further, I believe that the exercise of patience, benevolence, and self-denial which it involves, is a most important part of the disciplining process by which we are being brought into a state of preparation for the society of glorified spirits, of "just men made perfect."
I advise you earnestly, therefore, against any system of conduct, or indulgence of feeling, that would involve your seclusion from society--not only on the grounds of such seclusion obliging you to unnecessary self-denial, but on the still stronger grounds of the loss to our moral being which would result from the absence of the peculiar species of discipline that social intercourse affords. My object in addressing you is to point out the dangers to you of peculiar kinds of society, not by any means to seek to persuade you to avoid it altogether.
Let us, then, consider carefully the respective tendencies of different kinds of society to cherish or create the feelings of "envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness," by exciting a craving for general admiration, and a desire to secure the largest portion for yourself.
You have already been a few weeks out in the world; you have been at small social parties and crowded b.a.l.l.s: they must have given you sufficient experience to understand the remarks I make.
Have you not, then, felt at the quiet parties of which I have spoken (as contrasted with dissipated ones) that it was pleasure enough for you to spend your whole evening talking with persons of your own s.e.x and age over the simple occupations o your daily-life, or the studies which engage the interest of your already cultivated mind? Lady L. may have collected a circle of admirers around her, and Miss M."s music may have been extolled as worthy of an artist, but upon all this you looked merely as a spectator; without either wish or idea of sharing in their publicity or their renown, you probably did not form a thought, certainly not a wish, of the kind. In the ball-room, however, the case is altogether different; the most simple and fresh-minded woman cannot escape from feelings of pain or regret at being neglected or un.o.bserved here. She goes for the professed purpose of dancing; and when few or no opportunities are afforded her of sharing in that which is the amus.e.m.e.nt of the rest of the room, should she feel neither mortification at her own position, nor envy, however disguised and modified, at the different position of others, she can possess none of that sensitiveness which is your distinctive quality. It is true, indeed, that the experienced chaperon is well aware that the girl who commands the greatest number of partners is not the one most likely to have the greatest number of proposals-at the end of the season, nor the one who will finally make the most successful _parti_. This reconciles the prudential looker-on to the occasional and partial appearance of neglect. Not so the young and inexperienced aspirant to admiration: _her_ worldliness is now in an earlier phase; and she thinks that her fame rises or falls among her companions according as she can compete with them in the number of her partners, or their exclusive devotion to her, which after a season or two is discovered to be a still safer test of successful coquetry. Thus may the young innocent heart be gradually led on to depend for its enjoyment on the fact.i.tious pa.s.sing admiration of a light and thoughtless hour; and still worse, if possessed of keen susceptibilities and powers of quick adaptation, the lesson is often too easily learned of practising the arts likely to attract notice, thus losing for ever the simplicity and modest freshness of a woman"s nature. That may be a fatal evening to you on which you will first attract sufficient notice to have it said of you that you were more admired than Lucy D. or Ellen M.; this may be a moment for a poisonous plant to spring up in your heart, which will spread around its baleful influence until your dying day. It is a disputed point among ethical metaphysicians, whether the seeds of every vice are equally planted in each human bosom, and only prevented from germinating by opposing circ.u.mstances, and by the grace of G.o.d a.s.sisting self-control. If this be true, how carefully ought we to avoid every circ.u.mstance that may favour the commencing existence of before unknown sins and temptations. The grain that has been dest.i.tute of vitality for a score of centuries is wakened into unceasing, because continually renewed existence, by the fostering influences of light and air and a suitable soil. Evil tendencies may be slumbering in your bosom, as dest.i.tute of life, as incapable of growth, as the oats in the foldings of the mummy"s envelope. Be careful lest, by going into the way of temptation, you may involuntarily foster them into the very existence which they would otherwise never possess.
When once the craving for excitement has become a part of our nature, there is of course no safety in the quietest, or, under other circ.u.mstances, most innocent kind of society. The same amus.e.m.e.nts will be sought for in it as those which have been enjoyed in the ball-room, and every company will be considered insufferably wearisome which does not furnish the now necessary stimulant of exclusive attention and general admiration.
I write the more strongly to you on the subject of worldly amus.e.m.e.nts, because I see with regret a tendency in the writings and conversation of the religious world, as it is called, to extol every other species of self-denial, but to Observe a studied silence respecting this one.
A reaction seems to have taken place in the public mind. Instead of the puritanic strictness that condemned the meeting of a few friends for any purposes besides those of reading the Scriptures and praying extempore, practices are now introduced, and favoured, and considered harmless, almost as strongly contrasted with the former ones as was the promulgation of the Book of Sports with the strict observances that preceded it. We see some, of whose piety and excellence no doubt can be entertained, mingling unhesitatingly in the most worldly amus.e.m.e.nts of those who are by profession as well as practice "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of G.o.d."
How cruelly are the minds of the simple and the timid perplexed by the persons who thus act, as well as by those popular writings which countenance in professedly religious persons these worldly and self-indulgent habits of life. The hearts and the consciences of the "weak brethren" re-echo the warnings given them by the average opinions of the wise and good in all ages of the world, namely, that, with respect to worldly amus.e.m.e.nts, they must "come out and be separate." How else can they be sons and daughters of Him, to whom they vowed, as the necessary condition of entering into that high relationship, that they would "renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world?" If the question of pomps should be perplexing to some by the different requirements of different stations in life, there is surely less difficulty of the same kind in relation to its vanities. But while the "weak in faith" are hesitating and trembling at the thought of all the opposition and sacrifices a self-denying course of conduct must, under any circ.u.mstances, involve, they are still further discouraged by finding that some whom they are accustomed to respect and admire have in appearance gone over to the enemy"s camp.
It is only, indeed, in their hours of relaxation that they select as their favourite companions those who are professedly engaged in a different service from their own--those whom they know to be devoted heart and soul to the love and service of that "world which lieth in wickedness."[95] Are not, however, their hours of relaxation also their hours of danger--those in which they are more likely to be surprised and overcome by temptation than in hours of study or of business? All this is surely very perplexing to the young and inexperienced, however personally safe and prudent it may be for those from whom a better example might have been justly expected. It is deeply to be regretted that there is not more unity of action and opinion among those who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," more especially in cases where such unity of action is only interfered with by dislike to the important and eminent Christian duty of self-denial.
I am inclined to apply terms of stronger and more general condemnation than any I have hitherto used to those amus.e.m.e.nts which are more especially termed "public."