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 God, 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 God
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 factitious 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 God
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 lustre 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 God 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 analogy 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 analogy in animated nature, illustrative 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 medusæ 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 destitute of a nervous system as
the medusæ, 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 God'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 noble 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 circumspection 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 passed 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 constitution 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 constitution, 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 amusements.
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 harasses 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 pass your _own_ judgment on this important subject that you
can avoid being dangerously influenced by those assertions 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 balls: 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 sex 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 unobserved
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 amusement
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 factitious passing 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 circumstances, and by the grace
of God assisting self-control. If this be true, how carefully ought we
to avoid every circumstance that may favour the commencing existence of
before unknown sins and temptations. The grain that has been destitute
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 destitute 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
circumstances, most innocent kind of society. The same amusements 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 amusements,
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 amusements of
those who are by profession as well as practice "lovers of pleasure more
than lovers of God."
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 amusements, 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 circumstances, 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 amusements which are more
especially termed "public."