many absurdities, impertinences, and follies concealed under the epithet serious, as under that of shaker.

9th. "Because it is a disparagement to God, to lift up those hands to applaud a player which we lift up to the throne of grace."

Ah! my good father, it is not the lifting,,

Lafilm up the hands but the elevation of the heart Holy's that will be acceptable to thy judge and hands"

mine!-The Mahometans and the eastern idolators lay a stress upon the application and religious uses of the hands, but the enlightened christian looks with contempt and pity upon such puerilities.—If the mind is sincerely devout, the hands will follow in correspondent movements ;— nor will it ever be required at the throne of mercy, what was their previous occupation.

Paul

10th. "Because experience shows how the DEVIL hath sometimes possessed christians in a play-house, and being afterwards cast out, confessed that he had reason to enter them, because he found them in his own place."

Oh Madam! what a foolish devil! Had he kept his own council, what noble sport he would have had upon his royal manor!

* Tertullian very gravely gives us the instance in the following style :

"A certain woman went to the play-house, and brought THE DEVIL HOME with her. And when the unclean spirit was pressed in the exorcism, and asked how he DURST ATTACK a christian ?—I have done nothing (says he) but what I can justify-for I siezed her upon my own ground."

De Spectaculus, Cap. 26.

But why should this excite surprise? John Wesley in the eighteenth century, declared in the presence of a numerous company, (Dr. Coke being one) that the whole bench of bishops together, could not 'nvalidate the reality of WITCHCRAFT !!!

-To scare the game from his net, shows him to have been then a very silly Devil indeed. I fancy since that period he has grown a great deal wiser, for he now makes sure of his prey, without acquainting us whether he takes it from the tabernacle or the play-house.

11th. "Because no man can serve two masters, God and the World, as those christians pretend to do, that frequent both the church and stage. *"

No man can serve God and Mammon; and he who neglects his duty to his Maker, or suffers it to be abstracted by any pur

*I wonder they have never pressed the Decalogue into the service. Thou shalt not steal-would evidently apply to the author.

Thou shalt not commit murder-might be very appropriately applied to the actors.

suit, (I care not what it be) commits the crying and grievous sin of ingratitude.-But he who suffers an amusement to absorb his devotions, is a contemptible idiot, beneath reproof, and would disgrace correction. This rule, like most of the objections furnished in the days of the fathers, against the stage, no longer applies. It is nonsense to suppose that a couple of hours of rational entertainment, after the fatigues of a day, can interfere with our duty to God or man. But, in the time Turtullian lived, this caution was absolutely requisite; for the Roman shows would occupy a whole day, and by their pageantry draw off the early christians, not only from their usual avo

Thou shalt not bow down nor bend before any graven image-would be an excellent admonition to those audiences that bestow such enthusiastic applause upon canvass camels, wooden horses, pasteboard men, and basket elephants !

cations, but to the utter neglect of all their religious forms and ceremonies.

12th. “Because, though some speeches in a play are witty and ingenious, yet there is poison at the bottom, and vice is only coloured and gilded with fine language and curious emblems, that it may go down more glibly, and ruin the soul more artificially.”

This is the only rule of the twelve that has survived the wreck of time, and still bears a capability of application to the present stage. Any play, confirming the truth of the remarks contained in Tertullian's twelfth objection, should be considered in the most reprehensible point of view, and consigned, with infamy, to oblivion.-But until ALL PLAYS are proved to possess this pernicious inclination, the stage remains uninjured! Now, Madam, is it not really lamentable, deplorable, aggravating to the