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SECT. IV.
_The theatre forbidden--because injurious to the happiness of man by
disqualifying him for the pleasures of religion--this effect arises
from its tendency to accustom individuals to light thoughts--to injure
their moral feelings--to occasion an extraordinary excitement of the
mind--and from the very nature of the enjoyments which it produces._
As the Quakers consider the theatre to have an injurious effect on the
morality of man, so they consider it to have an injurious effect on his
happiness. They believe that amusements of this sort, but particularly
the comic, unfit the mind for the practical performance of the christian
duties, and that as the most pure and substantial happiness, that man
can experience, is derived from a fulfilment of these, so they deprive
him of the highest enjoyment of which his nature is capable, that is, of
the pleasures of religion.
If a man were asked, on entering the door of the theatre, if he went
there to learn the moral duties, he would laugh at the absurdity of the
question; and if he would consent to give a fair and direct answer, he
would either reply, that he went there for amusement, or to dissipate
gloom, or to be made merry. Some one of these expressions would probably
characterise his errand there.
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