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The Quakers conceive, as a christian society, that they ought to have
nothing to do with any amusements, but such as christians could have
invented themselves, or such as christians could have sanctioned, by
becoming partakers of them. But they believe that dramatic exhibitions
are of such a nature as men of a christian spirit could never have
invented or encouraged, and that, if the world were to begin again, and
were to be peopled by pure christians, these exhibitions could never be
called into existence there.
This inference, the Quakers judge to be deducible from the nature of a
christian mind. A man, who is in the habit, at his leisure hours, of
looking into the vast and stupendous works of creation, of contemplating
the wisdom, goodness, and power of the creator, of trying to fathom the
great and magnificent plans of his providence, who is in the habit of
surveying all mankind with the philosophy of revealed religion, of
tracing, through the same unerring channel, the uses and objects of
their existence, the design of their different ranks and situations,
the nature of their relative duties and the like, could never, in the
opinion of the Quakers, have either any enjoyment, or be concerned in
the invention, of dramatic exhibitions.
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