To a mind, in the habit of
taking such an elevated flight, it is supposed that every thing on the
stage must look little, and childish, and out of place. How could a
person of such a mind be delighted with the musical note of a fiddler,
the attitude of a dancer, the impassioned grimace of an actor? How could
the intrigue, or the love-sick tale of the composition please him? or
how could he have imagined, that these could be the component parts of a
christian's joys?
But this inference is considered by the Quakers to be confirmed by the
practice of the early christians. These generally had been Pagans. They
had of course Pagan dispositions. They followed Pagan amusements, and,
among these, the exhibitions of the stage. But soon after their
conversion, that is, when they had received new minds, and when they had
exercised these on new and sublime subjects, or, on subjects similar to
those described, or, in other words, when they had received the
regenerated spirit of christians, they left the amusements of the stage,
notwithstanding that, by this act of singularity in a sensual age, they
were likely to bring upon themselves the odium and the reproaches of
the world.
But when the early christians abandoned the theatre, they abandoned it,
as the Quakers contend, not because, leaving Paganism they were to
relinquish all customs that were Pagan, but because they saw in their
new religion, or because they saw in this newness of their minds,
reasons, which held out such amusements to be inadmissible, while they
considered themselves in the light of christians.
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