SECTION IX. 571 uncertain hazards of a dice box. Read the pages which Mr. Neal has employed on this theme, in the sermon just now cited : read what Mr. Dorrington 'has written several years ago on this subject of gaining: I wish such discourses were fresh in print, u,;d put into the hands of every one who lies under this temptation. 4. The midnight assemblies are the last which I shall men- tion of those modish and hazardous diversions, wherein youth are drawn away to mueh vanity, and plunged into the sensual gaieties of life; and that at those hours, partof which should be devoted to the religion of the family, or the closet, and partly to the nightly repose of nature. lt is acknowledged to be proper and needful, that young people should be indulged in some re- creations, agreeable to their age, and suitable to the condition in which Providence has placed them. But I would ask whether the great and only valuable end of recreation is to be expected from these midnight - assemblies, namely, to relieve us from the fatigues of life, and to exhilarate the spirits, so as thereby to jit us for the duties of life and religion'? Now are these the proper means to fit us for the duties of either kind ? Perhaps it will be said, that dancing, which is practised in those assent blies, is an exercise conducive to health, and therefore a means of fitting us for the duties of life. But may not the unseasona- bleness of the midnight -hour prevent and over- balance the bene- that otherwise might be supposed to arise from the exercise ? Is it likely that natural health should be promoted, or preserved, by changing the seasons and order of nature, and by allotting those hours to exercise, which God and nature have ordained to rest ? Is the returning home after five or six hours dancing, through the cold and damp of the midnight air, a proper means of preserving health ? or rather, is it not more likely to impair and destroy it ? . Have not these fatal effects been too often felt ? Have there not been sacrifices of human life offered to this mid- night idol ? Have there been no fair young martyrs to this un- seasonable folly ? Are there not some of its slaves who are be- come feeble, labouring under sole diseases, and some of them fallen asleep in death? Have not their music and their dancing instead of natural rest in their beds, brought them down to a long silence in the grave, and an untimely rest in a bed of dust ? Those amiable pieces of human,nature, who were lately the joy and hope of their too indulgent parents, are now the bitterness of their hearts ; and those very exercises from whence they hoped the continuance of their joy, as the supposed means of confirm- ing their children's health, are become an everlasting spring of their mourning. And as those midnight recreations are badly suited to fit us for the duties of the civil life, so they are worse suited to fit us
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=