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Page 56
[87] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[88] 1 Pet. iii. 1.
LETTER X.
AMUSEMENTS.
In addressing the following observations to you, I keep in mind the
peculiarity of your position,--a position which has made you, while
scarcely more than a child, independent of external control, and forced
you into the responsibilities of deciding thus early on a course of
conduct that may seriously affect your temporal and eternal interests.
More happy are those placed under the authority of strict parents, who
have already chosen and marked out for themselves a path to which they
expect their children strictly to adhere. The difficulties that may
still perplex the children of such parents are comparatively few: even
if the strictness of the authority over them be inexpedient and over
strained, it affords them a safeguard and a support for which they
cannot be too grateful; it preserves them from the responsibility of
acting for themselves at a time when their age and inexperience alike
unfit them for a decision on any important practical point; it keeps
them disengaged, as it were, from being pledged to any peculiar course
of conduct until they have formed and matured their opinion as to the
habits of social intercourse most expedient for them to adopt. Thus,
when the time for independent action comes, they are quite free to
pursue any new course of life without being shackled by former
professions, or exposing themselves to the reproach (and consequent
probable loss of influence) of having altered their former opinions and
views.
Those, then, who are early guarded from any intercourse with the world
ought, instead of murmuring at the unnecessary strictness of their
seclusion, to reflect with gratitude on the advantages it affords them.
Faith ought, even now, to teach them the lesson that experience is sure
to impress on every thoughtful mind, that it is a special mercy to be
preserved from the duties of responsibility until we are, comparatively
speaking, fitted to enter upon them.
This is not, however, the case with you. Ignorant and inexperienced as
you are, you must now select, from among all the modes of life placed
within your reach, those which you consider the best suited to secure
your welfare for time and for eternity. Your decision now, even in very
trifling particulars, must have some effect upon your state in both
existences. The most unimportant event of this life carries forward a
pulsation into eternity, and acquires a solemn importance from the
reaction. Every feeling which we indulge or act upon becomes a part of
ourselves, and is a preparation, by our own hand, of a scourge or a
blessing for us throughout countless ages.
It may seem a matter of comparative unimportance, of trifling influence
over your future fate, whether you attend Lady A.'s ball to-night, or
Lady H.'s to-morrow. You may argue to yourself that even those who now
think balls entirely sinful have attended hundreds of them in their
time, and have nevertheless become afterwards more religious and more
useful than others who have never entered a ball-room. You might add,
that there could be more positive sin in passing two or three hours with
two or three people in Lady A's house in the morning than in passing the
same number of hours with two or three hundred people in the same house
in the evening. This is indeed true; but are you not deceiving yourself
by referring to the mere overt act? That is, as you imply, past and over
when the evening is past; but it is not so with the feelings which _may_
make the ball either delightful or disagreeable to you; feelings, which
may be then for the first time excited, never to be stilled
again,--feelings which, when they once exist, will remain with you
throughout eternity; for even if by the grace of God they are finally
subdued, they will still remain with you in the memory of the painful
conflicts, the severe discipline of inward and outward trials, required
for their subjugation. Do not, however, suppose that I mean to attribute
exclusive or universally injurious effects to the atmosphere of a
ball-room. In the innocent smiles and unclouded brow of many a fair
girl, the experienced eye truly reads their freedom from any taint of
envy, malice, or coquetry; while, on the other hand, unmistakeable and
unconcealed exhibitions of all these evil feelings may often be
witnessed at a so-called "religious party."
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