In being wiser than her Lord, the church has drawn the reins too tightly, and the results speak for themselves. Much is said about expediency; and Paul’s words about meat offending his brother, have been saddled with more burdens than any ten other passages of scripture; but after all, the result proves simply this, that it is always most expedient to follow Christ implicitly. I would, moreover, that the church in dealing with this question, would consent to meddle less with its details, and leave them more where they properly belong, with the individual conscience. No one man can decide these things for another. No man has a right to insist that his standard of expediency shall be his brother’s. Where God’s law is explicit, both are bound alike. When it throws a decision upon conscience, neither has a right to complain if the paths diverge. Both paths may not be right, but to his own Master shall each traveler stand or fall. The church, indeed, can do better than to busy herself with such details, or, to speak more correctly, she can deal with them much more successfully by shifting her point of power from the circumference to the centre. Her duty in this case will be very much simplified and lightened, if she will give more attention to the _springs_ of Christian life, to the conformity of the _heart_ to the mind and will of Christ, to fostering an enthusiastic devotion to him. Then these details and distinctions will mostly take care of themselves. The church has lacked faith in the regulative power of this principle, and has sought to supply its assumed defects by innumerable special provisions; and the consequent tendency of this course has been to fetter Christian individuality, and to insist that love to Christ should express itself only in such modes as the church might prescribe. Hence the sentiment often expressed, a true Christian will have no taste for these things. But here again the whole question is begged. You do not know, you cannot know what affinities a Christian life may develop. All that you can with any confidence assert is the general fact that he will love all that is good, acceptable, perfect, and hate all that is essentially evil. As to other matters, things whose moral value arises entirely from circumstances, a love to Christ as sincere and as ardent as yours, may lead him in a direction the very opposite of yours. Therefore it will be more in the interest of a true Christian individuality, of a higher and more generous Christian manhood, for the church to throw the soul more on its love to Christ as the great regulative principle. Let her probe the hearts committed to her, deeply for this. Let her strengthen this sentiment by every possible safeguard. Let her urge her members earnestly to higher attainments in this, and her difficulties in the regulation of the amusement question, and of every similar question will, in a great degree, disappear. Her courts will be