Little boys play with their wagons, tops, marbles, etc.; little girls with their dolls, cradles, and skipping ropes. They are in the height of their enjoyment, while there sits the mother whose mind comprehends all the children can {369} enjoy, and then she can see enjoyment far beyond what they are then capable of enjoying. Perhaps her vision is open to see forward into the eternity before her, and that she will be able to preserve her identity in her future existence. Do you not see how easy it is for her to circumscribe all those little children can enjoy? Her feeling is, "I am delighted: it is a great satisfaction to see my children enjoy themselves." But how would she like to engage in their plays? "It is my joy to see them enjoy themselves." Do you like to get together in your parties? How are you looked upon by beings in the eternal worlds? Precisely as a mother looks upon her children when they are enjoying themselves and passing their time so kindly with each other. Says the mother, "I do delight in seeing my children enjoy themselves." I also delight in enjoying myself with the brethren and sisters, and giving to my natural organization the food that the natural body requires. The body requires food, and the immortal spirit requires food; the whole organization requires something to feast upon, and we get up amusements to satisfy it. 8:358-9. I repeat that it is not your lawful privilege to yield to anything in the shape of amusement, until you have performed every duty, and obtained the power of God to enable you to withstand and resist all foul spirits that might attack you, and lead you astray; until you have command over them, and by your faith, obtained, through prayer and supplication, the blessings of the Holy Spirit, and it rests upon, and abides continually with you. 1:113. In all your social communications, or whatever your associations are, let all the dark, discontented, murmuring, unhappy, miserable feelings--all the evil fruit of the mind, {370} fall from the tree in silence and unnoticed; and so let it perish, without taking it up to present to your neighbors. But when you have joy and happiness, light and intelligence, truth and virtue, offer that fruit abundantly to your neighbors, and it will do them good, and so strengthen the hands of your fellow-beings, even though you may be looked upon as an outcast, vile people, not worthy of the society of what are commonly deemed the intelligent portion of the world. 7:269. I have frequently told the people at our places of recreation, if they cannot go there with the Spirit of the Lord, they had better stay at home. 11:283. On every such occasion, it is right, reasonable, and necessary, that every heart be directed to the Lord. When we have had sufficient recreation for our good, let that suffice. It is all right; then let our minds labor instead of our bodies; and in all our exercises of body and mind, it is good to remember the Lord. 1:30.