It follows, therefore, that if the young members of the Church, and the young people just outside the line of religious profession, are to unite in social gatherings and recreations, duty demands that we stand firm, while courtesy and reason, to say nothing of still higher motives, require that others yield. No labored argument is needed to show this. The lover of frivolous pleasures can not plead that religious convictions impel him to his follies. When youthful Christians fear and resist, saying, "Conscience forbids," he can not reply, "_My_ conscience commands." When the Christian remonstrates, saying, "To do this might imperil my soul," the other can not answer, "_Not_ to do it would imperil mine." The worldly can only plead that they see no evil where others see it, and that they are ready to venture where others fear to go. Thus they virtually confess that they are dull in vision and hard in heart. And so we can not come down to the level to which they would invite us. If they desire us to meet on common ground, we must be permitted to select the place. If we yield to them, we sacrifice our principles and our peace. If they yield to us, they lose, at the utmost, only a little temporary pleasure. Let the worldly and the gay, therefore, say no more about our Puritanic notions. They see, and ought to confess, that almost of necessity they tend to place the standard of morals too low, and that when the Church and the world differ in regard to what is allowable and right, there are a thousand chances to one that the Church is right and the world is wrong. If the religion of Christ laid no restrictions on us which the trifling mind and the unrenewed heart felt to be unwelcome, or even burdensome, we might well suspect that it was the invention of men. [Illustration: decorative] [Illustration: decorative] CHAPTER II. TRUE RECREATION. "_And let them measure the pattern._" Ezekiel xliii, 10. What amusements, then, are rational and allowable? and to what extent may we indulge in them? We desire, before we discuss specific modes of recreation, to lay down certain general principles, and indicate what we believe to be the true method of reasoning on the subject, so that the reader, keeping these in mind, will see why we approve or condemn hereafter, even when, for the sake of brevity, the conclusion is given in few words.