There was probably no point in his creed, upon which Comfort insisted with more stubborn zeal, than that which poised the lance against amusements. I have said that he was seldom seen to smile, and never to indulge in a laugh outright. Every thing that was not included in the stern duties laid down in his laws of morality, was deemed frivolous and worldly, and meet to be discountenanced by all straight-walking servants of the Lord. Of course, the ebullitions of wit or humor were too strongly tinctured with the same unsaintly character, to find favor in his eyes. The theatre was a sink of pollution, and its extirpation he deemed an object worthy the prayers of every good man; and as for the drama--if perchance it was alluded to--he was wont to term it the distilled product of the devil's brain. But of all, most resolutely had Comfort set his face against dancing. It is doubtful if he esteemed the worship of the crucifix itself, or any other heathenish form of prelatical reverence, a more decided sin than the practice of promiscuous dancing. Despite his reverence for his puritan ancestry, Comfort was apt to be in many things a little peculiar, and in nothing more so than in his manner of reasoning. All representations of witches and goblins, he said, were agreed in their frisking and dancing; and it was certainly a mild expression to say, that no good might arise from an exercise in which the imps of deviltry were, from their very nature, accustomed to indulge. But I will not attempt to follow the worthy old man through all the reasonings of the prolix discourse which he used so often to rehearse against the utter abomination of promiscuous dancing.