_Mr. Talbot._--"And, Sir, has no unsuspecting family had occasion to rue the day when they received into their friendship the ministers of religion? Have _they_ never broken down the fence that guards the sanctity of domestic virtue? Have _they_ never been publicly convicted of crime?" _Mr. Falkland._--"Yes, Sir; but when you compare the relative numbers of the two professions, you will be compelled to admit that there are but very few of the clerical order who trample on the decencies and virtues of social life, and yet continue to discharge their ministerial functions. Only let a clergyman be suspected, and he is shunned; but let him be convicted, and he is disrobed, and held in abhorrence, not only by the public, but by his brethren. And though the light and trifling spirits of the age are fond of traducing the reputation of the ministers of religion, and often impute to them crimes of which they are not guilty, yet I fearlessly assert that, with rare exceptions, they are an ornament to society, and are not surpassed, if equalled, by any order of men, for sobriety, chastity, benevolence, and all the virtues which bless and adorn social life." _Mr. Proctor._--"I very much dislike the introduction of reflections on the clerical order into these discussions, because they are irrelevant to the question before us, and tend to perplex and embarrass it rather than to bring it to a fair issue. The question is simply this, '_Is the moral tendency of theatrical amusements favourable to the cultivation and growth of private and public virtue?_' It is admitted that the members of the theatrical profession are, with few exceptions, loose in principles and profligate in manners; and our friend has attempted to prove that their profession has a tendency to make them so. Now, I think if these amusements are favourable to the cultivation and growth of virtue, we have a right to expect that the persons who are employed to conduct them should exhibit in their own character the virtues which they profess to inculcate. But they do not. This is a fact. We never think of recommending our sons or our daughters to go to the actors and actresses of the stage, for models from which to mould their own character. If we knew that they were forming an intimacy with any of them, we should forbid it, under a full conviction that such intimacies would sink them in the esteem of the more respectable part of society, and expose them to the most powerful and seducing temptations. Thus far, I think, our friend has gained his point; but the question is not yet decided. The players may be profligate, and a close connection may be traceable between their professional labours and the corruption of their moral principles and habits; but notwithstanding this, _we_ may derive great advantage from their theatrical representations. 'Their business is to recommend virtue and discountenance vice--to show the uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of fate, and the