"'You have said at your baptism, I renounce thee, O Satan; I renounce all thy works and all thy pomps. The pomps of the devil are the diversions of the theatre, and all other the like vanities; from which David begs of God to be delivered: 'Turn away mine eyes,' says he, 'that they behold not vanity.' Do not then suffer yourself to be led away by a fondness for the entertainments of the stage, to behold there the extravagancies of plays full of wantonness and impurity.'"[17] [17] The author is indebted to the late Rev. Mr. Simpson for these testimonies. The discussion between Mr. Talbot and Mr. Falkland was here broken off, but shortly afterwards resumed, as follows in the next chapter. THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. PART II. "These quotations which you have read from the ancient fathers," said Mr. Talbot, "merely express their private opinion on the expediency of not attending such scenes of amusement; but as they were not endowed with the spirit of infallibility, their opinions may be submitted to the ordeal of examination no less than your own." _Mr. Falkland._--"Nay, Sir; these quotations do more than express the private opinion of the historians from whose works they are taken; they record the fact that the primitive Christians did not attend public places of amusement, because they knew that their moral tendency was unfavourable to the cultivation and growth of virtue. They also prove that the stage undergoes no moral change--indecent and profane in the olden times, when amusing Greeks and Romans; indecent and profane still--_semper eadem_." _Mr. Talbot._--"But, Sir, do not the expostulations of these writers, and the arguments which they employ against an attendance at the theatres, lead us to the conclusion that some of the early Christians did attend them?" _Mr. Falkland._--"No doubt, Sir, that some of the early Christians did attend them; but their attendance was considered as the first step to the abandonment of their religious principles--as an act of inconsistency, which subjected them to the censures of their brethren--an approximation to the customs of the votaries of paganism, which, if persisted in, was visited by an exclusion from church-fellowship. This, I think, you must admit to be decisive of the opinion which the pure part of the primitive Christians held respecting the lawfulness and tendency of theatrical amusements." _Mr. Talbot._--"But, Sir, waiving the opinion of the ancient fathers, allow me to ask you one question: If the moral tendency of such amusements be unfavourable to private virtue, how is it that there are no express prohibitions against them in the writings of the apostles?" _Mr. Falkland._--"But, Sir, do you believe that the apostles approved of every practice which they did not _expressly_ condemn?"