The same remarks might be extended, and with even more justice, to licentious paintings and engravings, which circulate in various ways. And I am sorry to include in this charge not a few which are publicly exhibited for sale, in the windows of our shops. You may sometimes find obscene pictures under cover of a watch-case or snuff box. In short, there would often seem to be a general combination of human and infernal efforts to render the juvenile thoughts and affections impure; and not a few parents themselves enter into the horrible league. On this subject Dr. Dwight remarks; 'The numbers of the poet, the delightful melody of song, the fascination of the chisel, and the spell of the pencil, have been all volunteered in the service of Satan for the moral destruction of unhappy man. To finish this work of malignity the stage has lent all its splendid apparatus of mischief; the shop has been converted into a show-box of temptations; and its owner into a pander of iniquity.' And in another place; 'Genius, in every age, and in every country, has, to a great extent, prostituted its elevated powers for the deplorable purpose of seducing thoughtless minds to _this sin_.' Are these remarks too sweeping? In my own opinion, not at all. Let him, who doubts, take a careful survey of the whole of this dangerous ground. 3. OBSCENE AND IMPROPER SONGS. The prostitution of the melody of song, mentioned by Dr. Dwight, reminds me of another serious evil. Many persons, and even not a few intelligent parents, seem to think that a loose or immoral song cannot much injure their children, especially if they express their disapprobation of it afterwards. As if the language of the tongue could give the lie to the language of the heart, already written, and often deeply, in the eye and countenance. For it is notorious that a considerable proportion of parents tolerate songs containing very improper sentiments, and hear them with obvious interest, how much soever they may wish their children to have a better and purer taste. The common 'love songs' are little better than those already mentioned. It is painful to think what errors on this subject are sometimes tolerated even by decent society. I knew a schoolmaster who did not hesitate to join occasional parties, (embracing, among others, professedly Christian parents,) for the purpose of spending his long winter evenings, in hearing songs from a very immoral individual, not a few of which were adapted to the most corrupt taste, and unfit to be heard in good society. Yet the community in which he taught was deemed a religious community; and the teacher himself prayed in his school, morning and evening! Others I have known to conduct even worse, though perhaps not quite so openly.