Before giving our reasons in detail, we answer a most deliberate No. We are strongly of opinion that all who have the bringing up of children should steadily set their faces against all that is really dangerous.

At the same time, we, of course, sympathise with the anxiety of parents on the subject, and understand how easy it is for them to be carried away with the plausible and specious arguments which are often urged on the other side. But it need hardly be said that we do not sympathise with those professing Christian parents, who, under cover of such an excuse, secretly, and sometimes openly, encourage their children in purely worldly and dangerous recreation and scenes of amusement, in the hope of their "marrying well," or forming "useful" connections by so doing.

We shall now give our reasons for the advice which we have offered.

And in the first place, we will deal with the question from the idea of expediency, as some put it. They agree that what is proposed may not be exactly a right thing to encourage, and that they would rather not do so; but (they argue) that it seems" expedient to allow it, as greater dangers may thereby be avoided. So thinking, they altogether mistake St. Paul's teaching about expedient things, when he writes, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient' (1 Cor. x. 23). Seeing that he makes a distinction between things "lawful" and things "expedient," and says plainly that some things which "åre lawful" are not expedient," they assume that the converse of this is true, and they draw the most unwarranted conclusion that some things may be "expedient" which could not exactly be called "lawful."

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St. Paul had no such thought as this. With him, the question as to whether anything was expedient or not was, so to speak, a lesser one inside the greater one, which must be settled first, as to whether it was 'lawful." It was a sort of second sifting of things, all of which might be rightly considered lawful.

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Things in themselves lawful might be considered expedient or not according to varying circumstances; but things not clearly lawful in themselves could never be expedient at all. St. Paul's use of the expression "expedient," was rather to draw in the limit. of what it is advisable for a Christian to do or to allow even among lawful things. But some misuse the expression to extend that limit, and to include things to which they would hesitate considerably to apply the expression of "lawful" at all, in any real sense of the word.

We should clearly understand that no ideas of expediency can possibly make a wrong thing to be right, however strong may seem the reasons for permitting it. If we question the danger of a thing, that is another matter, and must be settled on other grounds; but we are speaking now of what we ourselves consider to be wrong. We must never believe that the end justifies the means used to attain it, if those means in any way partake of the nature of sin. When once we are fully persuaded in our own minds that a thing is wrong in itself, we must set our faces against it at all cost, and whatever the consequences may seem to be.

Having thus dealt with the question in a general way, merely stating a principle which would apply equally to everything else besides Recreations, we will take it up more directly, and try to meet difficulties which may present themselves to those who have to do with young people.

It is very common to hear it urged that to allow some of the doubtful forms of Recreation is likely to save them later on from more severe temptations. We wholly dissent from this. It is only another way of saying that milder forms of present temptation are likely to save our young people from severer ones in the future. Or, put it in another way, it means that the present certainty of a lighter form of temptation is better than to run the risk (which is not absolutely certain) of falling into greater ones afterwards.

To make it just for the moment a mere question of the possibilities either way, it is by no means fair to assume, as so many do, that those who are denied dangerous Recreations when young, will seek them with all the greater zeal when they can follow their own desires. As a matter of fact, in countless instances it has turned out otherwise. Many a family has been brought up by really Christian parents who have absolutely forbidden all that they believe to be wrong; and the children have grown up to thank God for such parents, as well as for the very restraints against which at one time they were inclined to rebel. Experience has placed it beyond a doubt that the danger supposed to be in such restraint is by no means a necessary one.

At the same time it would not be fair to deny that such results have followed. But it will be generally found that this has been the case, not with all the members of the particular family, but with one and another; and that often there are various other circumstances to account for it, which may easily be overlooked. When the son or daughter of Christian parents, who have tried to bring up their children in separation from all dangerous Recreations, turn out to be fond of them, worldly people declare that it is the result of such strictness. Such people say nothing of the countless multitude of their own sons and daughters whom they have trained for the world as a matter of course, and who have turned out "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. iii. 4). Nor do they confess with shame that they have themselves so effectively done Satan's work for him, by presenting to the children of Christian parents the very temptations under which they have fallen, and from which their parents in their earlier days sought to shield them. The world taunts and jeers at the growing up children of Christian parents for the restraints under which they are placed, tries to laugh them out of such

eas, sets before them as temptingly as possible the

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most dazzling temptations to worldly and dangerous pleasures, and when it has so far succeeded in its Satanic work as to lead some of them astray, it actually points the finger at the "religion" of the parents, and says that this is the cause of it. And many unthinking Christians are deluded by such bare-faced misrepresentation, and fancy that there must be something in it after all.

We know, of course, that the children of godly parents often "turn out badly;" but when it is so, thoughtless people say that it is proverbial, and talk plenty of such nonsense about it. But it is well to put the cap on the right head in endeavouring to trace the reason. It may be (and often is) owing to inconsistencies and unreality, as regards other things than Recreations, exhibited by the parents, and detected by the children. Or it may be from terribly strong temptations being presented to them by worldly friends to act against their parents' teaching, in which case it is simply wicked for the worldly friends, after counteracting as much as possible the influence of religious parents over their children, to attribute any failure to the parents' strictness. Or, of course, it may be the result of reaction from the strict line to which Christian parents have compelled obedience, as long as it was in their power to do so.

But even when this is the case, it is no argument, except to a very shallow mind, against proper religious restraints being placed around the young. In reality, it only goes to prove that grace is not hereditary, and that all the earnest efforts of godly parents to bring about the real conversion to God of the child have hitherto failed. Moreover, it is no proof that the conversion will never occur; for there still remains the possibility that the child who has "turned out so badly," may even yet live to bring forth fruit from the seed sown in early years, and, after all, to thank God for the teaching of their parents.

Moreover, parents who allow confessedly doubtful

amusements on the grounds which we are considering, not only make the fatal mistake of immediately plunging their children into present temptations, hoping thereby to avoid future ones of a still more dangerous sort; but they actually do their best to bring about the very end which they wish so much to avoid. All dangerous Recreations allowed, especially when in response to the urgent solicitations of unconverted children, must inevitably foster a taste for them. Habit becomes a second nature, and the craving for worldly pleasures becomes intensified by continued indulgence. And this is far more likely to lead them to seek such things anywhere and everywhere, later on, than would be the firm restraint which we advise. Parents who encourage dangerous taste in their children cannot control those tastes when the children become their own masters. And they must not complain if their children “ see no harm" in developing to the full the tastes which they have been permitted to encourage.

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It is true that many children who have been practically unrestrained as to Recreation have not, in after life, become altogether absorbed in worldly pleasures. But this must not be put down, as it so thoughtlessly is, to the mere fact that they were so unrestrained. It is, through the mercy of God, in spite of it, rather than because of it. There must be taken into consideration all the restraining influences of such religious teaching as they may have had, and the counter influence of Christian friends. There is, too, the pressure of care or business which often diverts the mind from tendencies towards gaiety, to say nothing of a certain natural penetration of mind, which (altogether apart from grace) leads some to see more easily than others do the emptiness and folly of all worldly pleasures. Again, there is that natural strength of character which often leads unconverted people to despise and withdraw from them. All these must be taken into account before we can safely say