tell how much physical weakness, how much moral evil we have
batted, and bowled, and shinnied away from our door; but I do know that
we have batted and bowled away indolence, and listlessness, and doing
nothing, which I believe is the Devil's greatest engine; and I also know
that the enthusiasm of the boys in these games never dies out, their
enjoyment never flags, for these games supply the want of the boys'
natures, and keep their thoughts from straying to forbidden ground.

Now these games are the very thing which that portion of mankind called
the sporting world, have always loved and cherished. They have infused
the love of these games into the very bones of Englishmen, and who knows
how much good England owes to them! Let us then overlook for a while the
religious world, the commercial world, the literary world, for they do
not contain what we seek now, and let us look at this poor sister world,
a world which seldom finds itself in such good company.

Each of these worlds has its work; the one we now have to do with, the
sporting world, is a world probably as much decried, and with as much
reason, as any. But see how pertinaciously this world will persist in
coming up to the surface wherever a community of men may be. See how
rigorously the Puritans tried to put down, or rather _squeeze_ this
heinous tendency out of Human Nature! But they did not succeed, though
goodness knows, they tried hard enough. Yet it has come up again, and
lo! it is now as vigorous as ever. Friends! I am finding fault with the
Puritans in the very midst of their descendants. But what greater
compliment could I pay these old Puritans than this? for their greatest
glory is, that they left to their descendants the precious legacy of
free thought! and so deeply imbedded is this in the very bones of the
race, that they will gladly hear a stranger criticize and even condemn,
a portion of the Puritan mind: knowing full well, that the fabric which
they builded on the shores of this Continent is sufficient to bear
witness to the real manhood that was in them. But what was the reason of
their failure? Simply they were trying to drive out Nature with a
pitchfork, and she of course will perpetually keep coming back. So we
say of this world, the sporting world, so liable to abuse, and so
unsparingly abused, what is true of all the worlds, and that is, that it
would be well for mankind, if they were to bestow a little thought upon
the demands of this, a