that isn't afraid of the ball, is scarcely ever hurt. He defends
himself with eye and hand. The coward is the one most likely to get
hurt. I think that there is just enough risk in these games to engender
a manly contempt for pain, and a bold handling of a danger. If the
cricket ball were a soft affair, it would be a game for babies not boys.

Let us then take a hint from the sporting world, and turn to the use of
the many that which has formed the only redeeming feature of a few. The
good that these manly games do, should not be confined to a small class,
but should be diffused among the whole community, for the sporting world
has something to say to all of us. It rouses the scholar from his desk,
shakes him, and tells him that much study is a weariness to the flesh,
and that the fields are alive with song. Out then he must come, and
leave his musty books.

It comes to the business man in the crowded city, and babbles of green
fields, nudges Mr. Sparrowgrass with its elbow, and tells him to take
Mrs. S. and the children into the country.

It comes to Mr. Fezziwig at Christmas time, and tells him to let the
young men in his shop have a jolly time of it, put by their work, listen
to the fiddle, and join the dance.

Ay, and the dream of those half-forgotten days comes over Scrooge, the
miserly, miserable Scrooge, and wakes up something like a soul in him.

It comes to Colonel Newcome, and bids him go to Charter House School,
and take his boy out for a holiday.

This same spirit came to the ancient Greek in drama, dance and game, and
with him was set to music, and consecrated to the gods, to Apollo the
ever young, to Pallas the wise, to Bacchus the joy-giver.

It came to the stern old Roman with his Saturnalia, when for once in all
the year the slave and the plebeian might speak their minds without
fear.

It came to the dark-eyed Hebrew with his feasts of tabernacles, his
feast of the harvest and the vintage, and over his joyaunce a sacred
shadow rested, as of One who was over these things, who both made and
consecrated the joy.

Spirit of joy! Wide as the world! Offspring of heaven! That descendest
with airs redolent of thy native home, and comest to give to the
toil-worn brickmakers of the earth a little rest! Forgive us, foolish
dwellers in the clay, if ofttimes we take thy festal garlands, and drag
them in the mire! drunk with the wine of thy pleasures, we turn thy
gifts to ashes and to mourning. Come thou, n