back in his
chair in silence, then answered soberly: "Well, I guess I'd just as
lieve you didn't!"

Depend upon it, the very people who press you hardest, professing to
see "no harm," will feel they have lost something if you make them
think the King's Country is just like their own. Whatever has happened
to _your_ moral sense, _they_ know that the theatre is no place for a
true-hearted servant of the Lord Jesus, if the Master is all he is
represented to be. If they met you there unawares, it would be with a
thrill not of pleasure but of pain.

Let me repeat my question, Is it as a Christian you go to the theatre?
can you go and keep your armour bright? does the helmet of salvation
rest securely on your head? Is the girdle of truth,--truth of life,
purpose, and heart,--fast bound? the breastplate of righteousness
burnished, the shield of faith ready against every dart that may fly in
that great building? Are they the shoes of peace on which you go in?
not pleasure, but _peace_? Is it the sword of the Spirit with which
you meet and parry the thrusts of idleness, folly, mischief? Ah you
know better! When you go to the theatre these defences are left at
home, as not fit for the occasion. The house is built and managed and
filled in the interests of the enemy; and of course your uniform is out
of place. Tired Church members, do you go there for _rest_?

[1] Job xiii. 27.

Games.

Dr. Skinner[1] used to say that all games of chance were unlawful. For
inasmuch as there is no chance in the economy of this world, all use of
dice or lottery in any shape is really an appeal to him of whom it is
said:

"The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of
the Lord." [2]

And you will agree with me that this is not a thing to be done lightly.

In old times the casting of a lot was a solemn religious service:
ushered in even among pagans with prayer and often with fasting; but
what careless, reckless ignoring of God as the Governor among the
nations, is there in all connected with the lot in our days. What foul
associations cloud and wrap up almost every game of chance: how soiled
are the cards, how unhallowed the rattle of the dice. What degrading,
debasing work is done by every species of lottery; what desperate evils
spring up and grow out of "a chance" at a Church fair! Some years ago,
at the time of the great German and French fairs in New York, a lady
thoughtlessly gave her yo