rsion_. The
moment it is admitted that it can, by any possibility, be turned to base
uses, the lists are thrown open to all corners, and the utterly insoluble
question arises, _just what degree of capacity for perversion entitles an
amusement to approval or rejection?_ Insoluble, I say, because, not to
speak of any other difficulty, one is obliged to confront the fact that no
one amusement presents a similar temptation to abuse to all alike. That in
which the slightest indulgence might tend to lead one man to ruinous
excess, excites no interest in another. It might possibly be dangerous for
one man to play at backgammon, while to another it would prove no
amusement, but only a tedious method of killing time. On this ground, in
short, it is utterly impossible to adjust this matter satisfactorily or
consistently. The only consistent or safe rule in this view of the case,
is _rigorously to exclude all_, because all are partakers of the universal
taint of sin.

"The trail of the serpent is over them all."

It is innocent for boys to play marbles, but sinful to play dominoes.
Wherein, pray? They can learn to gamble with one as well as with the
other. It is sinful to play billiards, but highly graceful and innocent to
play croquet. But why? Really, when it comes to a comparison, the first is
infinitely the more beautiful and intellectual game. The ethical
distinctions are positively bewildering between balls of ivory and balls
of wood; between mallets and cues; between green baize and green grass. A
Christian household must not sit down and play at whist, but they are
engaged in a Christian and laudable manner if they spend an evening over
Dr. Busby, or Master Rodbury cards. Really, it is hard to draw the moral
line between cards bearing aces and spades, and cards with the likenesses
of Dr. Busby's son and servant, Doll the dairymaid, and the like. When it
comes to a question of profit, one is an amusement involving a good deal
of healthy, mental exertion, while the other is about as silly and
profitless a way of spending an evening as can well be imagined. Youth
must not dance, but they may march to music in company, and go through
calisthenic exercises, involving a good deal more motion than dancing. But
if people may march to music and be guiltless, it is very hard to see how
skipping to music converts the exercise into sin. It is said that the
_associations_ make the difference; but the advocate of this theory is