The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-07 00:00:00

THE DEAN OF CARLISLE ON CHRIST-

MAS FESTIVITIES.

At a meeting of the Carlisle Total Abstinence
Society, on Tuesday, the 28th ult., the Very Rev.
Francis Close, D.D., Dean of Carlisle, thus re-
ferred to theiestivities and amusements of Christ-
mas and other holiday, occasions : To a Christian
mind there was no single thing more painful
than this fact—it had certainly dwelt upon his own
heart—that those seasons which are observed by
the great majority of our countrymen in comme-
moration of great gospel events, such as the birth of
Christ, and the descent of God's Holy Spirit, at
Whitsuntide—that these are the seasons of all
others when in a Christian country—aye, let them
acknowledge it with shame, in a Protestant coun-
try—that these are the seasons when the devil keeps
high holiday, and when it seems to be an excuse—
a thing taken for granted—that people should be
drunk. (Applause.) Ask them why they go about
reeling in drunkenness, and they tell you they are
keeping Christmas. (Laughter.) There was some-
thing to his mind perfectly painful in the news-
papers of that morning—something calculated to
strike the heart of the Christian, and send us all on
our knees to pray to God to avert the judgment
we deserved. The London newspapers devoted
whole columns and pages to descriptions
of the special temptations and wickednesses of
the theatres. And, in connection with this, he
found that on the next morning, as usual, the
police courts were thronged with persons charged
with offences arising from the same cause; but it
was observed, he was glad to say, that at some of
the police offices the numbers were not so great as
they generally were on these occasions. But what
struck him again was, that the worthy magistrates
sitting in the chair of justice let the offenders off
more easily than usual, " because they were keep-
ing Christmas!" To his mind, if he had been in
the magistrate's place, he would have fined them
double for being drunk on Christmas-day. (Ap-
plause.) But it showed the vulgar notion, which
had reached even the bench itself, that was held as
an excuse and a palliation for a man making a
beast of himself, that he did it on a day Which his
fellow-Christians kept in memory of the love of God
to His creatures. He (the Dean) would not do more
than allude to a frightful circumstance that had
taken place the day before. At one of the low
theatres on the south side of the Thames an alarm
of fire was raised, and in consequence no less than
15 persons were killed. This was at a Christmas-
keeping theatre. And it was remarkable that the
persons killed were all youths, not one of whom
was above 21 or 22 at the utmost, some of them
much younger. It was what they called " boxing
night," and at a place where the performance was so
popular, that they were obliged to have two
audiences a day—an afternoon and an evening
exhibition. Oh ! that they could see the time when
they would be obliged to have double services on
religious subjects ! This was indeed a painful and
humbling event. God forbid that he should say
that those poor, thoughtless boys, many, of them
the dregs of the population, had been visited by a
special judgment. No; they were not to say that
those on " whom the Tower of Siloam fell w ere
greater sinners" that those who escaped. God's ways
were not our ways ; but the lesson this accident
read to them all was, that if they knew better who
were restrained from drunkenness, debauchery, and
even from those doubtful places of public amuse-
ment called theatres, which were, in his humble
judgment, the receptacles of vice of every de-
scription—let them not think themselves better
than others, but rather remember that God, by
this very fact, had put them under the
solemn responsibility of doing all they could
to prevent people from doing these things—that if
it was not for the grace of God which enabled them
to restrain their passions, they should be just like
others. If they had these promises and hopes, let
them do all they could to restrain the wicked, to
prevent and lay hold upon and arrest the course of
sin and vice in this country. Therefore it was that
he was there that night. (Applause.)