The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-08-15

nature: it should be controlled and
used, not destroyed. 1t is the oil of
the machinery which otherwise would
CRATE and wear. To be thoroughly
trained and remain thoroughly natu-
raj, like child, is the rare greatness
of man. He who knows how to en-
JOY, will find so much pleasure in the
simplest and the commonest objects,
that he will never feel the need Of an
artificial stimulus.
Home is the proper center of all in
nocent delights; and the man is vast
ly to be pitied who has any pleasures
greater than those which meet him
in his own dwelling-that play
ground of the affections, What a
power has she who presides over the
abode, the minister of its beautiful
tastes, whose office it is to make us
good by means of our pleasures!
What profound wisdom, dressed in
poetic form, in the advice of old Rog-
er Ascham to Lady Jane Grey, con-
corning her husband -"Do thou talk
with him, ride with him, play with
him, be his fairy, his page, his every
thing that love and poetry have in
vented; but watch him we'll, sport
with his fancies, turn them about like
the ringlets on his cheeks, and if he
ever mediate on power or ambition,
go toss thy baby to his brow, and
bring back mis- thoughts into his
heart by the music of thy discourse"
The Puritans-it would be hard to
discuss such subject without lug
ging them in-have been accused of
being unnaturally severe and stern,
and implacably hostile to all that
was playful and beautiful. Those
who make this charge invariably over
look the one main fact of their his
tory. The struggle in which they
were engaged, being for the right of
personal liberty, they were compelled,
by the necessities of their case, to
suppress and cruelty many an limo
cent and educated taste, for the very
purpose Of showing their proud de-
fiance of despotism. When that lub-
berly fellow, King James, issued his
royal commands, requiring Christian
men to frequent Bear Gardens on the
Sabbath, and obey the "Book of
Sports" be not so shallow. as to i'm
pute it to hypocrisy, when such men
drew their faces into extraordina y
length and gravity, and with good
will and purpose gave nasal twang
to conventicle hymns; for their OBJ
ject was, by the boldest contrast, to
express their resolute antagonism to
tyranny.
You would have done the same,
even if you, like some of them, had
been bred in the best unvei sites, in
the finest culture. You would have
sacrificed your best tastes, as Jephtha
did his own daughter, had it been
necessary to defy the enemies of lib
erty. If despotic power prescribed
something else, you too would do
as did they-offensive as it was to
taste-call your own fair daughters
by the uncouth names of PATIENCE,
PERSEVERANCE, EFFEoTUAL CALLING,
and GREAT TRIBULATIoN-your pur-
pose, like theirs, being to show in the
face of courts and cavalier frivolity,
and royal enactments, that they gave
nosecondary place to religious liberty.
The struggle ended, it was needful
that nature should have its way, and
reassert its rights. The sun will shine
on the SHOWS of winter, and throw its
rays into the densest forests. Even
so the long suppressed tastes for the
playful and beautiful, which belong
to our nature, CLEAN every now-and
then through the rigid severity of
Puritan character.
A good part of those feats which
were ascribed to witchcraft in Massa-
chusetts can be accounted for with
out the necessity of imagining any
supernatural agency. It would be
nothing extraordinary if aged men
and women, of uncommon gravity,
should complain of the sensation of
pins sticking into their flesh, and I'M
accountable noises rumbling in the
chimneys, if boyish spirits were again
put under the pressure of forced
and unnatural seriousness. The foun-
tain of nature, repressed in one place,
will break out in another. Instead
of destroying by violence, or exciting
by toilsome stimulants, it is better to
guide our impulses into the channels
of more quiet and simple, yet real
enjoyment.
When we have recalled what God
has given us in excess of all necessity,
for the purpose of pleasing us, let us