A Portraiture of Quakerism (Vol. 1-3). Thomas Clarkson
to Tertullian, Menucius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius, and others, believed, that the "motives for going to these amusements were not of the purest sort. People went to them without any view of the improvement of their minds. The motive was either to see or to be seen."
They considered the manner of the drama as objectionable. They believed "that he who was the author of truth, could never approve of that which was false, and that he, who condemned hypocrisy, could never approve of him, who personated the character of others; and that those therefore, who pretended to be in love, or to be angry, or to grieve, when none of those passions existed in their minds, were guilty of a kind of adultery in the eyes of the Supreme Being."
They considered their contents to be noxious. They "looked upon them as consistories of immorality. They affirmed that things were spoken there which it did not become christians to hear, and that things were shewn there, which it did not become christians to see; and that, while these things polluted those from whom they come, they polluted those in time, in whose sight and hearing they were shewn or spoken."
They believed also, "that these things not only polluted the spectators, but that the representations of certain characters upon the stage pointed out to them the various roads to vice, and inclined them to become the persons, whom they had seen represented, or to be actors in reality of what they had seen feigned upon the stage."
They believed again, "that dramatic exhibitions produced a frame of mind contrary to that, which should exist in a christian's breast; that there was nothing to be seen upon the stage, that could lead or encourage him to devotion; but, on the other hand, that the noise and fury of the play-house, and the representations there, produced a state of excitement, that disturbed the internal man. Whereas the spirit of a christian ought to be calm, and quiet, and composed, to fit it for the duties of religion."
They believed also, "that such promiscuous assemblages of men and women were not favourable to virtue; for that the sparks of the passions were there blown into a flame."
Tertullian, from whom some of the above opinions are taken, gives an invitation to those who were fond of public spectacles, in nearly the following terms.
Are you fond, says he, of the scenic doctrine, or of theatrical sights and compositions? We have plenty of books for you to read. We can give you works in prose and in verse. We can give you apothegms and hymns. We cannot to besure, give you fictitious plots or fables, but we can give you truths. We cannot give you strophies, or the winding dances of the chorus, but we can give you simplicities, or plain and straightforward paths. Are you fond of seeing contests or trials for victory? You shall see these also, and such as are not trivial, but important. You may see, in our christian example, chastity overcoming immodesty. You may see faithfulness giving a death-wound to perfidy. You may see mercy getting the better of cruelty. You may see modesty and delicacy of sentiment overcoming impurity and impudence. These are the contests in which it becomes us christians to be concerned, and where we ought to endeavour to receive the prize.
5 Rousseau condemns the stage upon the same principle. "It is, says he, the art of dissimulation—of assuming a foreign character, and of appearing differently from what a man really is—of flying into a passion without a cause, and of saying what he does not think, as naturally as if he really did—in a word of forgetting himself to personate others."
6 COWPER.
CHAP. V. … SECT. I.
Dancing forbidden—Greeks and Romans differed on this subject—motive on which the Greeks encouraged dancing—motive on which the moderns encouraged it—way in which the Quakers view it—the arguments which they use against it.
As the Quakers have thought it right to prohibit music, and stage-entertainments, to the society, so they have thought it proper to prohibit dancing, none of their children being allowed any instruction in the latter art.
It is remarkable that two of the most civilized nations, as well as two of the wisest men of antiquity, should have differed in their opinions with respect to dancing. The Greeks considered it as a wise and an honourable employment; and most of the nations therefore under that appellation inserted it into their system of education. The name of dancer was so honourable, as to be given to some of their gods. Statues are recorded to have been erected to good dancers. Socrates is said to have admired dancing so much, as to have learnt it in his old age. Dancing, on the other hand, was but little regarded at Rome. It was not admitted even within the pale of accomplishments. It was considered at best as a sorry and trivial employment. Cicero says,
"Nemo, fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, neque in solitudine, neque in convivio honesto." That is, "No man dances, in private, or at any respectable entertainment, except he be drunk or mad."
We collect at least from the above statement, that people of old, who were celebrated for their wisdom, came to very different conclusions with respect to the propriety of the encouragement of this art.
Those nations among the ancients, which encouraged dancing, did it upon the principle, that it led to an agility of body, and a quickness of motion, that would be useful in military evolutions and exploits. Hence swiftness of foot was considered to be an epithet, as honourable as any that could be given to a warrior.
The moderns, on the other hand, encourage dancing, or at least defend it upon different principles. They consider it as producing a handsome carriage of the body; as leading to a graceful and harmonious use of the limbs; and as begetting an erectness of position, not more favourable to the look of a person than to his health.
That dancing produces dispositions of this sort cannot be denied, though certainly not to the extent which many have imagined. Painters, who study nature the most, and are the best judges of the appearance of the human frame, are of opinion, that modern dancing does not produce natural figures or at least such as they would choose for their respective compositions. The military exercise has quite as great a share as dancing in the production of these dispositions. And there are certainly men, who were never taught either the military exercise or dancing, whose deportment is harmonious and graceful.
The Quakers think it unnecessary to teach their children dancing, as an accomplishment, because they can walk, and carry their persons with sufficient ease and propriety without it.
They think it unnecessary also, because, however the practice of it may be consistent with the sprightliness of youth, they could never sanction it in maturer age. They expect of the members of their society, that they should abandon amusements, and substitute useful and dignified pursuits, when they become men. But they cannot consider dancing but as an employment that is useless, and below the dignity of the christian-character in persons, who have come to years of discretion. To initiate therefore a youth of twelve or thirteen years of age into dancing, when he must relinquish it at twenty, would, in their opinion, be a culpable waste of his time.
The Quakers, again, cannot view dancing abstractedly, for no person teaches or practises it abstractedly; but they are obliged to view it, in connection with other things. If they view it with its usual accompaniment of music, it would be inconsistent, they think, to encourage it, when they have banished music from their republic. If they view it as connected with an assemblage of persons, they must, they conceive, equally condemn it. And here it is in fact, that they principally level their arguments against it. They prohibit all members of their society from being present at balls, and assemblies; and they think, if their youth are brought up in ignorance of the art of dancing, that this ignorance will operate as one preventative at least against attendances at amusements of this nature.
The Quakers are as strict in their inquiry with respect to the attendances of any of their members at balls, as at theatrical amusements. They consider balls and assemblies among the vain amusements of