of games or plays, may be cited as examples of amusement. It is impossible here to define the specific forms which amusement may take; what is diverting differs with different persons. Strength, temperament, degree of culture, habit and training, all enter into the determination of forms of amusement. What is entertaining to one person often is not entertaining to another person; what pleases and refreshes at one time does not please and refresh the same person at another time. The important definition here is the one which defines amusement in a general way as that diversion of the mind which produces refreshment and reinvigoration of the whole nature.

Amusement, then, cannot rightly be the regular occupation or main business of life; it must be subordinate to serious work. It is ministrant to the main end by reducing friction and checking exhaustion. The moment amusement becomes an occupation, that moment it ceases to be true amusement. The professional jester amuses others, but his vocation is not properly an amusement to himself; and the votary of pleasure who seeks only to be amused, by-and-by loses the capacity of being amused.

More than that, the attempt to make amusement a business of life is almost sure to have

very ill effects on character.

"All work and no

play makes Jack a dull boy;" but all play and no work makes Jack a foolish if not a vicious boy, unprofitable both to himself and to others.

We are so constituted that we have a capacity for amusement; to lose that capacity is a heavy misfortune. Our nature and our work in the world are such that we need amusement; and the need is proportioned to the gravity and intensity of our work.

Our capacity for amusement and our need of amusement, together with the possibility that amusement may be perverted from a means into an end, and also may be infected with vice or ruled by selfishness, or exaggerated into damaging excess, bring amusement within the field of morals, and make "The Ethics of Amusement at once a practical and important subject for consideration.

Experience and reflection alike attest the importance of this subject; it is a subject often ill-understood, and often treated superficially or unreasonably. The Church has erred in its treatment of this subject, even while actuated by the best motives.

Intelligence and good sense are the best coadjutors of true piety in dealing with the question of amusements. Harm is done on the one hand

by indiscriminate and unjust condemnation of certain forms of amusement, and equal harm, perhaps, is done on the other hand by laxity and indifference that result from a want of clearly defined principles and strong conviction.

To this vexed yet slowly clarifying question we may apply at the outset certain principles of exclusion:

1. That which does not healthily divert the mind and rest the body is not true amusement; 2. That which is essentially evil is not true amusement;

3. That indulgence which is excessive, and therefore in effect vicious, is not true amusement;

4. That which, in itself morally indifferent and to others harmless, is yet harmful to you, is for you not a true amusement. The harmfulness may lie in the fact that, because of peculiar susceptibility on your part, the amusement has the effect of lowering your moral tone, wounding your spiritual sensibility, and hindering the development of your best life.

Aside from these simple principles of exclusion, almost all specific rules on this subject are unsatisfactory and inadequate; the Procrustean method is false as well as cruel. Jesus Christ, the best teacher of essential ethics that the world

has ever seen, did not give rules for the government of life. The Pharisees did that; the Pharisees do it still. But Jesus gave principles, and these principles he imparted in a spirit of life rather than in specific precepts; the few precepts which he did give are only particular applications of the fundamental principles of the spirit of life.

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Life is the true guide of life. The spirit and point of view of Jesus serve us better than any system of rules, for these are radical and underlie all right conduct. The highest principle of life, the principle which Jesus gives us in his spirit and point of view, is the principle of love : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." I say nothing now about the preceding word: "Thou shalt love God with all thy heart," for in essence these two are one. Love of God and love of man are indivisible in fact, however widely we may have separated them in our theories; sometimes, alas, they are made theoretically oppugnant, almost mutually exclusive.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: " here is the spring of all sound and sufficient ethical principles. There is a true self-love that is not only perfectly accordant with a true love of our neighbor, but is also its norm.

Under this general principle of love, the ethical character of amusements is determined:

1. By the effect of amusements on self. Amusement, being not strictly an end but a means, in order to be ethically sound, that is right, ought to have the effect on ourselves of wholesome diversion and rest. It ought to refresh our minds and bodies, restore the disturbed balance of our powers, and leave us toned up for the best kind of life. It should minister, in this way, to the best that is in us; it should make easier our best work. Lest I seem to give too positive and high a function to amusement, let me say that, at least, it must not have an effect contrary to that which I have described; it must not, while relaxing the tension, let down the essential tone of our minds to a low level; it must not hurt or debase our finer sensibilities. It must not cheapen duty, nor wound our consciences, nor lessen our taste for the good and the true; it must not render us any less sensitive to spiritual influences, nor cloud the vision of the inner eye.

Of course any sort of diversion that harms us physically should be rigorously excluded. But many are prompt to recognize the truth of this statement, who do not as quickly and as profoundly appreciate the importance of guarding our higher nature from hurtful invasion.