Admit they had an objection to the existence of the drama, which, however, is very far from being

Yet I know several of THE SERIOUS who will go to an assembly, and even to the OPERA HOUSE and have their children instructed in dancing and music, and yet remain determinedly hostile to the existence of a theatre. But, indeed, Methodism, in every shape, is so contradictory, that there is no mode of confining it. We have even music masters and dancing masters METHODISTS! Organists of churches METHODISTS! How they can reconcile these seeming opposites is a secret beyond my comprehension.

But that these PIE BALD sectaries may not imagine the stage the only thing that has come within the scope of ecclesiastical resentment, I will furnish them with an extract from "An essay on the history of dancing," published in the year 1712. The author gives it as a quotation from the history of "The Waldensis and Albigenses, part 3.book 2.-c. ix. p. 63. "A dance is the devil's procession, and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his possession. The devil is the guide, the middle and end of the dance. As many paces as a man maketh in dancing, so many paces doth he make to Hell. A man sinneth in dancing divers ways; as in his pace, his touch, &c. &c." “For the devil hath not only one sword in the dance, but as many as there are beautiful and well-adorned persons in the dance. For the words of a woman are a glittering sword. And therefore that place is much to be feared wherein the enemy hath so many swords, since that one only sword of his may be feared. Again, the devil in this place strikes with a sharpened sword; for the women come not willingly to the dance, if they be not painted and adorned; the which painting and ornament is as a grind.

the real fact; yet, allow it, still this was not the only profession they attacked. Physic and oratory have occasionally participated in their censure, and become the objects of their antipathy. Pliny informs us, that the science of physic was so repugnant to the general sense of mankind, that there was scarcely a kingdom of any consequence in the world, but rejected it with the greatest aversion.

Hippocrates, one of those exalted genius's formed to conquer difficulties, and dissipate prejudices, was fortunate enough, after many struggles, to make the establishment of this noble science palatable. He reduced it from his own experience to rules, he composed tables, and they were suspended in the Ephesian temple of Diana.

Its

stone, upon which the devil sharpeneth his sword. They that deck and adorn their daughters, are like those who put dry wood to the fire, to the end it may burn the better.” "Dancing is the pomp of the devil, and he that danceth maintaineth his pomp, and singeth his mass. For the woman that singeth in the dance, is the prioress of the devil, and those that answer are clerks, and the beholders are the parishioners, and the music are the bells, and the fidlers the ministers of the devil."

History of Dancing, page 47.

There are as many ancient authorities, and opinions of Fathers, against the use of dancing and singing, (hymns excepted) as there are against representing or witnessing the performance of a play.

success terminated a very short period after his decease. Notwithstanding his having left a number of disciples, and the probable benefit derived from their practice, all could not deter the Athenian Senate from forbidding the study of physic, and banishing the professors out of Greece.

About two centuries after this event, Chrysippus was an eminent physician with the Argians, by publishing opinions in opposition to the rules of Hippocrates, he gave rise to a violent wordy war, which like many modern literary battles, terminated in animosity, perpetual contention, and invincible hatred. The Grecian legislature interfered and suppressed the profession, with the declaration, "that honour and life ought never to become "matter of dispute." One hundred years elapsed when the art of healing was graced with another ornament in the person of Aristrato, a nephew to Aristotle, As far as royal favour could extend, he seems to stand preeminently distinguished, having received as a fee from Antiochus the first, a Prince's daughter, a thousand talents in silver, and a cup of gold! Still, the prejudice against the science was unextinguished, the skill of Aristrato did not support it beyond the lives of the few disciples he left; again, it was to feel a temporary depression, and the Senate once more forbade the reading and practice of physic. The next was Erperices, who gave the Sicilians a transient glimpse of the art,

and some short period after him, we hear of Herophilus being an eminent physician in Rhodes. A few years after his decease, this exalted science, as if disgusted with the ingratitude and obstinacy of man, withdrew its cheering influence for the long extended space of full eight hundred years!!! During this incredibly lengthened period, the practice of a physician was interdicted through the whole of Europe and Asia!!!

Asclepiades, under Providence, revived the art in the Island of Lesbos. Not to trace it through all its heavy depressions, and transient elevations, I will only give a few instances more, and dismiss the subject.-Antonius Musa, a Grecian physician, practising in Rome, in the days of the second Cæsar, will furnish us with at once a striking proof of the state of medicine at that period, and the ignorance and cruelty of this great nation, so often called upon to instruct us poor barbarians! Antonius had the good fortune of receiving the honour of a statue, for performing a cure upon Augustus, and he had the noble return of being stoned to death, for exercising, one of the most essential and useful branches of surgery-amputation!!! Not content with this enlightened punishment, for having performed a laudable act, they came to a resolution (in the Senate) never to admit physicians again in Rome, which determination was kept inviolable, until the return of Nero, from Greece, "when," says

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Pliny, "he brought physicians and vices enough with him." Titus banished both orators and physicians, and gave (as an excuse for his conduct) the whimsical reason, that the one were destroyers of good customs, and the others enemies of health! Adding, "I banish physicians to prevent vice, for it " is well known where they reside, for the most part "part the people are very wicked." Cato Uticensis, in one of his letters from Greece to his son Marcellus, says, Physic is like to prove most dangerous to 66 our common-wealth; for the people here have "long since resolved to murder those by potion 66 they cannot conquer by arms. I every day "observe these doctors quarrelling among them"selves, not how they shall cure, but how they "shall kill their patients; but I enjoin you, son "Marcellus, immediately to advice the senate of "the arrival of the physcians lately sent from "hence, that they may not be suffered to read or 66 practice their pernicious mysteries among you. Is there a being in existence absurd enough tỏ apply any of these semi-barbarian opinions to the present state of oratory and physic ?-Or are these the judges who are to direct, with an imperious fiat, our improved, and far more refined intellectual taste ?-Away with them to the sacred shades of silence and retirement *!-Like the books

* Let it not be understood, that I apply this to the WORKS of the GREAT MASTERS.-No-these in spite of N