back upon that field, you must not enter it to trample down the tares and the wheat together. It is much easier to isolate yourself, and to have nothing to do with a great many mixtures of good and evil like balls, like theatres, like-like-men and women. It saves trouble, it saves crosses, but it wins no crown.

136. Look here. Some people find fault with me, because they say, 'Oh! you know So-and-So; but don't you know he is a bad man, and you ought to have nothing to say to him?' or they say, 'Did we not see your name associated with that sinner's name, with that publican's plan? The object is good, no doubt; but then you know the characters of those people are not sound-they are no better than they should be.' But I say, brethren, suppose you begin to pick and choose in this way, will you have any effect or influence on society whatever, except a repellent influence? Supposing I ascend the platform with a man with whose religious or political opinions I don't agree at all, but we are bound together by some common object for good, then there we have a common ground. A bad man comes to me, and says: 'I have just been going over my estate, and I find that my poor people have been living in pigsties and hovels, and I have determined to alter that. I won't let it go on any longer. I don't profess to be a religious man. I don't profess to be better than I am; but I won't have the people living in this manner. will build them decent houses. Now, will you help me? You are a clergyman. You ought to know about that

I

sort of thing. Will you tell me what kind of cottages I ought to build?' And suppose I were to turn my back on him, and say, 'Be off, you rascal, I won't have such a villain in my house. I know how you came out of that commercial transaction. I know what you have done, and what you are doing in your private life. I know all about your private character. You are an ungodly man. You never go to church. I believe you are a liar and a swindler; don't come near me.' No! I would not say that; but I would say, 'I will give you the result of my experience such as it is, I will help you in your good work.' I would not make an allusion to that man's bad life, but I would take him up by what was good in him, and I would draw him by that. Do I want to put my heel upon a man who is already down under the devil's hoof? Shall I take him by the throat and say, 'Down, down; you shall not rise, though you try to struggle upwards?' Brethren, there was One amongst us who went down amongst the publicans and harlots, there was One who sat at the tables of notorious swindlers-men who farmed the customs in a dishonest manner. Yet He ate with them, and sat down with unwashen hands and feet, and there were those who wondered that He kept such dissolute and abandoned company, and called him a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. But He was the Saviour of the world, and the Bright and Morning Star!

137. My dear friends, if you have any wish to regenerate society you won't do it by absenting yourselves from every gathering of human beings, where there may be

something wrong going on, some alloy of vice. Why, do you suppose that in this church there have been no bad thoughts? Do you suppose there are no bad men and women here, whom Christ loves, whom Christ would have sat at meat with, who are hypocrites, who have sinned before they came to church, who have not been guiltless even within the walls of God's house, and who intend to go forth and sin more boldly and deliberately than they have ever sinned before? Do you think this is not the case? Then you know little enough of human nature. Do you suppose that I don't know that all the people here before me are not blameless and spotless? Yet when I come in and see you all sitting there filling your pews, and willing to be lectured in moral things by me, do you suppose it would be right for me to turn my back on you? would it be right for me, when I see this or that person come to sneer, to criticise, to sleep, or to stare, to say, 'I won't have anything to do with such an assembly'? That is not the way to win men, or to regenerate society.

So far I have stated somewhat fully my view of pleasure in reference to associations which are met together to enjoy themselves.

138. But you would have more details, you want to know about the race-courses, of which I know little, and my opinion may be worth little; but here it is. I believe there is a great deal of harm fundamentally in the racecourse; but that which gives horse-races their civilised locus standi may be a good thing. Races are primarily

intended through competition to improve the breed of
horses, and I don't think that is a wicked or a wrong
thing, and if people go and take pleasure in seeing the
result of these improvements, I don't think that is wrong;
but, at the same time, I do think that of all the institu-
tions in this country perhaps more wrong-doing is con-
nected with the race-course than is connected with any
other similar institution; and if you have no hope of being
able to do anything towards the purification of the system
of betting, cheating, dishonesty, lying, and debauchery
that
goes on during the races, I think that you had better
keep away; and if you cannot import a little better
element, if you don't see your way to sanctioning what
is good, but only add by your presence to the influence.
of deplorable excesses; then, if this be so-if, in other
words, an institution is so incurably corrupt as at
present constituted, that nothing can mend it—it may
be best to treat it at once from the ascetic point of view,
and say, 'It cannot be cured as long as it exists under
these conditions; it must be struck down and reconsti-
tuted before I go there.'

139. Then people come and ask about field sports, and there was a great controversy going on about field sports not long ago. It is not possible, in the few minutes that remain to me, to give any idea or outline of that controversy. I myself believe that some field sports are demoralising, and that others are not. That is my present opinion. I confess, after having read the correspondence that has taken place in the public prints on

this question, it did seem to me that some sports might be justified, whilst others should be abandoned by all humane and civilised persons. I think, for instance, that pigeon matches are not excusable on any manly or sportsmanlike grounds. It seems to me that whenever you leave out the element of fair play, you leave out all that makes sport manly. Whilst in such things as foxhunting there is a fair field and no favour, in such things as pigeon matches or badger-baiting there is no fair field at all. You may say, 'I don't agree with you.' Very likely not. It is impossible for me to discuss such questions any further at the present time. But I will add this one remark. When I say I think pigeon matches are degrading, I don't think that necessarily all the people who indulge in this sport are bad men, or unkind men, or inhuman men. If I go back a few centuries I find some of the most Christian men, like Sir Thomas More, with sound hearts advocating bear-baiting and bull-baiting and a number of other sports most brutal and demoralising. Why did these men advocate them? They thought it was a harmless amusement. Why did they think that? Because they lived years back, when there was a lower tone of humanity. And when people indulge in badger-baiting and pigeon matches, I put them on a level with those who lived in bygone times. They are not up to the civilised mark of the nineteenth century, that is all; their heads are more to blame than their hearts, and in high circles this want of true culture is, I am sorry to say, very prevalent. Pigeon matches, prize fighting, and such things are indicative of low taste and untutored