The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain and Other Tales Part 7

_Stock._ I am glad to hear it. So far you do well. But there are other things as bad as wicked words, nay worse perhaps, though they do not so much shock the ear of decency.

_Will._ What is that, master? What can be so bad as wicked words?

_Stock._ Wicked _thoughts_, Will. Which thoughts, when they are covered with smooth words, and dressed out in pleasing rhymes, so as not to shock modest young people by the sound, do more harm to their principles, than those songs of which the words are so gross and disgusting, that no person of common decency can for a moment listen to them.

_Will._ Well, master, I am sure that was a very pretty song I was singing when you came in, and a song which very sober, good people sing.

_Stock._ Do they? Then I will be bold to say that singing such songs is no part of their goodness. I heard indeed but two lines of it, but they were so heathenish that I desire to hear no more.

_Will._ Now you are really too hard. What harm could there be in it?

There was not one indecent word.

_Stock._ I own, indeed, that indecent words are particularly offensive. But, as I said before, though immodest expressions offend the ear more, they do not corrupt the heart, perhaps, much more than songs of which the words are decent, and the principle vicious. In the latter case, because there is nothing that shocks his ear, a man listens till the sentiment has so corrupted his heart, that his ears grow hardened too; by long custom he loses all sense of the danger of profane diversions; and I must say I have often heard young women of character sing songs in company, which I should be ashamed to read by myself. But come, as we work, let us talk over this business a little; and first let us stick to this sober song of yours, that you boast so much about. (_repeats_)

"Since life is no more than a pa.s.sage at best, Let us strew the way over with flowers."

Now what do you learn by this?

_Will._ Why, master, I don't pretend to learn much by it. But 'tis a pretty tune and pretty words.

_Stock._ But what do these pretty words mean?

_Will._ That we must make ourselves merry because life is short.

_Stock._ Will! Of what religion are you?

_Will._ You are always asking one such odd questions, master; why a Christian, to be sure.

_Stock._ If I often ask you or others this question, it is only because I like to know what grounds I am to go upon when I am talking with you or them. I conceive that there are in this country two sorts of people, Christians and no Christians. Now, if people profess to be of this first description, I expect one kind of notions, opinions, and behavior from them; if they say they are of the latter, then I look for another set of notions and actions from them. I compel no man to think with me. I take every man at his word. I only expect him to think and believe according to the character he takes upon himself, and to act on the principles of that character which he professes to maintain.

_Will._ That's fair enough--I can't say but it is--to take a man at his own word, and on his own grounds.

_Stock._ Well then. Of whom does the Scripture speak when it says, _Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die_?

_Will._ Why of heathens, to be sure, not of Christians.

_Stock._ And of whom when it says, _Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they are withered_?

_Will._ O, that is Solomon's worldly fool.

_Stock._ You disapprove of both, then.

_Will._ To be sure I do. I should not be a Christian if I did not.

_Stock._ And yet, though a Christian, you are admiring the very same thought in the song you were singing. How do you reconcile this?

_Will._ O, there is no comparison between them. These several texts are designed to describe loose, wicked heathens. Now I learn texts as part of my religion. But religion, you know, has nothing to do with a song. I sing a song for my pleasure.

_Stock._ In our last night's talk, Will, I endeavored to prove to you that religion was to be brought into our _business_. I wish now to let you see that it is to be brought into our _pleasure_ also.

And that he who is really a Christian, must be a Christian in his very diversions.

_Will._ Now you are too strict again, master; as you last night declared, that in our business you would not have us always praying, so I hope that in our pleasure you would not have us always psalm-singing. I hope you would not have all one's singing to be about good things.

_Stock._ Not so, Will; but I would not have any part either of our business or our pleasure to be about evil things. It is one thing to be singing _about_ religion, it is another thing to be singing _against_ it. Saint Peter, I fancy, would not much have approved your favorite song. He, at least seemed to have another view of the matter, when he said, _The end of all things is at hand_. Now this text teaches much the same awful truth with the first line of your song. But let us see to what different purposes the apostle and the poet turn the very same thought. Your song says, because life is so short, let us make it merry. Let us divert ourselves so much on the road, that we may forget the end. Now what says the apostle, _Because the end of all things is at hand be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer_.

_Will._ Why, master, I like to be sober too, and have left off drinking. But still I never thought that we were obliged to carry texts out of the Bible to try the soundness of a song; and to enable us to judge if we might be both merry and wise in singing it.

_Stock._ Providence has not so stinted our enjoyments, Will, but he has left us many subjects of harmless merriment; but, for my own part, I am never certain that any one is quite harmless till I have tried it by this rule that you seem to think so strict. There is another favorite catch which I heard you and some of the workmen humming yesterday.

_Will._ I will prove to you that there is not a word of harm in _that_; pray listen now. (_sings._)

"Which is the best day to drink--Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat.u.r.day?"

_Stock._ Now, Will, do you really find you unwillingness to drink is so great that you stand in need of all these incentives to provoke you to it? Do you not find temptation strong enough without exciting your inclinations, and whetting your appet.i.tes in this manner? Can any thing be more unchristian than to persuade youth by pleasant words, set to the most alluring music, that the pleasures of drinking are so great, that every day in the week, naming them all successively, by way of fixing and enlarging the idea, is equally fit, equally proper, and equally delightful, for what?--for the low and sensual purpose of getting drunk. Tell me, Will, are you so _very_ averse to pleasure? Are you naturally so cold and dead to all pa.s.sion and temptation, that you really find it necessary to inflame your imagination, and disorder your senses, in order to excite a quicker relish for the pleasure of sin?

_Will._ All this is true enough, indeed; but I never saw it in this light before.

_Stock._ As I pa.s.sed by the Grayhound last night, in my way to my evening's walk in the fields, I caught this one verse of a song which the club were singing:

"Bring the flask, the music bring, Joy shall quickly find us; Drink, and dance, and laugh, and sing, And cast dull care behind us."

When I got into the fields, I could not forbear comparing this song with the second lesson last Sunday evening at church; these were the words: _Take heed lest at any time your heart be overcharged with drunkenness, and so that day come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come upon all them that are on the face of the earth._

_Will._ Why, to be sure, if the second lesson was right, the song must be wrong.

_Stock._ I ran over in my mind also a comparison between such songs as that which begins with

"Drink, and drive care away,"

with those injunctions of holy writ, _Watch and pray, therefore, that you enter not into temptation_; and again, _Watch and pray that you may escape all these things_. I say I compared this with the song I allude to,

"Drink and drive care away, Drink and be merry; You'll ne'er go the faster To the Stygian ferry."

I compared this with that awful admonition of Scripture how to pa.s.s the time. _Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the l.u.s.ts thereof._

_Will._ I am afraid then, master, you would not much approve of what I used to think a very pretty song, which begins with,

"A plague on those musty old lubbers Who teach us to fast and to think."

_Stock._ Will, what would you think of any one who should sit down and write a book or a song to abuse the clergy?

_Will._ Why I should think he was a very wicked fellow, and I hope no one would look into such a book, or sing such a song.

_Stock._ And yet it must certainly be the clergy who are scoffed at in that verse, it being their professed business to teach us to think and be serious.

_Will._ Ay, master, and now you have opened my eyes, I think I can make some of those comparisons myself between the spirit of the Bible, and the spirit of these songs.

"Bring the flask, the goblet bring,"