There is a profound meaning in the word Amusement; much more than most people are disposed to admit.  In fact, amusement is an important part of education.  It is a mistake to suppose that the boy or the man who plays at some outdoor game is wasting his time.  Amusement of any kind is not wasting time, but economizing life.

Relax and exercise frequently, if you would enjoy good health.  If you do not relax, and take no exercise, the results will soon appear in bodily ailments, which always accompany sedentary occupations.  “The students,” says Lord Derby, “who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later find time for illness.”

There are people in the world who would, if they had the power, hang the heavens about with crape; throw a shroud over the beautiful and life-giving bosom of the planet; pick the bright stars from the sky; veil the sun with clouds; pluck the silver moon from her place in the firmament; shut up our gardens and fields, and all the flowers with which they are bedecked; and doom the world to an atmosphere of gloom and cheerlessness.  There is no reason nor morality in this, and there is still less religion.

A benevolent Creator has endowed man with an eminent capacity for enjoyment,—­has set him in a fair and lovely world, surrounded him with things good and beautiful,—­and given him the disposition to love, to sympathize, to help, to produce, to enjoy; and thus to become an honourable and a happy being, bringing God’s work to perfection, and enjoying the divine creation in the midst of which he lives.

Make a man happy, and his actions will be happy too; doom him to dismal thoughts and miserable circumstances, and you will make him gloomy, discontented, morose, and probably vicious.  Hence coarseness and crime are almost invariably found amongst those who have never been accustomed to be cheerful, whose hearts have been shut against the purifying influences of a happy communion with nature, or an enlightened and cheerful intercourse with man.

Man has a strong natural appetite for relaxation and amusement, and, like all other natural appetites, it has been implanted for a wise purpose.  It cannot be repressed, but will break out in one form or another.  Any well-directed attempt to promote an innocent amusement, is worth a dozen sermons against pernicious ones.  If we do not provide the opportunity for enjoying wholesome pleasures, men will certainly find out vicious ones for themselves.  Sydney Smith truly said, “In order to attack vice with effect, we must set up something better in its place.”

Temperance reformers have not sufficiently considered how much the drinking habits of the country are the consequences of gross tastes, and of the too limited opportunities which exist in this country for obtaining access to amusements of an innocent and improving tendency.  The workman’s tastes have been allowed to remain uncultivated; present wants engross his thoughts; the gratification of his appetites is his highest pleasure; and when he relaxes, it is to indulge immoderately in beer or whisky.  The Germans were at one time the drunkenest of nations; they are now amongst the soberest.  “As drunken as a German boor,” was a common proverb.  How have they been weaned from drink?  Principally by Education and Music.