For what pleasure hath it, to see in a mangled carcase what will
make you shudder? and yet if it be lying near, they flock thither,
to be made sad, and to turn pale. Even in sleep they are afraid to see
it. As if when awake, any one forced them to see it, or any report
of its beauty drew them thither! Thus also in the other senses,
which it were long to go through. From this disease of curiosity are
all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence men go on
to search out the hidden powers of nature (which is besides our
end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to
know. Hence also, if with that same end of perverted knowledge magical
arts be enquired by. Hence also in religion itself, is God tempted,
when signs and wonders are demanded of Him, not desired for any good
end, but merely to make trial of.
In this so vast wilderness, full of snares and dangers, behold
many of them I have cut off, and thrust out of my heart, as Thou
hast given me, O God of my salvation. And yet when dare I say, since
so many things of this kind buzz on all sides about our daily life-
when dare I say that nothing of this sort engages my attention, or
causes in me an idle interest? True, the theatres do not now carry
me away, nor care I to know the courses of the stars, nor did my
soul ever consult ghosts departed; all sacrilegious mysteries I
detest.
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