Note 547 — Chapter IV

According to Hutcheson's Exposition of Job, p. 6, ‘there is no time wherein men are more ready to miscarry, and discover any bitter root in them, then when they are about the liberal use of the creatures, and amidst occasions of mirth and cheerfulness.’ How this doctrine ripened, cannot be better illustrated than from the sentiments entertained, so late as the early part of the eighteenth century, by Colonel Blackader, a Scotch officer, who was also an educated man, who had seen much of the world, and might, to some degree, be called a man of the world. In December 1714, he went to a wedding, and, on his return home, he writes: ‘I was cheerful, and perhaps gave too great a swing to raillery, but I hope not light or vain in conversation. I desire always to have my speech seasoned with salt, and ministering profit to the hearers. Sitting up late, and merry enough, though I hope innocent; but I will not justify myself.’ The Life and Diary of Lieut.-Col. J. Blackader, by Andrew Crichton, p. 453. On another occasion (p. 511), in 1720, he was at an evening party. ‘The young people were merry. I laid a restraint upon myself for fear of going too far, and joined but little, only so as not to show moroseness or ill-breeding. We sat late, but the conversation was innocent, and no drinking but as we pleased. However, much time is spent; which I dare not justify. In all things we offend.’ At p. 159, he writes, ‘I should always be mixing something that may edify in my discourse;’ and, says his biographer (p. 437), ‘Conversation, when it ceased to accomplish this object, he regarded as degenerating into idle entertainment, which ought to be checked rather than encouraged.’