Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/94

80 of festivity, or wholesome human joy, therein stated,—fine dress, rich food, and music;—("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"—"bring forth the fatted calf, and kill it;" "as he drew nigh, he heard music and dancing"); and I will show you how all these three things, fine dress, rich food, and music (including ultimately all the other arts) are meant to be sources of life, and means of moral discipline, to all men; and how they have all three been made, by the Devil, the means of guilt, dissoluteness, and death. But first I must return to my original plan of these letters, and endeavour to set down for you some of the laws which, in a true Working Men's Parliament, must be ordained in defence of Honesty.

Of which laws (preliminary to all others, and necessary above all others), having now somewhat got my ravelled threads together again, I will begin talk in my next letter.