Thus a person who refuses to rejoice and enjoy himself, making good use of things lawfully permitted, is not temperate, as Plato would have it, but superstitious. There is nothing better for a person than to eat and drink and let the soul enjoy the good of its labour, Ecclesiastes 2:24.

And as one writer said of hawking and hunting, God provided comforts for mortal weariness amid the misery of this afflicted world. I say the same of all innocent recreations: God has granted them to refresh, ease, solace and comfort us.

But some of us are too stern, too rigid, too exacting, too grossly superstitious. We make a matter of conscience of every trifle, with “do not touch, do not taste,” and so on, like the ancient Pythagoreans and some Indians today who will eat no flesh or allow any living creature to be killed—the Banians around Gujarat.

We tyrannize over our brother’s soul, lose the proper use of many good gifts—innocent sports, games and pleasant recreations—punish ourselves without cause, and lose our liberties and sometimes our lives.

In the year 1270, at Magdeburg in Germany, a Jew fell into a privy on a Saturday and could not possibly get out without help. He called to his companions for assistance, but they refused because it was their Sabbath: it was forbidden to perform manual work. Hearing of this, the bishop forbade anyone to pull him out the next day because it was our Sunday. Meanwhile the unfortunate man died before Monday.

We have countless examples of this kind among those rigid Sabbatarians. And therefore with good reason Seneca calls it an intolerable disturbance, as indeed he might: an intolerable disturbance that causes such dreadful consequences—folly, madness, sickness, despair, death of body and soul, and hell itself.