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THE PLAY-HOUSE.

ACTS xiii, 8, 9, 10. But Elymas the Sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation), withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul (who also is called Paul), filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said: O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

ELYMAS was a professor of light-work, of profligate cunning, and the art of magic. His business was deception and amusement-to amuse by deceiving, and deceive by amusing. He belonged to that fraternity whose great aim it is to live by playing upon the credulity or the love of excitement and the desire for amusement of the people. He was not at all scrupulous in the choice of means to accomplish his object; it mattered not to him what high and sacred work he opposed, provided his coffers were filled; he did not hesitate to oppose and vilify an apostle of Jesus Christ, nor would he have hesitated to ridicule and denounce the Savior himself, had he been present. He seemed to know, as it were, instinctively, that the triumph of true religion would be the ruin of his profession; that as the light of the Gospel illumined the soul, it would rise above the arts and deceptions with which he sought to gain a livelihood. Now, although this man was not technically a player, yet he was, in one sense, an actor; his spirit and life, and, to a great extent, his aims, were just those

which belong to the theater. And as then the Apostle addressed him in words of the most scathing rebuke, so now, were he present and knew the character and influence of a modern play-house, I am perfectly assured he would speak of it, and those concerned in it, in similar language.

My object, to-night, is to justify the assurance here expressed, that the theater, as it is now and ever has been, is one of the most efficient auxiliaries of Satan in debauching the minds of young men and swelling the stream of profligacy, on the bosom of which thousands are borne afar from all the benedictions of the Gospel and the hope of heaven. Regarding it as one of the most pernicious and corrupting institutions of society, full of all subtilty and mischief, a child of the devil, an enemy of all righteousnesss, and the means of perverting the right ways of the Lord in thousands of souls, I wish to state, as fully as time will permit, and as fairly as if I were arguing an indifferent subject, the reasons for such an opinion. And here let me congratulate you, that, in discussing this subject, we have something definite — something known. We understand ourselves precisely when we speak of the theater: for it is no novelty; it is no product of yesterday; it is an institution of centuries; it has now, as it always had from its very origin, a marked, a decided character. It is something that stands out by itself, openly, and fully revealed to the view of all who choose to scrutinize its constitution, and relations, and influence. I am not about, in this sacred place, to attack an imagination, to discuss a may-be, to discourse about an abstraction. We have all too little time in this world, and too many interests, precious as eternity, are depending on our action, to permit us to waste our lives in the pursuit of a merely possible good or the avoidance

of a possible evil. The theater is not one actor, nor two; not one play nor two; not a particular influence upon one or two minds. It is not an occasional representation; it is not acting alone, nor music alone, nor scenery alone. And you may be sure that, on this occasion, I do not mean to understand it in any partial or limited view; but to discuss it in its aims, and principles, and influence upon society to discuss it as a systematized whole, as an institution that necessarily requires a large outlay of funds, a large retinue of actors, and frequent representations. If any man chooses to argue from other principles; if he tells me that the dialogue is innocent; that this play has a good tendency; that this actor is a respectable citizen, my answer is, very well; but these are not the theater. Would you build a pyramid on its apex? would you rear a church on the steeple? would you trust a man in business because in one or two cases he was not dishonest, when you know well enough that he cheats his neighbor every day in the year? There stands the theater! there it has stood long enough to be tried by the impartial judgment of every lover of his race. It is a connected whole! The arrangement of the building, the scenery and the dresses, the music and the acting, the plays, the players and servitors, are there, and have been there for centuries. Is it a good thing? Is it a friend to the morals of society? Is it a good educational influence for the young? Is it worthy to stand, or ought it to fall? Its nature is known; it has borne its fruit. Let us see what is its nature and what its fruit.

1. Let us look at the nature and aims of the theater; let us see what it means to accomplish, and how it attempts to accomplish it. A good aim may sometimes, in part, redeem a very bad thing in the eyes of men, and

that the end sanctifies the means is an old maxim of the devil. I say, then, that the great purpose of the theater is to amuse by the representation of scenes and characters, fictitious and real. It has been contended by some of its advocates, that its purpose is moral instruction to scourge vice and exalt virtue, and teach men the blessings of morality. Never was an assertion made with less foundation. The purpose of the theater can only be learnt from its history,* from the design of its

# " The dramatic art took its birth in the bosom of tumultuous pleasures and the extravagancies of intoxication. In the festivals of Bacchus, hymns were sung, which were the offspring of the true or feigned ecstasies of a poetical delirium. These hymns, while they described the fabulous conquests of Bacchus, gradually became imitative; and, in the contests of the Pythian games, the players on the flute who entered into competition were enjoined, by an express law, to represent successively the circumstances which preceded, accompanied and followed the victory of Apollo over Typhon." Bartholemy, quoted by Prof. Proudfit, Bib. Rep. Of comedy-employing for its purpose parody, allegory and satire, "abounding in images and language the most gross and obscene," assailing indifferently vice and virtue, the good and the bad, truth and error, abstaining from the use of no language and no representation that would excite a laugh and waken the interest of an audience—it is impossible, with truth, to affirm anything but that its great and constant aim is merely to produce an effect, to raise an excitement, and to rouse the passions, without the least regard to the character of the effect or the nature of the passion.

So tragedy selects its subjects and arranges its parts with direct reference to the excitement of the passions. Its characters are not usually those which best illustrate virtue; they are not the men and the women of calm, heroic virtue and purity, around whom the interest of the scene is made to gather. They are the disappointed Prometheuses and Macbeths the revengeful "Medea, burning with a demon's passion, and wielding a demon's powers of mischief and revenge."

Λέαιναν, οὐ γυναίκα της Τυρσηνίδος

Σχυλλης έχουσαν αγριωτέραν φυσιν·

So its subjects-especially of ancient tragedy-"were selected from those who had occupied an almost superhuman elevation, whose downfall, therefore, would afford the most terrible catastrophe." * "It

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managers, the spirit of its plays and its actors, and the purposes of those who frequent it. Tried by any one and by all these tests, it stands forth confessed that its aim that which gives it character; that by which it lives and means to live-is the amusement of the people. If its aim were to educate men in morals and instruct them in the proprieties of life, never was there an institution that more perfectly failed of accomplishing the purposes of its establishment. From the first company of Thespis, playing in a cart* and wandering from village to village, down to the lowest theater in this city, the writers and players seem most unaccountably to have forgotten their great purpose. Instead of an educator in morals and an instructor in the proprieties of life, it has ever been a most efficient auxiliary of vice and opponent of things most sacred. If instruction were its object, then as it has failed to give virtuous instruction, it deserves to be swept away as a machine utterly unfit for the purpose of its creation.

It stands forth then from all the history of the theater that its chief purpose is amusement. Amusement! Well, I am no enemy, religion is no enemy to innocent amusement. But when a man talks about amusements in these days, it becomes rational beings to inquire what he means by the word. For this poor word is made to

was sometimes objected, even by ancient critics, that if tragedy would secure the purpose of instruction, its scenes must be laid, occasionally at least, in the ordinary walks of life, and must exhibit the sufferings, duties, and temptations, which are incident to the condition of the majority of mankind. But to this it was replied, that they were wanting in the interest and power, necessary to tragedy-that they did not appeal, with sufficient force, to those emotions of terror and pity, the excitation of which is its object. It is plain, therefore, that the aim of tragedy is to astonish, to agitate, not to instruct or reform the spectator.-Proudfit. *Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poëmata Thespis."

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