The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-03-29


In any case the suggestion will show our read
ers how universal is the interest in England in
the event of which we have been speaking.
Clown or Cleric. Whichs
In an age when priests and parsons are
crying out as loudly as Jeremiah against the
growing disrespect for religion it is significant
to note how ministers themselves justify the
accusation. Parson De Witt Talmage is the
latest offender. His Brooklyn Tabernacle
was laid in ashes one raw Sabbath morning
last Winter, and the fair sisters of his congre-
CATION have ever since been building ''tidies,"
dolls clothes, pincushions, portrait albums
go to make up the wares of q fancy fair, at
which the sweet sisters themselves behind
their counters are the chief attraction.
The Tabernacle must be rebuilt, and this
calling in of beauty with its smiles and its
embroidery to aid in the extraction of elee-
mosynary greenbacks from the friends of
religion is at once innocent and poetical.
Venus and Minerva are consecrated to the
uses of the presbytery, and the devotees of
both the goddesses are ''bled" upon the altar
of the Church of Calvin. Perhaps the stern
presbyter of Geneva would go bowling back
to his grave after having overturned all the
tables if he once could quit it to witness
an ordinary Presbyterian fancy fair at
the Brooklyn Academy. But we could not
even sympathize with him in his distress and
should be the first to assist the fair merchants
of the church from under the confused heap
Of their merchandise. De Witt Talmage, how
ever, with that boldness and decency which
characterize him, was not content to follow in
the steps of former fancy fairists He was
resolved that his fancy fair should produce
sensation, and to that end prepared scene
that would shock as many delicate sensibilities
as were left unimpaired by the ''Black Crook
and the 'Twelve Temptations" In the most
sensuous of those pieces the rites of the Chris
tan religion had not been burlesqued. Here,
then, was chance for Talmage-we had
almost cut the word at Talma. He had pos
session OF theatre and he would make 'sMar-
riage" broad farce. It wonld not be mere
stimulation. When we see the blessing of the
poignards in the 'Huguenots'' we know that
the priests are lager bier sellers in reality and
that the conspirators murder nothing but the
English language with Dutch soicisms in
everyday life. Talmage, on the con-
trary, would have genuine priest,
with real % prayers and o bona
.fde bride and bridegroom. The long-buried
Romish mystery play would be revived, for the
first time on any stage in America, ct half
dollar per head admission. He advertised for
his marriage aspirants and selected them from
ffty-two fools, as pagan priest would bull
and heifer for the sacrifcer's knife. 1t was to
be heightened by effects borrowed from the
property man. of the theatre, and to repre-
sent New England marriage of hundred
years ago. That it was as far from being
Puritan ceremony as was the ballet of the
bare-legged AmaGons, stage manager Talmage
knew full well. Madame de Pompadour
might perhaps have looked ON it with satis-
faction; but no mother Of New England's
heroes of the Revolution would have thought
it other than vile of Satan. Talmage knew
all this; but burlesque-goers care nothing
about exactitude They want glitter, show,
fun and consciousness, and seldom object to
indelicacy in act, gesture or suggestive
ness. To heighten the burlesque he
had issued cards of admission with
the definite article spelled rye" to
represent English in the age when Johnson
and Goldsmith were writing. No wonder the
Academy was filled. The stage manager be-
came the parson of the farce. The solemn
rite of marriage was performed without
ring" but with all the prayers that earnest
Christian men had composed for hearts filed
with the serious love of God and awed by the
sacredness of the lifelong pact the words were
intended to signalize. Not for the laughter of
the gallery goods or the Sinking of the
people in the orchestra chairs were the simple,
touching words intended. The player-parson
kept steady face, as good comedians do but
the audience roared with delight and clapped
their hands, as though it were Grimaldi, the
clown, singing Charley" with red-hot
painted poker. It was humbug but was he
not still parson, and were not the two Siam
ford idiots man and wife when the shameless
scene was over2 No doubt The line where
the cleric ends and the clown begins has been
receding from the communion rail towards the
footlghts, and Connecticut is as famous for
divorces as Indiana. Talmage may only be
ahead of his time To the spectacle
at the Brooklyn Academy people may
vet look back as American citizens
do to the Philadelphia Court House
ON the 4th of July, 1776. When sermons
are preached as interludes to ground and
lofty tumbling, and the acrobat is the clergy
man when marriage is such q jest that the
knot which is tied in Niblos by parson-
clown on one night is united by harlequin