The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1875-02-16
THEATERs AND THEATER-
GOING,

The recent discussion of the influence
of theaters has brought up the old subject
again, and call for a re.statement of what
we regard as the true and rational posi-
tion Of the church upon the question,
The radical mistake of the Protestant
Church of this country is that lack of
discrimination, in its condemnation of
theaters, which has gone to the extreme
OF making that sin in ITSELF which is not
sin at all. To go to the theater, for an
evenings entertainment, is regarded by
multitudes as fragrant wrong So wrong
is it considered in itself, or so bad is it in
example, that ministers are shut out of
the theater as class, with sweeping com.
pleteness. For clergyman to be seen in
thcater, is to compromise his position
and influence. We know that manv
clergymen regard this as hardship, for
they have told US SO; ; but their unwise
predecessors have made the bed for them.
and they are obliged to lie in it. The
public opinion that has been generated in
the church. by pulpit criticism and de.
nunciation, has built a wall around the
theater so high that men holding respons.
ible positions in the church cannot cross
it.
For this position of the church, the
stage itself is very largely responsible.
The stage has always been under strong
temptations to self.degradation, If It
had always been pure; if the amusements
it has offered to the public had always
been innocent if it had not at one period
OF its history been breeding place of
vice; if it had not presented strong at.
fractions to those who seek the society of
lewd women, if profanity and poorly dis.
guised obscenity had never had place in
the plays presented if impure imagina.
tions had not been cherished among the
young by half nude dancing girls; in
brief, If the animal nature-the lower
naturc-had not been addressed 20 per.
sistently by those who have assumed the
entertainment Of the public, the church
would never have taken the position that
it has. 1t is not to be wondered at that
the protest was strong, when the provoca.
tioD was so shameless. The older men of
the present day remember the horrible
Third Tier of their youth. They re.
member, too, the double cntendre, the
polite profanity, the broad jest, that woke
the disgusting cheers of "the pit 1t is
no justification of an institution that has
arrogated to itself the title of ia school
of morals" that it offered what was de.
manded, and what the public most will.
ingly paid for. 1t was a part of the
legitimate office of the stage to protect
public morals and to educate the public
into pure taste, The enmity of the
church toward the stage has not been
without cause,
But the stage is better than it was, on
the whole. We have vile theaters in
New York. to.day-altogether too many
OF them-plays presented that degrade or
vitiate the taste and the morals OF those
who witness tbem-men and women on
the boards who are base in character and
life. On the other hand, we have theat.
ers whose aims are high and actors and
actresses who have pride of personal
character, and desire aud determination
to hold their most interesting art to puri-
ty and respectablity. These people
faithful husbands aud wives, intellectual
men add women, good fathers, mothers,
maidens, friends aud citizens-na.urally
chafe under the wholesale condemnation
which the church visits upon them. We
cannot blame them for this. We can
only ask them to be patient with state
of things which a multitude of their pre-.
decessors and many Of their coniempora.
rics have helped to bring about, The
church is gradually working toward their
recognition. and they must give it time to
move.
There was time, and it was net long
ago, when cards were banished from ey.
cry Christian household. The older men
and women Of the church very we'll re.
member when a pack of cards found in
boys trunk would be taken as proof that
the devil had very strong hold upon its
owner Millions of men and women have
been bred to believe that card PLAYING
was-with or without reason--a sin in
itself That time has passed away al
ready, and the innocent little pasteboards
have become source of amusement in
great multitudes of Christian families.
Children never could see any reason in
their exclusion, and the church is strong.
er in the child's mind for the change that
has occurred Billiards were once so
associated with viciods resorts and vicious
practices. that a man disgraced himself
by appearing where they were. Now
billiard-table is in nearly every house
that can afford one, and is purchased in
many instances as home-g guardian of
the morals of the boys. Novel.readipg
was once as thoroughly under ban as the
atcr-going. We remember the time
when the ncvel,reader hid his books
read them when he ought to have been
asleep-stole their charms on rainy days,
in garrets or on hay-mows, and then
passed them into the hands of some other
sly thief of pleasure. who still passed
them on until they were worn out. Well,
the first novels were poor. They gave
false ideas of life. and were condemned
en- masse by the church but the church
found at an early day that it wanted
novels for lis own purposes. Now the
great majority Of Sunday school books
are novels of a religious sort, while every
Christian library holds Scott and Dickens
and Thackeray; and the public libraries
and the readipg.clubs, all over the land,
find moro readers for their novels than
for.any other class of books. They have
become the sources of moral, political,
and social instruction, as well as of gen.
eral entertainment, within as we'll as
without the church.
We allude to these sources Of amuse.
ment and the great change that has oc-
CURED with regard to them, for the
purpose of illustrating that which is cer-
tainly progressing with relation to the