The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-06-07

To Editor Of the Pacific Commercial .4dUertiser:
Sir In your issue of May 3lst, a prominent
place is assigned to an article, or q communication
on the subject of the Passion Play, published over
the signature of q gentleman well-known as an ac-
tive member Of literary and religious circles.
1 have read this article with surprise and with
sorrow for | can only infer from 1t the writer's de-
sire to rebuke those who oppose the exhibition under
discussion. Ii not an approval, II reads at least Ike
a palliatiou Of what some parts of Christendom regard
as one of the greatest profanities of the day.
So long as your critic was left free to follow his
own taste or discretion in supporting this exhibition,
his claim that the clergy opposed II because they
hardly knew what they were talking about seems
an unnecessary fling, and l doubtless run the risk of
similar treatment. But even with this risk L ven-
ture TO think that such an article as l am referring
to, demands q clear and emphatic protest from those
who regard this Passion Play rs beyond the right of
psllistion.
Your critic is doubtless correct in attributing some
Of the distsste Of Christians for this exhibition TO
that feeling which would forbid the public represen-
tation Of the private history of any man now living,
or whose immediate friends or relatives might be
now living. That is the objection of a man Of taste
and feeling. But there is in the minds OF many men
q simple shuddering at the thought Of the theatrical
forces Of San Francisco ~(probably as low u class of
forces as can be found on this earih) being entrusted
with the representation Of the sacred scenes which
your critic recounts.
We are told that in the Last Supper, the Agony
in the Garden and the Betrayal by Judas, the acting
was realistic aud effective, attended as it was by ap-
~propriate scenery and costumes.
Can it be that He was wounded for our transgres-
sions and bruised for cur iniquities, and that those
for whom He was wounded can 60 calmly to see their
fellow sinners trayesty those terrible sceuesl There
is something here which taste and feeling cannot
touch. Patriotism, love Of home, reverence for lost
friends. cannot be affected by cold reason and argu-
ment and far higher than patriotism. love, or
reverence for lost friends, is the sacred place where
men enshrine the memory Of their Redeemer's
passion.
Your correspondent briefly states that the last
is finished was not given. That,
with the Judgment scene" is possibly reserved as
. later novelty, for it is difficult to conceive what
further step can be found to amuse and edify those
who demand for their ediicaton such sacrifices.
In spite Of the tears which We are informed
rewarded - the delineation of the beauty aud
grace Of Christ's character, the whole display reads
more like a ~mockery, than the lamentations of those
who by His stripes were healed, and it brought to
TO my mind that most terrible denunciation in the
sacred word, " l will laugh at your calamity, and
mock when your fear cometh.'
Possibly Uzza would have argued that so long as
iis efforts to steady the ark Of God, when the oxen