Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-22
CHURCH AND STAGE.
A CHILDREN MEETING BY M. MOODY
A CATHOLIC SPECTACLE.
The Twelfth Night Celebration of Company
G-Burlesquing Shakespeare
Left-leg Opera
SAN Francisco, January 10, 1881.

Ohe day Lhere was pIayef-meetlng neld
at noon, which was a children's meeting.
The Tabernacle is large church whose
pews rise one above another all round,
and way down at the foot of them all is
the pulpit. So it is very good place to
see. Nobody gets his head in the way,
and no busy woman's bonnet hobs before
your face. Oh, what bad and saucy chill
dren we have in San Francisco! Very
likely no worse than those in any other
place, but still bad and saucy enough, you
may be sure. If they only could have
some Moody and Sankeyism put into them
it would be blessed thing But there is
something so small and go cunning and so
sweet about a child you feel
DEAL wIcKEpER
Than they to harbor saucy speech against
them, and probably at that children's
prayer meeting there wasn't grown per-
son whose heart didn't flow out in love
toward them. Tramp, tramp, up the
stairs they kept coming, bubbling over
with spirits, stepping on each others heels.
snickering and whispering, and rosy as
round red apples. The church was finally
one mass of restless heads and squirming
shoulders, though nothing but q subdued
rustic disturbed the decorous quiet of the
place. The shaved heads of the boys
dotted the scene like moving billiard balls
every boy has his head clipped now.
The hymns as they occurred-being
familiar ones = were each grabbed
at and transformed into a wild
roar, and it was comical to see
hundreds of pairs of eyes peeping through
the interlaced fingers, which, with great
respect, covered the little faces during
prayers. And there was something touch
| ing about it all, too. The greatest atten-
ton was paid to Mr.. Moody, and he was
listened to with open mouth g Does
| God love you when you are naughty chill
dren ?" was a poser in the way of ques-
tion. The boys looked helplessly about
them for the right answer, and the girls
were simply stunned. Then great many
shouted no, and great many shouted yes
and nobody seemed quite to know. What,
nobody On, yes Somebody, for clear
little voice floated down from somewhere
after bit, brave and childish ard right
out loud /: " He don't love the thing we
do, but he loves us! p Could any one have
put it better 1t was boy said that
the girls, being little women, had doubt.
less been drilled into the idea that
they mustn't speak to the meetin'."
But more and more often here
women do address religious meetings,
and they talk exceedingly good Scripture.
We of the Protestant church are coming to
acknowledge how wise the Roman Catholic
has always been in making sure of the
children. See the good care he takes that
they shall have baptism, and catechism,
and prayers, and communion and the rest
of it; and 50 they grow up good Catholics
and firmly grounded in their belief. We
have made
ONE GRAND MISTAKE,
That is ALL But Mr.. Moody begs for
children. A woman got up the other day
to leave the room with her fretting baby.
"Don't go, madam" said he, Z" the baby
doesn't disturb me at all. I'd rather you'd
stay" And so at the childrens meeting,
a bevy of little misses came in quite late,
and it SO happened, fell in with a pew near
to the pulpit, into which they all crowded.
Buzz, buzz, they all went, evidently con-
graduating each other, that though they
had come so late, they had so good a
seat, when along comes an usher,
with intent to displace them in favor OF
some finely dressed ladies following him.
Mr. Moody's face flushed as | never had
seen it, Don't remove those children,
said he. Let them stay where they are;
this is childrens meeting. Put the ladies
in the aisle.
The most gorgeous and formal church
ceremonial l ever witnessed took place
in st. Msry's Cathedral on Sunday
last, it being the occasion of a consecra-
ton as Bishop in the Roman Cath
ole church. If we speak of him as man,
it was Patrick Monogue of Virginia City
who was elevated to this dignity if as a
priest, it was Rev. Father Monogue of the
same place. st. Mary's was crowded to
suffocation aud the altar seemed blaze of
light and color. Whether it be religious
or secular gathering the San Francisco
crowd respects nobody's toes, and there
was the same pushing and elboWing there
as you may meet with any other
where. There seemed to be scores
of white gowned boys swinging cen
sers, and dozens of priests, and endless
chantings and Gloria and TIE Deum and
Kyrie over and over from the organ loft.
To me, who am unused to it, the Catholic
church seems like mass of splendid
color run riot there is so much of it, and
it is so bright, that it becomes bewildering,
fantastic, and shapes itself in visions. All
it's saints, and prayers, and images, and
! pomps are indigestible to my mind, and l
came away feeling as though had eaten
| too much dinner. But can fancy how it
might enthrall me, and hold me, and mako
a. 4
to the tread of priests and nuns, and
| never see one OF the latter but my impulse
| is to stretch my hands toward her with
thrill for the mystery which enshrouds her,
and wonder as to how she can shut the
world away when it besieges her thus OIL
every hand.
ANOTHER GORGEOUS SCENE
Met the eye at the California Theater q
fortnight ago on the unique celebration of
Twelfth Night by Company q, which is
less distinguished as military organize
ton than as a social existence. It's men,
bers are seceders from Company F, with.
drawn to form q distinct and exclusive set
among themselves, on which account there
are sneers jealousies and many ha-has. a
great effort has therefore attended the en-
tertainments offered by Company G, in or
der that they should be I" high-toned
| without the possibility of question, and
that success has crowned the effort cannot
be questioned. The dress-circle of the
theater was exclusively reserved for ladies,
| their escorts being banished that the brill
liant costumes of the former might be
viewed as whole without the dark admix-
| ture of the coats of gentlemen. The air
was heavy with the quiet steady rustic of
silk, and brilliant with the quick sparkle OF
hundreds of diamonds, the waving of
many-hued fans, and the dimple of white
shoulders-for shoulders there were, and
necks and arms, nay and bosoms, too,
the material for whose modest COW
vering trailed upon the floor in
yards and yards OF expensive waste.
San Francisco's aristocracy graced the
house-some of it blue blood, some of
| it brown blood, some of it red in its new
ness, and some of it yet so recent in i'm
portance that no one has yet discovered its
color. The Gwins were there, the Cole
mans, the TONNES, the Floods, the Schmie-
dells, the Hopkinses, the NeBhalls, and
Palaches, and Higgins, and Tevises, and
Barroilhets, and Castles, and Frys and
Donahues, and MIR. and Mrs J. P. Jones,
and the Wilson's, and Holladays, and
Popes, and McMullins, etc., etc, etc.
!