The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1886-02-13


grounds he desires them TO do as other
religions do, and keep within their own
house of worship. This question of re-
ligious toleration Is ticklish one. The
Mormons are suffering for religious toll
Grafton, and religious toleration at Salt
Lake means dozen wives more or less.
1t may be possible that the outside world
may not have studied the matter quite
as deeply as DR.. Talmage and his reyer-
end friends, but to casual observer
much of that which the Salvation Army
calls praise sounds very much like BIAS
phemy, and the invitations to grace like
the lowest and coarsest ribaldry. To
person used to speak in a sacred man
ner Of God aud sacred things, it is posi-
lively shocking to hear the tlippant and
familiar manner in which they speak of
Deity. The women and girls engaged
with these saints may possibly be angels
lacking only the wings, but many of
them look like the graduates of our po-
lice courts, and the male evangelists
more like disciples of the prize ring than
,the pulpit Religious toleration is one
thing and religious license is another;
the one worships within bounds the
other runs mad The Shakers are un-
questionably as morally good as any
class of christians on the face of the
earth. They pursue some useful calling
always, and worship God after their own
peculiar fashion. They dance before
the Lord and think it good to do so, but
IL they danced in the streets all the po-
lice in New York and Brooklyn could
not keep the hoodlums from jecring
them. The man or woman that can't
be converted without a tamboriue and
bones is poor subject for spiritual
grace. l think the peace of the city is
conserved by bottling these pcripatetic
evangelists.
l dropped in at the opera the other
evening. 1t was a gala night and Con
oud's Faust had filled the house from
pit to dome. The story is as old as the
world, of trusting love betrayed. 1t is
the old tale over again of the serpent
creeping into Eden. ending in ruin. mis-
cry and death. The legend is all Ger
man but it is a German story told by a
Frenchman, and up to the present sea-
son it has been always interpreted by
Italians. Even in the ROYAL Opera
ventured on the German vernacular.
Those who have read with fearful eyes
Goethe's Faust, and to whose fancy the
ruined Marguerite was n lovely dream.
received rude shock in the Marguerite
at the Metropolitan Opera House. She
is none of your spiritual, airy fairies that
could float off upon cloud and break
fast on sunbeam; nothing of the sort,
her waist belt is good forty inches. and
there is wholesome, healthy appearance
of good solid beef about the lady that
knocks the romance out of a consump-
| tive American in q moment As you
survey that good humored, fat, content
ed face and the splendid outlines of that
| magnificent and imposing figure, the
conviction is forced upon YOU in spite
of yourself, that the man who succeeds
in breaking that woman's heart will
have to rise very early in the morning
and sit up late o nights. And then the
gay young tenor who succeeded in i'm
pressing that lovely mountain, he would
| have tipped the scales at two hundred
| and fifty, and it need not have been Il
| particularly good day for fat men either;
he had u fat, beery, Schweitzer Kase
sort OF look, and appeared like good
honest brewer or butcher who would
have felt much more at home behind a
good meerschaum than on the stage in
a love scene. So much for appearances,
| but when it came to the music they
were all sound there; the prima donna
had voice that would have lured the
little birds down from the trees, and my
stout friend the tenor if unable to travel
on his shape could have won the heart
| of any woman who was any way musi-
cally inclined. AS | looked around the
boxes on solid bank of beauty the first
thought that flashed across my mind
was how they dared venture out in this
wintry weather with so little on. Moth
eTs and daughters, sisters, cousins, aunts
and grdndmothers had bare shoulders
and bare arms, and there appeared to
be the greatest rivalry among the differ.
ent boxes to see who SHOULD make the
most lavish display of charms. A full
dress show at the London Opera is a
sight not to be forgotten, but why they
should call it full dress am at loss to
understand. 1t Is not half dress, and
in many cases it Is even less than that,
but we are passing London. A great
cry is made about the dress of women
in Paris by those who know nothing
about it, but French woman dressed
for the opera is as modestly costumed as
any woman in the world, and while
some of the beauties of the Opera Bouffe
may be nOwise chary of their charms, |
Imagine French lady would be con-
siderably shocked at the lavish display
of some of her New York sisters. The
music of the German Opera is of course
| first class. 1t can be ranked with the
very best that has ever been heard in
! this country. 1t is educating our peo-
| pie to higher conception of tile posi-
bilities of music and after all it has a
humanizing influence wherever it is
common among the masses. Even the
street bands now getting so common
have q mission not to be dcspIscl. i
few years ago and the city swarmed
with musical lazZaroni, mostly boys
from nine to fifteen years Of age. The
violin and harp composed the orchestra.
and the chief musician was so small
that he could not hold his violin to his
shoulder but he held it after the man
ner of bass violin. The Society for
the Prevention OF Cruelty to Children
put an end to the Padrone mfamy and
now our streets are tlled with perambu-
lating German bands nicely uniformed,
with good music stands and fine instru-
ments, playing music fit for any music
/ hall. Among the musical eccentrics of
| the town Is an imitator of Levy who
! plays on the cognet. never see him or
hear Of him in fine weather, but if there
happens 10 be an exceptionally miser-
able day l invariably run across my
musical friend somewhere in the vicini-
| ty Of Wall street, playing away as if his
life depended upon ii. Some times the
rain is pouring or the snow is falling,
and this seems to add zest to his playing,
for ont in the storm there he stands in
the middle Of the street frequently
soaked to the skin by the falling rain,
and he plays magnlicently. Why he
has chosen this mendicant way of living
do not know, but | do know that a