Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-18
THE EXTREME VIEW.
Sweeping DenuncIntion of the Stnge In
It's Entirety by DR.. Cuyler.

A Sweeping DenuncIntion of the stnge In
It's Entirety by DR.. Cuyler.
Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, of Brooklyn,
will certainly be accepted by all Presby-
terians as q representative clergymen of
their denomination. He is widely known,
not only as distinguished preacher, but as
successful writer and lecturer as well.
After reading his appended reply to my
question no one can entertain any doubt as
to his position with regard to the stage. He
is fat-footedly against it and may be meta
phorically said to have knocked it down
and then to have jumped on it with both
feet:
DEAR SIR-No pastor expects his youth
full church members to go into the impu re
moral atmosphere Of the theater without q
terrible damage to their piety. No wise
Christian mother wants her sons and daugh-
ters there. The theater has sent thousands
OF souls to perdition. Has it helped any
toward heaven? 1 am not surprised that
you should ask the question you do, for the
theater daily grows more clamorous for at
tention and patronage. In some of our
cities theaters are growing more rapidly in
number than churches, and theater-going is
increasing more rapidly than church-going.
Pictorial representations, some of them so
disgustingly indecent that the law should
suppress them, are daunted on walls and in
store windows within full view of our
church doors. What must be the character
OF performers and performances when their
pictures are so shameless?
Before answering your question let us
consider the dangers to our moral nature and
our immortal soul likely to be encountered
there, and when we have done so we shall
find your question to have been sufficiently
answered.
Zone great danger of the theater is that.
like wine-drinking, it too often becomes an
appetite, and a very greedy appetite caus-
ing thousands of young people to souander
profuselv their time and money. Just as
the habitual drinker of alcoholic liquors
constantly Graves greater quantities and
stronger stimulants, so the frequenter of the
theater finds Its performances grow dull and
insipid unless supplied with new excite
ment. Other and purer recreations become
utterly tame and distasteful. Indeed, il is
not recreation, but excitement that is de-
sired by one who has become enslayed by
the appetite for theatrical performances-an
appetite which steadily becomes more and
more importunante in its demands.
at the playhouse. 1t is prevalent habit
with young people who attend it to remain
until a late hour amid the excitement of the
PLAYS, and then to finish off with a midnight
supper or a wine drink at some neighboring
restaurant. Long after sensible people have
laid their heads on their pillows the
habitues of the theater are apt to be adding
a second scene of dissipation to the first one.
To this perilous practice young lady of
my acquaintance owed her downfall. 1t
must be pretty hard work for Christian to
finish up such an evenings experience with
an honest prayer for Gods blessing. That is
indeed q poor business and a poor
pleasure on which we cannot with
clear conscience ask our Heavenly Fathers |
approval. Certainly there are enough in
nocent, wholesome and beneficial recreations
without venturing into the dangerous atmos- |
phere of the playhouse. That is a dear |
bought pleasure, which involves even a risk |
to the immortal soul. Your eyes and ears
are windows and doors to the heart What |
enters once never goes out. Photographs |
taken on the memory are not easily efaced |
or burned up; they stick there, and often be- |
come tempters and tormentors for lifetime. |
I'D give my right hand,' said Christian |
to me once, iii could rub out the abomin- |
able things that put in my mind when 1 |
was a fast Young man. He could not do it; |
neither will the Christian be able to efface |
the lascivious images or the impure works |
which the stage may photograph on his very
soul.
"We do not affirm that every popular play
is immoral, or that every performer is i'm
pure, or that every theater-goer is on the
scent for sensual excitement; but the stage
is to be estimated as a totality, and the
whole trend of the average American stage
is hostile to heart purity. The exceptions
do not alter the rule. Nor have honest at
tenn pts to bring the stage up to high stand
ard OF moral purity been successful. The
experiment, once made in Boston. of SO
managing a theater as to exclude every in
delicacy from the stage, ended in pecuniary
failure.
1.-THE stage must be taken as il is. II is an
institution for which the Christian becomes
morally responsible if he patronizes it, as
much as II he were to patronize q public
library or public drinking saloon. AS an
institution it unsexes woman by parading
her in mans attire. Too often it exposes
her In such scantiness of attire that il you
saw your own sister in such plight you
would turn away your eyes in horror. Will
you, then, pay your money to have some
body else's sisters and daughters violate
delicacy for your entertainment?
Il the Christian becomes o patron of the
theater he goes into moral partnership with
the theater. He cannot evade, before God,
his accountability for the theater If he
habitually supports it.
yours truly,
THEODORE L. CUYLER."