The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-04-26
REV. w. r.. LORD SAYS THAT 1T
MAY BE A POWER FOR
GOOD.
NEW USE FOR THE OLYMPIC.
WHY NOT ELEVATE 1T AND MAKE
1T WORTHY IN OBJ
JECT?
PLAYS AND ACTORS PRAISED
MIR. Lord Has Kind Words for Sol
Smith Russell. shore Acres"
and Others.

At Unity church yesterday morning
Rev. w. r. Lord spoke upon THE
Theater" in a vein rather different
from the usual pulpit utterance on that
topic. He said
Few people realize what large fact
the theater is in our social life. If we
should visit any of our cities for the
first time and watch the crowds that
throng our playhouses, counting the
number, and marking off those who at
tend in proportion to the population, we
should be surprised. For example, 1 am
told by the manager Of the largest
theater in this city that from 70 to IS
per cent of the population of st. Paul
see the inside of a theater at least once
a year. More than a majority, fire.
quently. This fact is larger than the
city, because one of the objective points
of country visitors in our cities is the
playhouse.
What are we going to do about this
great fact? Once for ALL let US under
stand it cannot be banished from the
world
First, because it appeals to the pro-
foundest wants and needs of human
life. Human life appears to most people
in a fragmentary way Life is so tran
silent, SO rapid in it's movement that
none but the greatest can relate and
unity its various parts. Now the drama
gathers up these fragments and COM
bines them in a representation of life,
and thus satisfies the craving of the
mind for unity.
In the second place, it is the most
complete appeal which art can make
to the human heart. All of the arts
are bound together and unified in the
drama and used as an instrument to
suggest the ideal.
In the third place, the drama appeals
effectively to the ordinary magma
ton. Only the measurably cultivated
imagination can construct human life
through the suggestion of literature.
Many people seem, by nature to have
little of this faculty. For these, and for
all, the stage serves as the best inStru-
ment in exercising the imagination.
The field of experience is enlarged.
The life Of other people, of other
classes, is, through the drama, for the
first time, perhaps, understood.
There are other reasons; these are
the main ones, and as l have at a pre-
vious time given them, these will do:
You must see that an institution
l,
and appealing thus to human life can
not be put down. 1t has its roots in
human life Itself
What then? We must take it as we
take the church when we find it cor
rupt; not try to wipe it out, but make
1t what it ought to be. Martin Luther
did not try to destroy the church when
he found it, seemingly, hopelessly cor
rupt, but he tried to reform it, and in
trying. to do so, enlarged and ennobled
the church by giving to the world the
Protestant branch of the one great de-
Velcping and elevating institution Let
the drama be as bad as it may; the
only possible course for any one who
understands it's source and meaning is
to turn it to true account
Facing these facts there are others
which we must consider. Think of the
constituencies of the artistic side of hu-
man neture Through it may come not