The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-01-21
IN GREAT PLAYS SUGAR IN CUBA
Thought is Evil
dent in Shakespeare.
The Great DramatistS FaVorite
Books-impress of the HOLY
Writ-Some Characters.

Rev. VIM. RAIDER, of the Third Con-
gregational church Of San francisco,
has preached a sermon on shake
speare and the Bible" saying in part: |
I'm taking up the subject L nave
chosen tonight I am appalled, at the
magnitude of the task l have outlined.
To attempt to gather up all the rellg-
ious thought expressed in the works OF
this great master of literature would
he as difficult as to trace all the veins
of gold under the SHOWS Of Alaska. All
of the Gospel is not found in the Bible,
but it's manifestations are found
throughout literature and art, for all
the great masters who have set them
selves as stars in the literary or art
armament have been inspired by God
to tell great truths to men.
1.-TWO books in particular Influenced
Shakespeare, and these were the Bible
and Plutarch. Yet his works differ
from the first of these in that he wrote
with no definite purpose, but simply
of the flower blooms and the sun
shines There is no certainty that he
was Catholic or Protestant. If it be
possible for a man to be greater than
| Catholicism and larger than Protest
antism, Shakespeare was. He presents
no formulated faith. He outlines no
definite conception of heaven or hell or
the future of man, but the truth and
r. or q n
writings. The poetry of David pro-
foundry impresses his style. We find
the story of the Prodigal Son shad-
owed by The Two Gentlemen From
Verona; King Lear embodies the old
conception of Job; Lady Macbeth,
the JezebeI of old He frequently refers
to Christ and to his atOnement for
human sin. In fact, the sublimity OF
the death upon the cross seems to have
taken a powerful hold upon Shake
lspeare. Above all, he expounds human
nature In Shylock we see avarice and
shrewdness, in Macbeth the results OF
ambition, in King Richard, villaily;
in the daughters of King Lear, filial in
Hamlet offers an awful exhibition o
opportunity lost The first genera
Theological thought that we draw from
all of these plays is the thought of sill
and it's consequences. Remember tina
Shakespeare lived in a free and cas-.
age, when priests We're corrupt AM
kings rotten. Into this pit of corrup
ton he dipped his pen as hook an'
brought up awful revelations. He dis
closes, not as Dante, the hell Of the III
ture, but the hell of the present; tn
r sin which lays it's red hand on throne
and cradles, and corrupts all it touches
Always he keeps before us the gospe
OF transgressed law, and the law o
retribution which follows it.
shakespeare was not a Puritan, bu
, he deals with the severest truth Of Pur
itanism. Witness the destruction @
his great characters. Antony and Cleo
lpatra die horrible deaths. Shyloe
goes. face to face with justice. Mac
The uncertain crown of Richard
crushed, and he becomes the victim {
his villiany. Shakespeare has nc
drawn the geography of the future, br
he has made plain the heaven and he
j. of the human SOUL
The speaker went on to trace tn
Y noble conception of Divine mercy a
defined by Portia. While he drew n
parallel between the inspiration Of tn
great dramatist and the inspired wri
ers of the New Testament, he declare
that the Gospel of Shakespeare VIZ
i, as true as the Gospel of the Bible. Col
in ST. Paul's hand was no more gol
than when held in Shakespeare's pain
~ Inspiration in truth, and the inspire
ton of the great author is to be mea
ured by the degree of the moral tru
he tells.