The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-02-06
DIR. BISHOP AND THE THEATRE.

The Rev. Serene Bishop has again
been presented with a horrid vision Of
the depravity Of attending the theatre.
With the fervor of the prophet Jere-
niah he INDUCES in some acute La
mentations over the rotten souls Of
those who love the drama. The maj
GRITTY Of the theatre goers are, he says,
persons Of debased life and thought"
When President Lincoln was assas-
sinated while attending the theatre,
it is well known that many persons
with the spiritual and mental vision
exhibited by Dr. Bishop, believed and
now believe that the assassination was
direct punishment of Mr. Lincoln for
attending the theatre. Several of the
inferior religious publications timidly
advanced this opinion Respectable
Christians" whispered it, but hardly
dared to say so aloud, because the
great Christian nation would have
broken beyond bonds, and advocated
the use of tar and feathers upon those
who would, by such suggestion and ilh-
y,
the people.
Mr.. Leicester Ford has recently pub
lisshed an article, giving at length the
persistent love of the drama shown by
General Washington throughout his
life. He attended the theatre when
ever he had the opportunity to do so.
Even, after the Continental Congress
had forbidden amusements during the
Revolutionary war, General Washing
ton violated the law, al Valley Forge.
and attended theatre in which some
OF his own men presented plays.
With such illustrious examples of
theatre going before them; with the
growing attendance at the play of the
refined, the influential, and the pro-
fessedly Christian people. Dr. Bishop
and the class he represents, will simply
find it impossible to make Roadway
against this evil as they call it.
Many who have the presumption to
elect themselves to the serious and
high calling of instructors, take their
knowledge of life through surface alb
sorption They see the world only
through loop-holes, and base their in
structions on the poorest of all knowl-
edge, that of belief and not Of fact.
They travel through life along the
floors of the deepest canyons Of inner
tied theories and ancient beliefs, and
seem never to rise to the plains that
are flooded with the sweetness and
light THAT is slowly wrapping the
world with wiser thoughts and prac-
tees
DR. Bishops horror of the theatre,
because it ''saturates the mind with
vile and salacious images as he de-
clares, is fully shared by millions OF
Mohammedans who forbid their wo-
men to appear in public, for the very
same reason that DR.. Bishop warns
men to keep away from the theatre.
This deep tinctura of Mohammedan
ethics in Dr. Bishops Puritan mind,
indicates singular coincidence Of be-
lief. Is DR.. Bishop, after all, Mo-
hammedan in disguise, and if he had
the opportunity, would he secrete all
women, in order TO save the souls of a
few weak brethren?
DR.. Bishops way of looking at life,
and especially the theatre, in which he
sees mainly the vile images recalls
the transaction of another aggrayating
moralist, who some twenty years ago,
collected and published in book form
the objectionable" and impure inn
ages contained in the Old Testament
and urged that no respectable person
should read that portion of Holy writ
Even the booksellers would not keep
this compilation ON their tables
If DR.. Bishop would become, for g
wear, the manager Of a company OF
barn stormers, and at the end OF the
season. would report for the benefit OF
mankind, the moral effect of the drama
upon his audiences, he would at least
substitute some facts for mere conjec-
ture, unless his own mind became I'M
fortunately saturated with the i'm
pure images Of his own dramatic eX-
perience.