Connecticut western news., 1900-03-22

piCu dSdlh again phNSA 'hN ANNN CA the lascivious dance?
 It Is nothing agaiSst painting and sculpture that in Cort ,th and Hercula- neum they were deme pstrative of vul- garity and turpituda The dreadful museum at Pompeii sI all throw no dis credit on Powers q Ireek Slave" or Church's Heart of Il r Andes" or Ru- bens' Descent From he Cross" or An gelo's Last Judgmen,." The very fact that again and agaiE the drama has been dragged through the sewers of in lguity is the reason why we should snatch it up and st irt it out on a grand and holy ar d magnificent mission. Let me say at this point in my sermon that the drama will never be lifted to its rightful sphere by those people who have not sense enough to distinguish between the drama and the playhouse The drama is no more the theater than a hymnbook is church. am not speaking in regard to the the ater at all The drama is q literary ex pression of that feeling which God ina planted in the human soul. Neither will the drama ever be lifted to Its proper sphere by wholesale denuncia- tion of all dramatists. If you have not known men and women connected with the drama who are pure in heart and pure in speech and pure in life, it is be- cause you have not had very wide ac- quaintSnce.
 Wholesale denunciation of all dram atists will never elevate the drama. Wonder stand church and theater on opposite sides of the street. The church shouts over to the theater, "You are all scoundrels!' The theater shouts back. You are all hypocrites. And they both falsify. Dropping all indis- criminate jeremiads against dramatists and realizing that the drama is not necessarily connected with this insti- tuition or with that. want to show you how the dramatic element in our natures may be harnesSed to the chari- ot of civilization and Christianity.
 An Everyday Drama.
 Fifty essays about the sorrows of the poor could not affect me as little drama of accident and suffering 1 saw one slippery morning in the streets of Philadelphia. Just ahead of me was lad, wretched in apparel, his limb am putated at the knee; from the pallor of the boys cheek, the amputation not long before. He had package of bro- ken food under his arm-food he had begged, 1 suppose, at the doors. As he passed on over the slippery pavement, cautiously and carefully, I steadied him until his crutch slipped and he fell I helped him up as well as l could, gathered up the fragments of the pack age as well as l could, put them under one ara and the crutch under the oth- CT arm, but when I saw the blood run down his pale cleek I burst into tears. Fifty essays al out the sufferings of the poor could rot touch one like that little drama of accident and suffering.
 Oh, we want in all our different de- partments OK usefulness more of the dramatic element and less of the di- dactic. The tendency in this day is to drone religion, to whine religion, to cant religion, to moan religion, to croak religion, to sepulcharize religion, when we ought to present it in animated and spectacular manner.
 What we want, ministers and lay men, is to get our sermons and our ex- hortations and our prayers out of the old rut. The old hackncyed religious phrases that come snoring down through the centuries will never arrest the masses. What we want today, you in your sphere and in my sphere, is to freshen up. People do not want in their sermons the sham flowers bought at the millinery shop, but the japonicas wet with the morning dew, not the heavy boE,es of extinct megatherium of past ages, but the living reindeer caught last August at the edge of Schroon lake. We want to drive out the drowsy and the prosaie and the te- dious and the humdrum and introduce the brightness and the vivacity and the holy sarcasm and the sanctified wit and the epigrammatic power and tue blood red earnestness and the fire of religious zeal, and I do not know of any way of doing it as well as through the dramatic. t
 What Is Needed.
 But now let us turn to the drama as an amusement and entertainment. Rev. Dr. Bellows of New York many years ago in very brilliant but much criticised sermon took the position that the theater might be renovated and made auxiliary to the church. Many Christian people are of the same opin- lon. l do not agree with them. I have no idea that success is in that direc- tion. What I have said heretofore on this subject, as far as I remember, Is my sentiment now. But today 1 take a step in advance of my former theory Christianity is going to take full pos session, of this world and control its maxims, its laws, its literature, its sci ence and it's amusements. Shut out from the realm of Christianity any thing and you give it up to sin and death.
 If Christianity is mighty enough to manage everything but the amuse- ! ments of the world, then 1t is very | defective Christianity. Is it capable of keeping account of the tears of the world and incompetent to make record of it's smiles? Is it good to follow the | funeral, but dumb at the worlds play ] Can 1t control all the other clements of | our nature but the dramatic element l My idea of Christianity Is that it can and will conquer everything.
 Now, what we want Is to hasten | that time. How will it be done? By the church going over to the theateri | f pxy i'm n to the church? It will not come. What we want Is a reformed amusement as. sociation in every city and town of the l United States. Once announced and explained and illustrated, the Chris
 tian and philanthropic capitalist will come forward to establish 1t, and there | will be public spirited men everywhere
 who willdo this work for the dramatic element of our natures. We need a new institution tn meet and recognize