The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-03-30
ANTIQUITY OF THE DRAMA.

Bible. Wnen i speak OF the drama at
the beginning and the close Of the
Bible, 1 do not mean an a~llegory, but
I mean the truth so stated that in
grouping and in startling effect it is
a God given, world resounding, heaven
echoing drama. Now, If God implant-
ed this dramatic element N our ma
lures, and If he has cultivated and de-
veloped it in the Scriptures, l demand
that you recognize 1t.
Because the drama has again and
again been degraded and employed for
destructive pc is nothing gains
the drama, any more than music ought
TO be accursed because 1t has been
taken again and again into the satur-
nalian wassails Of 1000 years. VIII
you refuse 10 enthrone music on the
church organ because h art has been
trampled again and again under the
feet of the lascivious dance?
1t is nothing against painting and
sculpture tina in Corinth and Hercu-
laneum they were demonstrative OF
vulgarity and turpitude. The dread
full museum at Pompeii shall throw no
discredit on Powers Greek Slave or
Church's Heart of the Andes or Au-
bens' Descent From the Cross or
Angeles Last Judgment" The very
fact that again and again the drama
has been dragged through the sewers
of iniquity is the reason why we should
snatch it up n start 1t out on a grand
AM a holy and a 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 theatre
than a hymn ook is a church. | am
not speaking in regard to the theatre
at all. The drama is a literary express
sion of that feeling which God implant-
ed in the human soul. Neither will
the drama ever be lifted to its proper
sphere by wholesale denunciation 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 purein life, il is because
you have not had very wide acquain-
lance.
Some one will say to me, Did you
not some years ago preach u sermon
in Wholesale denuciation of all drama
tists?" / reply that hat m
which was printed in a secular paper,
then copied in many religious papers
was written by a literary wit who had
never seen me, who found out what
the text was from some one who had
been present and then composed the
whole thing on his own desk-the
whole thing a c~aricature representing
me as hostile to geological gardens and
as considering it a great sin TO look at
an elephant or a crocodile. Mr.. DaV-
export, no wonder, at the close of a
play a few nights after that in the
Chestnut Street theatre, Philadelphia,
stepped before the curtain and de-
nounced hat rmo He could not
have hated it more than I did.
Wholesale de~nunciation of all drama
fists will never elevate the drama.
Yonder stand a church and a theatre
on opposite sides of the street. The
church shouts over to the theatre,
You are all scoundrels." The theatre
shout back, You are all hypocrites,"
and they both falsify. Dropping all
indiscriminate jeremiads against dra-
matists and realizing that the drama
is not necessarily connected with this
institution or with that, I want to show
you how the dramatic element in our
natures may be harnessed to the char
lot of civilization and Christianity.
EMPLOYMENT OF DRAMATIC ART
Fifty essays about the sorrows of
the poor could not affect M as a lit
tie drama of accident and suffering 1
saw one slippery morning in the streets
of Philadelphia. Just ahead of me was
a lad wretched in apparel, his limb
amputated at the knee; from the pallor
of the boys cheek, the amputation not
long before. He had a package of bro
ken food under his arm-food he had
begged, / suppose, at the doors. AS he
passed on over the slippery pavement,
cautiously and carefully, / steadied
him until his crutch slipped and he
fell. / helped him up as we'll as 1 could
gathered up the fragments of the pack
age as we'll as / could, put them under
one arm and the crutch under the 9TH
er arm. But when l saw the blood
run dow his pale cheek 1 burst into
tears. Fifty essays about the suffer-
ings of the poor could not touch one
like that little drama of accident and
suffering.
Oh, we want in all our different de-
partments of usefulness more of the
dramatic element and less of the did
actic. The tendency in this day is to
drone religion. to whine religion, to
cant religion, to moan religion, to
croak religion, to se~pulcharize religion,
when we ought to present it in ami
mated and spectacular manner
Let me say to all young ministers of
the gospel: If you have this dramatic
element in you nature, use it for God
and heaven. If you will go home and
look over the history of the church,
you will find that those men have
brought more souls to Christ who have
been dramatic. Rowland Hill, drama
tic; Thomas Chalmers, dramatic;
Thomas Guthrie, dramatic; John Knox.
dramatic; Robert McCheyne, dramatic;
Christmas Evans, dramatic; George
Whitefield, dramatic; Robert Hall.
dramatic; Robert South, dramatic;
Bourdaloue, dramatic; Fene1on, dra-
matte; John Mason, dramatic. When
you get into the ministry, if you at
tempt to cultivate that element and
try to WELD it for God, you will meet
with mighty rebuff and ~caricature,
and ecclesiastical counse will take
your case in charge, and they will try
to put o down. But the God who
starts you will help you through, and
great will be the eternal rewards for
the assiduous and the plucky.
What we want, ministers and lay
men, is to get our sermons and our
exhortations and our prayers out of
the old rut. The old hackneyed reiig-
Gus phrases that come snoring down
through the centuries will never arrest
n masses. h We want today,
ycL in your sphere and I 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 bones of extinct me-