Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-03-19

dining the waters, cavalrymen of heav-
en- galloping on white horses, nations
in doxology, halleluiahs to the right of
them. helleluiahs to the left of them
AS the Bible opens with the drama of
the first paradise, so it it closes with
the drama of the second paradise.
Mind you, when l say drama [ do not
mean myth or fable, for my theology is
of the oldest type-500 years old, thou
sands of years old, as old as the Bible.
When l speak of the drama at the be-
ginning and the close of the Bible, do
not mean an allegory, but 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 implanted this dramatic
element in our natures, and if he has
cultivated and developed it in the
Scriptures, | demand that you recOg-
niZe it.
Expression of Feeling.
Because the drama has again and
again been degraded and employed for
destructive purposes is nothing against
the drama any more than music ought
to be accurSed because it has been tax
en- again and again into the saturnalian
wassails Of 1000 years. Will you re-
fuse to enthrone music on the church
organ because the art has been tram
pied again and again under the feet Of
the lascivious dance?
1t is nothing against painting and
sculpture that in Corinth and Hercula-
neum they were demonstrative of vul-
fY11
museum at Pompeii shall throw no dis
credit on Powers "Greek Slave" or
Church's Heart of the Andes or Ru-
bens' descent From the Cross" or An
gelo'S Last Judgment" The very fact
that again and again the drama has
been dragged through the sewers of in
EQUITY is the reason why we should
snatch it up and start it out on
grand and a holy and magnificent
mission. Let me say at this point in
my sermon that the drama will never
be lifted to it's 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 a church.
am not speaking in regard to the the
alter at all. The drama is a literary eX-
preston of that feeling which God i'm
planted in the human soul. Neither
will the drama ever be lifted to its
proper sphere by wholesale denuncia-
ton 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-
quaintance.
Wholesale denunciatiOn of all dram
atists will never elevate the drama.
Yonder stand a 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
md realizing that the drama is not
lecesSarily connected with this lnsti-
tuition or with that, | want to show
you how the dramatic element in our
natures may be harnessed to the chart
OF of civilization and Christianity.
An Everyday Drama.
Fifty essays about the sorrows OF
the Door could not affect me as a little
drama Of accident and suffering l saw
one slippery morning In the streets or
Philadelphia. Just ahead of me was a
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
I n A
passed on over the slippery pavement,
cautiously and carefully, | steadied
him until his crutch slipped and he fell.
helped him up as well as | 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 | saw the blood run
down his pale cheek 1 burst into tears.
Fifty essays about the sufferingS 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 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 hackneyed 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 bones of extinct megatherium Of
mast h11f tho 1irinu rainHoor