The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-16
IS THE PLAY "A MODERN
 MAGDALEN" IMMORAL ;?

- HE curtain had fallen on the last
 act of "A Modern Magdalen"
 and the audience was leaving the theatre in Q thoughtful mood The play had been intense and well acted.
 Tt is the most immoral play which has ever appeared in Birmingham and should be prohibited by law" said a man.
 sTo me it was a great sermon" said woman.
 As is often the case the woman was right The tragedy was a sermon. It taught a lesson and was ably preached.
 What is the story of A Modern Mag dalen? A woman sees her younger sis ter whom she loves dying from pow erty and want Her father is a drunkard and will not work. Her mother is dead. and she feels it imperative that she should earn money. Rather than marry a rich man who Is repulsive to her she leaves home. She has no friends, has had no moral training from father or mother. and she does what many other women have done to earn a livelihood goes on the stage. She eventually lives with rich man whose money she reg ularly se1ds to her father This is of course very wrong. From worldly standpoint at least, she should have mar ried her rich suitor. So far so bad.
 Her sisters health is regained how ever. from improved surroundings and nourishment, due to the Magdalen, and she becomes engaged to a respectable man"
 in the midst of a wild life glittering with fictitious prosperity the Magdalen Is unhappy. The most tragic scenes in the play Is where this sister whom she has supported, but who is ignorant of it, spurns her, and where the Magdalen re- breaches her father. who has accepted her money knowing it's source. 'It is a bitter thing for a girl to say to her father" she says. but in all my life your hand has ever pointed downwards and never upwards"
 Things eventually go to smash and she ends by going off to the war as a nurse, her sister being now provided for. thus seeking by new unselfishness to forget a short but tragic past
 The story is the very old one of woman's weakness and self-sacriace for those she loves, and it's moral to put it
 
 This is the text from which Amelia Bing- ham breaches her sermon. If there is any immortality in the play it is hidden in the human tragedy
 The play-goer who is mortified at such scenes Is the same who would throw up his hands in holy borrow at the mention of Sappho. No one will say this work of Daudaf ia mt a uosfarDfaoa ao5 t1,a present scribe who confesses to having read the book considers that it teaches a moral Opinions differ and there are, perhaps, some who consider the story of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair immoral.
 What is moral and what immoral? After all is it not the intent-the reason of the thing? If a man accidentally fires pistol and kills his friend it is not a crime, but if he intended to kill him it is murder. Is it not the same with a book or play? No matter what char acters the author uses, if he intends to teach a moral lesson is it not a moral work Can the evil results of vice be shown without exhibiting characters stained with it? Can a child be taught that a candle will burn its fingers with out bringing them near enough to feel its heat2
 On the other hand if an author should teach that the paths of vice lead to pleas ure, peace, contentment and prosperity then his work would be immoral for it would be contrary to fact, contrary to conscience and the divine law.
 Vice cannot be driven from the world except through knowledge of its Ill eff fects Innocense and ignorance are the soils upon which vice thrives. A story of self-sacrifice for a pure love, even though 1t may be mistaken sacrifice, can never be immoral. Such cases as are exampled by A Modern Magdalen may not, perhaps, exist outside ot fiction or the drama. Sull nothing appeals more to the selfish human heart than generosi- ty. Christ's self-sacrifce is the corner stone of christianity Secretary of State Hay has immortallzed the self-sacrifice of the pilot, Jim Blodsoe. Hugo's charac- ter of Jean Val Jean lives through his unsel1shness and that greatest of mod ern plays, Cyrano de Bergerac, Is a story of unself1sh love Things that touch the chords of the heart causing them to vi- brate with human love and sympathy are not immoral
 In a little poem appearing recently, woman whose friends reproach her for marrying a dwarf, says: T love him. Leave to God the rest''
 Could not Katinka, the Modern Mazda len. say. "1 loved her. Leave the rest to God" F. H. M.