The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-18

of his kingdom.
 Dance Cost Life of Saint.
 John the Baptist lost his life on ae
 count of that dance. But many a man. not. like John, in prison, nut in orches- tra chair, has lost his head, both nor ally and spiritually. as the result of an immoral show on the theater boards There may be good theaters. l know that some people whom 1 respect attend inc theater. But 1 know there are also vile theaters. 1 also know some of these vile theaters are attended regularly by some so-ealled good people. And l also know that these vile shows are haunts of spiritual and physical death.
 When I wrote this sermon there lay upon my study desk powerful editorial upon stage Aboninations.' It lately ap- peared in one of the greatest secular newspapers of the present day This ed itorial was not written by minister, but by layman. who perhaps never enters a church. 1t said: It does not seem possible that the public will much longer tolerate the abominations that are con stantly being inflicted upon it from be- hind the footlights of the theaters of the present day Surely the vulgarities and indecenees of actors and actresses of the present day who substitute filth and vile insinuations for wit and humor are not so licensed that they can be allowed to go on forever without rebuke. The nasty and offensive jokes, the immoral action and the language of the slums and the vile resort are all too frequently forced upon the ear and seen in the streets and public places of the town without being Haunted In our faces when we pay good money for a seat in the theater. If the stage has become so impoverished that it must resort to dirti- ness and suggestive vice to maintain itself it were better to abolish it entire ly as an institution" Then this editorial goes more into detail to denounce the trend of the modern tneater which blasts the lives of its audiences by what they see as well as hear. Does any man in the face of such a powerful phiippic de- clare that thousands and tens of thou sands of men and women every year are not morally contaminated by the filthy streams of conversation which play wrights and actors and actresses roll over them in the theaters in the long winter nights? The stream of boiling lava and the showers of burning ashes which fell on Pompeii and Herculaneum on that terrible night in 79 A. D. overwhelming the pleasure-seeking people, were not so much to be dreaded as this torrent of moral filth which Is descending almost every night on the audiences in the thea ters of our great cities and is bringing them 10 spiritual destruction.
 What the Watchman Sees.
 But as d watchman I must not allow my eyes to follow only one class of peo- pie. While the theater audiences are moving drought the streets to witness these distorted and often impossible plays, through the open doors of the saloons I can see the stages on which are being enacted scores and hundreds and thousands of tragedies in real life. Each one of these tragedies is as pathetic as that of a Hamlet, an Othello, Mer- chant of Venice. Each one has more of pathos within 1t than could ever be found in the misery and woe of Dickens "Tale of Two Cities" or a Seton Thomp- sons Autobiography of a Grizzly Bear" In these tragedies of real life enacted upon the stage of the saloon we do not always find the young men and women led as lambs to the slaughter. But we sometimes find them as wild tigers fight ing for their lives when their fore feet have been caught in the steel traps, or as stags at bay, for a little while hold ing off the hounds yet. like mad dogs at the sight of water, they become abso- lutely helpless at the sight and smell of rum.
 Oh the tragedies of the saloons! As a watehman on Gods watch tower who can ever refrain from sympathizing with them and shedding tears of deepest sor- row for them? "Oh. mo-" exclaims some cynical man. "I have no sympathy for the drunlSard. If q man wants to stop drinking he can stop. The only reason why the drunkards do not stop is because they do not want to stop" An my cyni- cal friend, you are wrong. l have no sym pathy for that egotstlc and self-inflated young man who to be smart loafs about a saloon and deliberately cultivates q taste for drink. But there are thousands of men who do not want to drink. They do not know how to stop drinking. They have never yet heard of the grace of God which will save them if they would only let him save them. Aye, l go fur ther than that I believe there are thou sands of drunkards tonight who would be willing to take an ax and with it cut off their right hands if they could only be freed from the curse or drink. They are fighting drink every day of their lives, but in their own strength they cannot stop. And so tonight as q watch man on Gods tower I see thousands of the finest braned men and women going to destruction through the rapids which head toward the awful Niagara of dellr- ium tremens. hear them shouting and cursing and see them tumbling and fight ing and resisting and yet yielding and going down and down. Through the lights coming from the open doors of the saloonsAI see these victims heading to- ward eternal death.
 But. watchman," some one asks, "are these all the sights and sounds of death that you see and hear?' Alas. alas, no! For, while one crowd is passing through the railways and ascending the stair of | the immoral theater. and another crowd is staggering slowly on with flushed | checks hurrying toward the bar behind which liquor Is sold. which in the end | will prove as fatal as the poisonous hem | lock quaffed by Greek philosopher, see still another multitude of death seek | CTS These pass me not in rags or with | slow and leaden steps. They are dressed | for the bathrooms and low dance halls They move in regular step. not with the tramp, tramp, tramp of many soldiers
 but with the sliding and graceful step oi the waltz, the two-step, the polka and