Los Angeles herald., 1908-09-24
kENNEDY'S PLAY IS
( VAST MORAL LESSON
LECTURES ON "THE SERVANT
IN THE HOUSE"
Mrs. Benjamin Fay Mills Analyze:
Before Fellowship Audience
Play Recently Given
in This City

| The subject of the address given by
Mrs. Benjamin Fay Mills before the
Los Angeles Fellowship was "The Ser
want in the House." play which Is at
| tracing crowded houses and deep In
terest wherever given, and which was
recently rendered in this city.
| Mrs. Mills said "The drama Is 9
powerful preacher. For good or Ill Its
| influence is greatly felt in modern So
ciety. Charles Ram Kennedy Is 8
| sermon-maker. He has caught visior
and crystallized it into play. But
1t is a vision of which many of us are
having glimpses, and Is indeed one o.
| the great ideas Of this age-universa
human brotherhood.
Here are the texts which Mr.. Ken
nedy uses for this sermon-play: II
man say, I love God and hateth hi
brother, he is liar; for he that lovetl
not his brother whom he hath seen
how can he love God. whom he hatl
not seen? The hunger for brother
hood is at the bottom Of the unrest o.
| the modern civilized world!"
11rs. Mills gave the whole story OF
| the play, accompanied by quite full
readings from 1t, and q running COM
mentary on Its sociological and spirit
ual Significance. She dwelt on the por-
trayal Of the evolution of a soul from
the sphere of narrow affection and sell
fish ambition into that of wider sym
pathies and keener apprectations OF
Justice, as illustrated by tho conflicts
and cangreslin the thought of the vicar
and even more vividly brought out In
the experience of the Wears wife. She
spoke of the partial blindness and deaf
ness of the wealthy, worldly bishop o1
Lancashire, 1.-The bishop Of stocks ano
bonds," as being symbolical of his lack
OF spiritual comprehension.
Spirit Of Mutual Help
The strong character of the brother
who was a drainman who "'adn't
bad nature to begin with" but had
fallen low through encouragement
with his hard conditions, and then had
risen to better and cleaner life
through the hope and light that So
brought out; but the experience
through which he came to see that moi
violence, but the spirit of unselfish
mutual service would alone set things
right, was well emphasized.
The Interpretation Of the character Of
llanson, the butler, and whilon
bishop of Benares, did not place Linn as
the historical or traditional Christ, but
as the soul, the higher self in each OF
us--the Holy Presence which evei
seeks to lead us to higher and better
| living. The final scene, In which the
two brothers, the drainman and the
Clergyman, gladly prepare to sacrifice
their lives in clearing away the slime
and stencil of the old grave beneath
the church, which had been the cause
of great trouble, perplexity and de-
preston, was well presented, as sug-
gestive of the necessity for immediate
determined and courageous effort ir
making clean and strong the founda-
| tions of our social life.
Mrs. Mills closed with the words
'Tf we are Indifferent and unbrotherly
caring not that all the great throng Of
men and women and even little chill
dren who work at some disadvantage
because of unjust economic conditions
serve us while we do not serve them
| IL we are narroN and exclusive in oul
affections and ambitions; If We are held
| by custom and convention and fear oi
| the world; there is grave under US
an old, terrible grave, full of the filth
and horror of our own selfishness, ano
| holding us with the tyranny of the
dead. And before all or any of oui
| lives can be pure and joyous and free
someone must go down into the muck
and slime of our Individual and socia
selfishness and clear it out. Somebody
must be the moral drainman."