The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1908-04-17
JUST A LITTLE INToLERANT

Passion Play" as produced by the
moving picture shows throughout the
country.
No editor should allow himself to
become intolerant, and the religious
editor should be the last one to set
the example
We saw the Passion Play" and
confess that our ideas of the sacred
things it depicted were not magnified
nor exalted, although the pictures
were almost the same as those given
in the Bible and other holy books,
which have received the endorsement
! of good men in all ages.
In the Bible they are mere pictures
and only so impress us, but in the
moving picture productions they seem
animated with real life, and their very
naturalness destroys in a measure the
| holiness with which We have been
taught to throw around these sacred
! themes.
We have been told by a celebrated
author that familiarity breeds con-
tempt" and while we could not say
! this in connection with so sacred a
subject, still we could not repress a
| feeling almost akin to it,
Mary looked precisely like any 9TH
er woman, Joseph like any other man,
the infant babe" precisely like any
other babe; and after Jesus grew to
be a man, the anger he displayed in
whipping the money changers" from
the temple, and his riding into Jeru-
| saalem astride an ass, despite our eff
forts to the contrary, lowered our ex-
altatiOn of feeling and brought the
scenes and performances down to the
level of everyday things.
And yet the pictures, no doubt, are
true to the things described, for after
all, Christ was a man as other men,
and took upon himself their weak
nesses and infirmities. He was born
as other children are born; he ate,
and dreamed, and slept, and became
fatigued, as other men, and eventual
ly died; but we are wont to throw
around these things a halo not of the
earth earthly, and the vividness and
naturalness Of the moving pictures
make them altogether too life-like.
We were struck also with the small
ness of the stream the river Jordan
presented, and, like Editor Tharpe, we
thought it must be a mistake, so we
began reading up on the subject, and
whatever it may have been in ancient
times, it is now described by travellers |
as not the majestic stream that it was
in the days of Joshua; and then, too, |
the season of the year makes a big |
difference in its appearance Dr. Wat |
son says that the Jordan was visited |
some time early in the 3O's by DR.. |
Maundrell, who was disconnected by |
the shallOwnesS of the stream at the |
time of the year that he expected to |
see it overlooking its banks, and his
embarrassment seems to have in
creased when he contemplated the
double margin within which it flowed |
DR.. POcocke observed that it had an
inner and an outer bank and says |
that it rarely Overflows its inner
banks. Volney also says that it has
two banks. That the inner bank
marks the ordinary height of the
stream; the outer its ancient eleva-
ton during the rainy season.
So, after all, the picture exhibited
in the Passion Play" may have been
taken during the dry season, when
the stream was at its lowest. and may
be a correct representation of it.
We have also read up a little on the
ancient mode of baptism, and find that
Dr. Adam Clarke, Knox, and a great
many others, who devoted a great deal
of learning and investigation as to the
proper mode of baptism, arrived at no
definite conclusion, and said after all
that it was not the mode but the
thing typified that was efficacious.
DR.. Clarke says that baptism was
an ancient rite of the Hebrews, and
was practiced as early as was circum-
cision.
AS a number of Christian churches
practice various forms of baptism, it
Is bold utterance to say that pour
ing is as bold and black a falsehood
as Ananias ever uttered" and our re-
ligious teachers ought to be a little
temperate in their criticisms and toll
Grant in their conclusions.
The veteran editor of the Ocala /