The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1908-03-29
MORAL PASSION IN The DRAMA
Mr.. KENNEDYS PLAY A SERI-
Gus MATTER.
Are We 70 Remain Afraid to BE ssrOu't
is the stage Never 70 Meet
spiritual Needs7- The Servant In
the House" Attempts TO Meet Them.

the House" Attempts 70 MeeJ Ihem'
J. careful consideration Of all the objec-
tons raised last week to The Servant in
the House inspires the reflection that a
considerable number Of people regard Mr..
Kennedy's play as . descent from the sub
lime 10 the religious. This is important,
a. il Of course calls for a redehnition
t-1sa Of sublimity and religion. For
that task Of %redeaning, however, THE
Suns reviewer feels himself in all
humility incapable. 1t must DO en-
trusted rather to those pregnant minds
who have made II necessary. And, great
IA the drawback undoubtedly is, The
Servant in the House must needs be dis
oussed here under those conceptions OF
Sublimity and religion, with their attendant
qualities, which poor, mistaken humanity
hAs 20 long accepted in theory and painfully
strivon for in practice. We would gladly
rswite v the Gospels II we could, realiz.
ing, with one commentator last Tuesday,
that any fresh statement Of them can con-
tain nothing new, that IL Ia inevitably 'trite.
But our fowerlesS prose, our lack OF a
sonorous rhetoric, Is alone a sufficient
deterrent. We must humbly pass on the
job.
IL there no spot to be saved for any earnest
reality except 'the poor little enclosure
behind the altar rail?" Mr. Kennedy's
play, which is truly a modern Morality, not
q sermon nor a tract, but a statement OF
applied religion in terms Of the drama, a
play with It's own dramatic appeal and
human significance, attempts to say that a
spot shall be saved, and that spot-the stage.
testers have risen up 10 smite this daring
author; his r~estatements Of the Sermon
on the Mount are characterized by one as
the most obvious and irreproachable plati-
tudes that mental mediocnty could devise
or stoggy dulness admire, concerning
morality and the brotherhood Of mankind.
Another suggests, Of the Servant, that
this impressive figure, clothed in it's mysti-
cism, scarcely lent itself to the job Of passing
around the toast" II any argument we're
really needed in justification Of the play,
which lie amply justified by its sheer dra-
matio appeal, this Last sentiment quoted
would furnish il. II, after 1900 years, the
message Of the Gospels is so misunderstood
that a critic Of whatever race or creed can
miss entirely this symbolism Of service,
then all his and everybody else's conten-
tons that The Servant in the House is
needless because il is -%trite,' because it
states nothing new fall in a heap, self
refuted.
As a matter Of fact, not TO mince matters,
not in the face Of anything so sincere as
this play to be guilty Of insincerty and
half truths, the objections to The Servant
In the House disguise themselves as they
may under chatter Of art for art s sake, or
the thrice tiresome and fundamentally
meaningless assertion that the mission OF
the stage is not TO preach are in reality
based on ethical unresponsiveness, on that
shallow and cowsrdly fear OF the serious,
the deep, the truth seeking, which oharac-
terizes minds suspicious OF moral passion
or dulled by the material environment, the
cares and the pleasures Of a daily life
bounded by a narrow horizon. II is against
this unresponsiveness and this fear that
The Servant in the House has got to
fight. And it has not the comfort Emerson
offers to the printed book, which does not
perish like a play for want Of attention,
The effect Of any writing on the public
mind says Emerson, lis automatically
measured by it's depth Of thought. How
much water does it draw? II il awaken
you TO think. if it lift you from your feet
with the great voice Of eloquence, then the
effect is to be wide, slow, permanent, over
the minds Of men; if tho pages instruct
you not, they will die like flies in the hour
IL il a sad reflection that plays which do
instruct. however. are the plays too apt
TO perish in the hour, A duty rests on
every intelligent theatregoer in New York
70 see that The Servant in the House
does not share this fate.
The austere. lofty soul Of James Marti-
neau has passed full orbed into the spirit
land. His words live, nor do we fear TO be
'trite' in repeating them. 10 the middle Of
the last century he wrote, Our current
notions Of benevolence have descended 10
ne from the recent times Of feudalism; yet
We are conscious that they do not come up
TO the higher demands which have arisen,
or adapt themselves 10 the new intellectual
and moral wants comprised in any Christian
estimate Of the poor in this world, The
ease Of ancient condescension is gone; the
grateful recognition Of human brother
hood is not attained. To aim at making
men ike ourselves into creatures with
enough 10 e~at-though a thing unrealized
as yet-is felt 70 be insufficient, and how TO
raise them into the likeness Of the children
OF God we cannot tell-the very notion re-
ceiving al present but a timid acknowl-
edgment.'
And does anybody fancy that this CRATE
full recognition Of human brotherhood"
has been made in the brief half century
aimee the sermon on Winter Worship"
was written? Does any one fancy that
the notion Of raising our brothers into the
likeness Of God" is much more boldly ac-
knowledged to-day? Why, 60 TO the Rev.
Percy Grants Sunday evening Socialistic
debates and you will hear speaker after
speaker affirm that the Bread Line has no
soul. only a belly. And those speakers are
not the sentimental philanthropists who
ara shocked by the sentiment, but the men
from the East Side, the young Socialists,
who have invaded this Fifth avenue church
burning with reality and confronted by
conditions. The mere task Of making their
brothers into creatures with enough TO
eat Is all they can grapple; 1t absolutely
limits their horizon. The Bread Line it.
self may not be divine. but the men In it
are said a speaker in refutation. And
came a woman's voice, rs il the diviner
the longer it ISL