ce of the
Mass in all Roman Catholic Churches throughout the length and breadth of
the world. In the Mass we have a dramatic action _pantomimically_
presented, in part aided by lyrical and epical elements. I will not,
however, pursue this portion of my subject further, save than to add
that at the Catholic Churches' festivals, especially during Holy Week or
Passion Week, what I have mentioned of the Mass becomes at these times
marked in even a greater degree.

With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the _Mimis_ became
wanderers on the face of the earth, only appearing at festivals and the
like, when they were wanted, and returning to their haunts as
mysteriously as they came.

In the fourth century A.D. they were excluded from the benefit of the
rites of the Church, and even those who visited their entertainments,
instead of churches, on the Sundays and holidays, were excommunicated.
The Theodosian creed provided that the actors were not to have the
sacraments administered to them save when death was imminent, and then
only that, in case of recovery, their calling should be renounced.

In the second century one of the Fathers of the Church wrote a special
treatise against plays (_Tertulian De Spectaculis_), in which he asks
those who will not renounce them "Whether the God of truth, who hates
all falsehood, can be willing to receive into His kingdom those whose
features and hair, whose age and sex, whose sighs and laughter, love and
anger, are all feigned. He promises them a tragedy of their own when, in
the day of Judgment, they shall be consigned to everlasting suffering."

However, the church was not always against the stage, even in those
early times, as St. Thomas Aquinas says that "The office of the player
as being serviceable for the enlivenment of men, and as not being
blameworthy if the player leads an upright life." Both Saints Thomas
Aquinas and Anthony supported the stage, the latter only stipulating
that the character of Harlequin should not be represented by a
clergyman, nor that Punch should be exhibited in church.

It is one of the most remarkable things that, despite the bitterness,
hostility, and deadly enmity that has been levelled at the stage, and
its players termed "Rogues and Vagabonds" from time immemorial, how it
has lived through it all. In connection with this how the lines of that
great actor, Vandenhoff, occurs to me, a few of which, with the reader's
permission, I subjoin.