es iii. 11.

[17] Prov. iv. 15.

Theatres.

If I say that it degrades oneself to find pleasure in degrading things
or degraded people, you will perhaps admit the fact but deny that it
has any application to theatre-going. Is it not a fashionable,
intellectual, and what not, amusement? Let us see.

Many of you who yet are theatre-goers, know well that you would feel
yourselves degraded if even a dear friend went on the stage.

"She has trailed an honoured name in the dust,"--so have I heard the
comment, from one who was not even a personal friend. "She might at
least have taken another name!"--And the speaker was not brought up
among Puritans, and belonged to a Church which--as a Church--has no
fear of the theatre. I think occasional indulgence was common enough
in the family. And the young actress had done nothing but become an
actress, keeping her own name. Friends are mortified,--and yet friends
go to see, and to help along.

"But what shall actors do?" you say; "it is their way of getting a
livelihood." No, not if support were given only to _other_ ways. A
man may make a round sum at a rowing match which cripples his strength
for life; or by leaping across Passaic Falls, till he breaks his neck;
he may set up for a wizard or a conjuror or a quack doctor,--he may
pick your pocket or fire your house,--all in the way of business. The
only question is in which way will you help him on. Things must be
judged of quite apart from their money-making results. The old African
maker of "greegrees" (charms) burns them all when she becomes a
Christian; and the young carpenter just converted under Mr. Moody's
preaching, gives up his only job because he can not do it for Christ,
and will not even drive a nail in the scaffolding about a theatre. For
the money that changes hands there, is the price of "the souls of men."

You do not believe all this: you do not believe that evil can hide
among such fascinations. And for the actors, they are not men and
women! Are they not kings and queens and fairies? The glamour of
their dress, the strangeness of the scenes, the un-everyday tragic or
fantastic air of it all; with sometimes the witchery of music or the
wonders of artistic effect, lay a spell upon your common sense. Do I
not know? Have I not seen young Christian girls from the country a
standing jest with people who knew the world, because--beginning with
what the laughers called "a holy horror" of the