s sinner, for he was a merchant prince or a banker,
but we will beseech no forgiveness for this other one, for he was a
play-actor."

It surely requires the furthest possible reach of self-righteousness to
enable a man to lift his scornful nose in the air and turn his back upon
so poor and pitiable a thing as a dead stranger come to beg the last
kindness that humanity can do in its behalf. This creature has violated
the letter of the Gospel, and judged George Holland--not George Holland,
either, but his profession through him. Then it is, in a measure, fair
that we judge this creature's guild through him. In effect he has said,
"We are the salt of the earth; we do all the good work that is done; to
learn how to be good and do good men must come to us; actors and such
are obstacles to moral progress." Pray look at the thing reasonably a
moment, laying aside all biases of education and custom. If a common
public impression is fair evidence of a thing then this minister's
legitimate, recognized, and acceptable business is to tell people
calmly, coldly, and in stiff, written sentences, from the pulpit, to go
and do right, be just, be merciful, be charitable. And his congregation
forget it all between church and home. But for fifty years it was George
Holland's business on the stage to make his audience go and do right,
and be just, merciful, and charitable--because by his living, breathing,
feeling pictures he showed them what it was to do these things, and
how to do them, and how instant and ample was the reward! Is it not
a singular teacher of men, this reverend gentleman who is so poorly
informed himself as to put the whole stage under ban, and say, "I do not
think it teaches moral lessons"? Where was ever a sermon preached that
could make filial ingratitude so hateful to men as the sinful play of
"King Lear"? Or where was there ever a sermon that could so convince
men of the wrong and the cruelty of harboring a pampered and unanalyzed
jealousy as the sinful play of "Othello"? And where are there ten
preachers who can stand in the pulpit preaching heroism, unselfish
devotion, and lofty patriotism, and hold their own against any one of
five hundred William Tells that can be raised upon five hundred stages
in the land at a day's notice? It is almost fair and just to aver
(although it is profanity) that nine-tenths of all the kindness and
forbearance and Christian charity and generosity in the hearts of
the American people