entiments. The church has always regarded the
stage as a rival, and all its utterances have been as malicious as
untrue. It has always felt that the money given to the stage was
in some way taken from the pulpit. It is on this principle that
the pulpit wishes everything, except the church, shut up on Sunday.
It knows that it cannot stand free and open competition.

All well-educated ministers know that the Bible suffers by a
comparison with Shakespeare. They know that there is nothing within
the lids of what they call "the sacred book" that can for one moment
stand side by side with "Lear" or "Hamlet" or "Julius Caesar" or
"Antony and Cleopatra" or with any other play written by the immortal
man. They know what a poor figure the Davids and the Abrahams and
the Jeremiahs and the Lots, the Jonahs, the Jobs and the Noahs cut
when on the stage with the great characters of Shakespeare. For
these reasons, among others, the pulpit is malicious and hateful
when it thinks of the glories of the stage. What minister is there
now living who could command the prices commanded by Edwin Booth
or Joseph Jefferson; and what two clergymen, by making a combination,
could contend successfully with Robson and Crane? How many clergymen
would it take to command, at regular prices, the audiences that
attend the presentation of Wagner's operas?

It is very easy to see why the pulpit attacks the stage. Nothing
could have been in more wretched taste than for the minister to
condemn Miss Emma Abbott for rising in church and defending not
only herself, but other good women who are doing honest work for
an honest living. Of course, no minister wishes to be answered;
no minister wishes to have anyone in the congregation call for the
proof. A few questions would break up all the theology in the
world. Ministers can succeed only when congregations keep silent.
When superstition succeeds, doubt must be dumb.

The Methodist bishop who attacked Miss Abbott simply repeated the
language of several centuries ago. In the laws of England actors
were described as "sturdy vagrants," and this bishop calls them
"strolling players." If we only had some strolling preachers like
Garrick, like Edwin Forrest, or Booth or Barrett, or some crusade
sisters like Mrs. Siddons, Madam Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, or
Madam Modjeska, how fortunate the church would be!

_Question_. What is your opinion of the relative merits of the
pulpit and the stage, preach