er said
that he preferred a prayer-meeting with five or six queer old men
and two or three very aged women, with one or two candles, and who
solemnly affirmed that he enjoyed that far more than he could a
play of Shakespeare, was expected with much reason, I think, to be
rewarded in another world.

_Question_. Do you think that church people were justified in
their opposition to the drama in the days when Congreve, Wycherley
and Ben Jonson were the popular favorites?

_Answer_. In that time there was a great deal of vulgarity in many
of the plays. Many things were said on the stage that the people
of this age would not care to hear, and there was not very often
enough wit in the saying to redeem it. My principal objection to
Congreve, Wycherley and most of their contemporaries is that the
plays were exceedingly poor and had not much in them of real,
sterling value. The Puritans, however, did not object on account
of the vulgarity; that was not the honest objection. No play was
ever put upon the English stage more vulgar then the "Table Talk"
of Martin Luther, and many sermons preached in that day were almost
unrivaled for vulgarity. The worst passages in the Old Testament
were quoted with a kind of unction that showed a love for the
vulgar. And, in my judgment, the worst plays were as good as the
sermons, and the theatre of that time was better adapted to civilize
mankind, to soften the human heart, and to make better men and
better women, than the pulpit of that day. The actors, in my
judgment, were better people than the preachers. They had in them
more humanity, more real goodness and more appreciation of beauty,
of tenderness, of generosity and of heroism. Probably no religion
was ever more thoroughly hateful than Puritanism. But all religionists
who believe in an eternity of pain would naturally be opposed to
everything that makes this life better; and, as a matter of fact,
orthodox churches have been the enemies of painting, of sculpture,
of music and the drama.

_Question_. What, in your estimation, is the value of the drama
as a factor in our social life at the present time?

_Answer_. I believe that the plays of Shakespeare are the most
valuable things in the possession of the human race. No man can
read and understand Shakespeare without being an intellectually
developed man. If Shakespeare could be as widely circulated as
the Bible--if all the Bible societies would break the plates they