ons, lest offence be given to
this sect or that. So let such denominations as are in the habit of
cooperating, themselves take over this medium, not gingerly, but
whole-heartedly, as in mediaeval time the hierarchy strengthened its hold
on the people with the marvels of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
This matter is further discussed in the seventeenth chapter, entitled
"Progress and Endowment."

But there is a field wherein the commercial man will not be accused of
heresy or sacrilege, which builds on ritualistic birth and death and
elements akin thereto. This the established producer may enter without
fear. Which brings us to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, issued by the
American Vitagraph Company in 1911. This film should be studied in the
High Schools and Universities till the canons of art for which it stands
are established in America. The director was Larry Trimble. All honor to
him.

The patriotism of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, if taken literally,
deals with certain aspects of the Civil War. But the picture is
transfigured by so marked a devotion, that it is the main illustration in
this work of the religious photoplay.

The beginning shows President Lincoln in the White House brooding over
the lack of response to his last call for troops. (He is impersonated by
Ralph Ince.) He and Julia Ward Howe are looking out of the window on a
recruiting headquarters that is not busy. (Mrs. Howe is impersonated by
Julia S. Gordon.) Another scene shows an old mother in the West refusing
to let her son enlist. (This woman is impersonated by Mrs. Maurice.) The
father has died in the war. The sword hangs on the wall. Later Julia Ward
Howe is shown in her room asleep at midnight, then rising in a trance and
writing the Battle Hymn at a table by the bed.

The pictures that might possibly have passed before her mind during the
trance are thrown upon the screen. The phrases they illustrate are not in
the final order of the poem, but in the possible sequence in which they
went on the paper in the first sketch. The dream panorama is not a
literal discussion of abolitionism or states' rights. It illustrates
rather the Hebraic exultation applied to all lands and times. "Mine eyes
have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"; a gracious picture of the
nativity. (Edith Storey impersonates Mary the Virgin.) "I have seen him
in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps" and "They have builded him
an altar in the evening d