ONE of the unsatisfactory signs of the times is the great increase of theatre-going amongst the young men amongst professedly Christian families, and the encouragement given to theatres by our newspapers, probably in some cases for the sake of their advertisements. The experience of all ages and nations proves that the theatre is one of the “devil’s chapels,” and nothing can be more silly than to suppose that its moral results will ever be beneficial, or that Satan will ever “cast out Satan.”
The following just and admirable remarks on this subject, made by the Rev. Mr. Fleming, of Edinburgh, deserve universal perusal:—”It is because I believe that the amusement supplied by the stage is pernicious that I go against all theatres, royal and mean, great and small, but especially the latter, as from the class they attract they are under strong temptations to give just what will take, or furnish what will pay, irrespective of the higher considerations of propriety and utility. There are three vices especially which the stage contributes in no small degree to produce and strengthen. The first is profanity; oaths are liberally diffused over the most popular plays of the best dramatists; the oath is technically styled ‘the spicing’ of the play, and is rather loved than loathed by a numerous class, although it involves a direct and glaring violation of the Third Commandment, ‘Thou
shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’ (Applause.) The second vice which the stage promotes is impurity. Several of the plays of Shakespeare abound with indecent expressions and immoral suggestions. I could mention the name of one who figures as a lecherous, filthy sensualist, with the language of profanity and lasciviousness constantly on his lips; but then he is a mirth-inspiring humourist, he makes people laugh, and therefore he is not only tolerated but extolled. Intemperance is another vice encouraged by the theatre. When a young man has been for hours pent up in a theatre, when his passions have been unduly stirred by the sights and sounds he has seen and heard, when he is thus the subject of an unhealthy excitement, he is then a ready prey to another kind of animal excitement supplied at the doors of the theatre—I mean that furnished by the stimulants of the dram-shop. The one virtually paves the way for the other as all experience has shown, and of this fact none are so well aware as the publicans, who generally plant themselves down in close proximity to places devoted to dramatic entertainments. ‘Where the carcase is, there the eagles are gathered together.’ Of this close connection between the theatre and the drunkenness, numerous facts might be adduced in proof. At present I simply refer to the seasonable testimony of Councillor Lewis, who stated in the Town Council the other day that, since the opening of the Princess’s Theatre, not fewer than seven additional public-houses had sprung up in the immediate vicinity to the serious annoyance of our quiet, orderly, well-disposed fellow-citizens. How magistrates, with any pretensions to Christianity, could sanction such a pest, by a deliberate vote, is what I cannot understand. To me it seems an outrageous inconsistency. But it has been said, ‘the people demand such places of entertainment.’ What people, I ask? The same people who would convert our Sabbaths into holidays, and our sanctuaries into saloons. The same people that would have our public-houses open on Sunday and Saturday, by night and by day! And are the clamours of these people for self-indulgence to override the claims of morality and religion? Are the property, lives, and morals of the best part of the community to be put in jeopardy that stage-players may ply their craft and play-goers have their mirth? Are the peace loving and tax-paying people, who still form the majority, to be sacrificed to a brawling and lawless minority? No, says justice, let law say what it may; and never must we rest till every nuisance of this kind is extirpated from our midst. In the meantime a heavy responsibility rests with our magistrates in reference to such things, and I for one cannot help thinking and saying that, if they pursue the tactics they have recently inaugurated in this respect, they will forfeit the goodwill of the moral and the religious, and must cease to be ‘a terror to evil-doers, and the praise of such as do well.’—
The Watchword.