THE THEATRE, FROM A CHRISTIAN STANDPOINT.

The following lecture on " The Theatre, from a Christian standpoint," was delivered on Sunday evening last by the Rev. J. Jefferis, LL.B....

But now turn from the possible to the real, from the theatre as it might be, employed in the impersonation of high and noble truths, to the theatre as it has been, and as it is to-day, degraded by all manner of scandalous accessories, which work to the corruption and ruin of our youth. I know not if there has ever been a time in the history of the stage when it has been altogether free from evil tendencies. The tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles contain high moral and religious teaching. They represented men as they ought to be, not as they were. But the theatrical assemblies of the ancient Greeks were no more satisfied than theatrical audiences of modern Englishmen with ideal pictures of a noble life. Comedies were played and choric dances were introduced, so utterly immoral that women were not allowed to be present. In the time of Euripides tragedy itself deteriorated, and by Aristophanes it became corrupted. But the climax of depravity was reached under the Romans. Plautus and Terence show us how genius had sunk into sensuality ; but no tongue may name, no pen pourtray, the abominations of the stage in the later empire. It was a carnival of the fiercest and basest passions that have ever polluted and degraded human life. If there was now and then a gleam of what manhood ought to be in justice, courage, and tenderness, there were constantly recurring pictures of what the men of that day actually were in bestial and savage appetite. When Christianity arose in her strength and purity, and turned the white light of the lamp of Christ upon these dark impurities, men—even heathen men—were shocked and ashamed. The theatre of England presents us with a strange mixture of good and evil. Some of the noblest ideals of human life that the human mind has ever conceived may be found in Shakspeare and in some of the early English dramatists. Others have followed at intervals, if deficient in genius, yet with aims equally pure. But the stage is a reflection of life as it is. It the proverb be true, like people, like priest, it is yet more true—like audience, like actor. And so the masters of dramatic art have produced and presented conceptions that are a disgrace to our English literature. Even upon the pages of Shakspeare some of the smut of impurity has fallen. At that period of our national life when genius showed itself capable of the purest and most exalted poetry, of the truest and sublimest morality (not untaught of the greatest Teacher), the stage swiftly degenerated into licentiousness. the stern Puritan tried in vain to conquer the evil by abolishing theatrical representations. When with the restoration or Charles II., of evil memory, the old state of things came back again, the stage recovered all, and more than all, its license and its infamy. Then ensued a period in which, under royal patronage, the worst excesses were practised. Theatres were reopened with extraordinary magnificence and plays were acted by royal harlots, as obscene in words as the audiences were debauched in life. the corruption of the drama was at once an evidence and cause of the corruption of the people. Never in all the years of her history did England sink so low as in the half century that followed. Would that it were possible to draw a veil over our national and social infamy under the later Stuarts. Two hundred years have gone since then, but in spite of repeated efforts made by noble-minded philanthropists and earnest Christians, the stage is still one of the chief fountains of vicious thought and vicious life. The drama, too often degraded from its high aim of public instruction and laudable recreation, is in great degree the slave and minister of passion. I do not forget the writers and actors—alas ! rari nantes in gurgite vasto—who have striven earnestly, though almost hopelessly, against a condition of things which no amount of individual effort can cure. Here and there one gifted with exceptional genius, like Irving in London, and Creswick in Australia, has been able to attract large audiences for many nights to see and hear plays which are among the best and purest of their kind. But in this there is no proof of the actual, but only of the possible. I have it on good authority that Mr. Creswick confessed in Melbourne, even when the warm sunshine of a bishop's patronage was about him, that it was well nigh hopeless to attempt to reform the stage. His experiences in New Zealand have, I think, corroborated his fears. But we do not need any such testimony. The proof of the shameless degradation of the stage is before our eyes in every newspaper that we open. the names and programmes of the plays, the analyses of the plots, the casts of characters, the promised interludes of dancings and buffooneries and silly comic songs—these show us what the modern theatre actually is ; nor is it slander to affirm, but most sorrowful truth, that woman's beauty in face and form has been pressed into the service of this illegitimate drama, to the scandal and disgrace of modern Englishmen. And what shall we say of the audience of the theatre? I will sit in judgment on none of my follows because they are sometimes found within its walls. I know that both on the stage and in the assembly there are honourable men and pure thoughted women; but I do say—would that I could be contradicted—that all the vicious of our great cities seek and find their pleasure there. Young and old profligaros, wild roysterers, women of evil fame—these are among the habitual attendants. They come expecting nothing but the gratification of on idle curiosity, or some stimulus to the jaded senses.

" Life is a jest, and all things show it ;

I thought so once, but now I know it."

How can it be but that the pabulum required is duly set forth ? The mission of the actor may be high and noble, but by it he must earn his bread. The managing of a theatre is a commercial speculation. It must be made to pay. Supply is regulated by the demand. What the public requires that, be sure, is furnished. The present state of the stage is an accurate reflection of the mental and moral state of the audience that provides the chief cost of supporting it.
III. What, then, is to be done ? In this antagonism of opposing forces, in this conflict between different parts of our social being, shall we who accept Christ as our leader and are aiming at the regeneration of society give up all in despair? Shall we pronounce the drama to be evil and let it alone? Shall we tamely submit to an utter deprivation of our just rights by abandoning this confessedly potent influence to the service of sin ? Milton was a Puritan. He had seen the English theatre both in its glory and its shame. He knew what power there was in it to teach and persuade, and he knew perhaps more than we do of its perversion to shameful uses. Writing at the time when the iron hand of Cromwell had put down all stage plays throughout the land, he yet pleaded for a revival of the drama. After treating of the corruption and bane sucked in daily by the nobles and gentry through the writings and interludes of libidinous poets, he says, "But because the spirit of man cannot demean itself lively in this body without some recreating intermissions of labour and serious things, it were happy for the Commonwealth if our magistrates, as in these famous Governments of old, would take into their care not only the deciding of our contentious law cases and brawls, but the managing of our public sports and festival pastimes, that they might be not such as were authorized a while since, the provocations of drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure and harden our bodies by martial exercise, and way civilize, adorn, and make discreet our minds by the procurement of wise and artful recreations, sweetened with eloquent and graceful enticements to the love and practice of justice, temperance, and fortitude. Whether this may not be not only in pulpits, but after another persuasive method at set and solemn paneguries, theatres, porches, or what other place or way may win most upon the people to receive at once both recreation and instruction, let them in authority consult."

 The Sydney Morning Herald 18 March 1879,