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, preachers and actors?
_Answer_. We must remember that the stage presents an ideal life. It is a world controlled by the imagination--a world in which the justice delayed in real life may be done, and in which that may happen which, according to the highest ideal, should happen. It is a world, for the most part, in which evil does not succeed, in which the vicious are foiled, in which the right, the honest, the sincere, and the good prevail. It cultivates the imagination, and in this respect is far better than the pulpit. The mission of the pulpit is to narrow and shrivel the human mind. The pulpit denounces the freedom of thought and of expression; but on the stage the mind is free, and for thousands of years the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, have been permitted to witness plays wherein the slave was freed, wherein the oppressed became the victor, and where the downtrodden rose supreme.
And there is another thing. The stage has always laughed at the spirit of caste. The low-born lass has loved the prince. All human distinctions in this ideal world have for the moment vanished, while honesty and love have triumphed. The stage lightens the cares of life. The pulpit increases the tears and groans of man. There is this difference: The pretence of honesty and the honesty of pretence.
_Question_. How do you view the Episcopalian scheme of building a six-million-dollar untaxed cathedral in this city for the purpose of "uniting the sects," and, when that is accomplished, "unifying the world in the love of Christ," and thereby abolishing misery?
_Answer_. I regard the building of an Episcopal cathedral simply as a piece of religious folly. The world will never be converted by Christian palaces and temples. Every dollar used in its construction will be wasted. It will have no tendency to unite the various sects; on the contrary, it will excite the envy and jealousy of every other sect. It will widen the gulf between the Episcopalian and the Methodist, between the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian, and this hatred will continue until the other sects build a cathedral just a little larger, and then the envy and the hatred will be on the other side.