Theater-Going by Spurgeon

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 25.

Theater-Going.

By Spurgeon

I SEE it publicly stated by men who call themselves Christians that it would be advisable for Christians to frequent the theater, that the character of the drama might be raised. The suggestion is about as sensible as if we were bidden to pour a bottle of lavender water into the great sewer to improve its aroma. If the church is to imitate the world in order to raise its tone, things have strangely altered since the day when our Lord said, "Come ye out from among them, and touch not the unclean thing." Is Heaven to descend to the infernal lake to raise its tone? Such has been the moral condition of the theater for many a year that it has become too bad for mending; and even if it were mended it would corrupt again. Pass by it with averted gaze; the house of the strange women is there. It has not been my lot ever to enter a theater

during the performance of a play, but I have seen enough when I have come home from distant journeys at night, while riding past the play-houses, to make me pray that our sons and daughters may never go within the doors. It must be a strange school of virtue which attracts the harlot and the debauchee. It is no place for a Christian, for it is best appreciated by the irreligious and worldly. If our church members fall into the habit of frequenting the theater, we shall soon have them going much further in the direction of vice, and they will lose all relish for the ways of God. Theater-going, if it become general among professing Christians, will soon prove the death of piety.—Spurgeon.