HUSKS INSTEAD OF GRAIN.
By L. A. Prescott
IN its Boston notes the Christian Advocate of October 18 asks a number of very pertinent questions concerning the fad of Passion Play lectures that seems to have taken hold of many ministers of that place. The idea is not limited to Boston, inasmuch as it is the season for the return of vacationers, and those who visited Ober-Ammergau, in Germany, to witness this celebrated play. The notes referred to say:— "What effect will it have upon the revival work of the twentieth-century movement? Broader yet is the question of the effect on the minds of the church congregation as to the patronage of the theater. Our pulpit [Methodist] has been a unit in the condemnation of theater patronage. What will be the effect of ministers Sunday after Sunday discoursing on a Sunday theatrical play representing the most solemn events in human history, and including the impersonation of the most sacred characters, and even of 'God manifest in the flesh'? It is not a question of the religious character of the actors, who are said to be devout Roman Catholics, or of the people to whom the Passion Play is a serious service. But what of its effect upon the visitors from Protestant America? Roman Catholics are accustomed to show and ceremony, the gorgeous and the spectacular, in their worship. Will the Passion Play serve to familiarize Protestants with like forms and give them a taste for them? "One more question: Is all this enthusiasm of Protestant ministers over the play aroused by its religious character, or are they intoxicated by their unhampered first visit to the theater? Is it their unconscious surrender to the tragic drama, or to the fascination of Roman Catholic ceremony?" Preaching on just such themes as this, and possibly worse, is largely responsible for the sad lack of power in the church to-day. To souls longing for the food that builds spiritually are given the husks of sentimentality, and thousands become disgusted, and become scoffers, who are looking for godliness where it ought to be found, and do not find it. Aside from the class to which the topic belongs, there is a very suggestive thought for Protestants in the queries touching the ceremonies and shows of the Catholic ritual. Is it not enough that the principles of Romanism are insidiously and otherwise finding their way into professed Protestantism, without placing one's self deliberately under her seductive spell? THE Christian Cynosure, in its October issue, gives a list of deaths and serious injuries resulting from initiation ceremonies in different secret societies, which illustrate the wicked folly of such cruel, senseless sport. The list, in part, is as follows: At Kalamazoo, Mich., a seventeen-year-old boy died as a result of his initiation into the Kappa Gamma Society of the high school. He was severely burned with nitrate of silver. In Dubuque, Iowa, during an initiation into the order of Modern Woodmen, an initiate was so severely handled that he has lost the use of his arm and is losing his memory. At New York, while initiating a member into the lodge of Foresters, one of the initiators received a broken shoulder. At Syracuse, N. Y., one of the initiates was accidentally shot, and died soon after from blood-poisoning. In Cincinnati, recently, a man was probably fatally injured while being initiated into a secret society. At Guthrie, Oklahoma, an initiate was so roughly handled that he has been left with a stiff neck, a badly-injured spine, and his brain so injured that he is unable to concentrate his mind upon any subject. The Cynosure well says, "The sacredness of the human body is made the jest of secret societies." The Christian will be too busy about his Master's business ever to be found indulging in such vicious pastime, or encouraging others to do so by his own membership in such organizations.