The Theater and Ecclesiastical Empire
By Editor
The Theater.—A little over a year ago there was given in the high-class theaters of New York, a play, which one paper declared, "shines and stinks with the slime of Sodom;" another as "horrible in conception, ruthless in execution, poisonous in spirit;" another as "particularly foul and offensive," and so on. A few months later and the "Passion Play" and "Parsifal," follow. And so the pendulum swings from the vile to the simulated virtuous, from rottenness to make-believe righteousness, till minds and hearts of those who behold are so confused that virtue and vice are indistinguishable. Read the article elsewhere in this paper, "What Is the Objection to the Theater?" Ecclesiastical Empire.—One of the great questions before the world at this present time is the relation of religion or the church to the State, or the relation the State should sustain to the church. What is the province of the church? What is the province of the State? What is the duty of the Christian? What have been the results of the State yielding to the church, as many well-meaning religious people are now demanding. In no way can such questions as these and many other related ones be so well and so strikingly answered as in actual history, filled with striking object-lessons. A volume lies before us as we write, entitled, "Ecclesiastical Empire," By Alonzo Trévier Jones, which covers the entire ground of the Christian era, with its many, many lessons in theory and object. The middle ages of the great powers of Europe are placed before us, the perversion of Christianity by pagan philosophy, the theological controversies of the early centuries, how the Papacy became a world-power, the "Holy Roman Empire," Papal supremacy, the spirit of the Papacy, the Reformation, true and false Protestantism, what has occurred and is occurring in our own country,—all are faithfully set forth. The book contains five maps, 27 chapters, 874 pages; bound in cloth, only $2.50. It is of value in every student's library.