THE AGTRESS-EVANGELIST.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 121, 22 May 1909, Page 8

THE AGTRESS-EVANGELIST.

SXAEES AND DELUSIONS OF STAGE LIFE. "Can an actress be a Christian?" was the text taken by Miss Ada Ward, ex-actress and evangelist, in her discourse at the Pitt-street ilethodist Church last night, and briefly for herself she confessed it had not been possible, wherefore a-pparently she proceeded to pronounce judgment on the stage and all its wiskednesses and weaknesses, in little more than so many words trying it, finding it guilty, and generally condemning it. With speech and gesture craft stage-born Miss Ward delivered her phillipic, or jeremiad rather, respecting the deplorable bnt well-nigh irresistible lures that tempt so many young girls, with little or no talent, but with the dangerous possession of a beautiful face or form, to -walk blindly into all the besetting perils of the stage. "And for ■tvhat?" she asked. "Xo religion in their hearts and no God to uphold them, what is their destiny? The answer is to be found by asking what becomes of all the girls who for £1 a week or less stand half nude in the ballet or pantomime for the men in the stalls to gaze Upon. AVhere do those girls obtain their ■diamond rings and earrings? How often have I seen young and beautiful girls abandoned? Seen them slip from bad to worse—to drink, untold misery, death in a workhouse, and a pauper's grave? Rome of them have died in my arms. 'For one that rises 50 sink into the veriest slough of despair and degradation." And the speaker appealed dramatically to all Christians that they should eschew the theatre. Nor did the religious play escape Miss Ward's denunciation. Its very pretensions were the root of its most deadly influences •j>n both public and stage morality, she jleclared. Picking up, so to speak." "The Sign, of the Cross," Miss Ward practically stamped it as a Ma-chiarellian. Invention for the damnation of souls. Christians could be heard speaking of the beautiful hymns in it, though they Were mockingly sung, ,md the prayers, though they wore mockingly prayed by profane lips. And the audience were subjected to a word picture of ministers of religion in the Old Country visiting the play by the hundreds, to dine afterwards, in their enthusiasm, with the tutors and actresses in Oxford-street. Young men devoted to Sunday schools lad gone to the play, and never afterwards returned to the Sunday school. Hundreds of men and women had deeerted the churches and Sunday schools through its devilish influence. Coming to the New Zealand stage, the lectures? expressed her pleasure in discovering a comparative blamelessness concerning it, after contemplating the stages of Britain and America, And she warned her leircrs to boycott the awful and injfamloufe dances so poptila* in those countries—when they arrive here. She thought but little of the general Christianitr of people nowadays, but was glad, to see a higher spiritual life in New Zealand than in any other country she had visited for many years, wherefore she had hopes of that boycott.