DEMAND FOR SUPERMEN

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 124, 29 May 1922, Page 7

DEMAND FOR SUPERMEN

OLD PREJUDICE

(MOM OUJI OWN COMttSHWDJITT.)

LONDON, 21st April. Canon Dorrity, of ■"Manchester, at a service of the Actors' Church Union:

"The union was the first organised effort for bringing the drama-tic profession and the Church closer together.- It was started in 1899 by the Bishop of Winchester, and now has,atotal.member- :- ship of about 1500, with' 500 clergy. People at one- time Jjged to think the acting.instinct ought to, be strangled at birth, but now that old prejudice has almost melterf away, the clergy theatres and the actors visiting churches. The chances for the acting profession, to attend church are exceedingly few, -owing to the large amount of Sunday travelling. 'Those who please •to live must live to. please.' . That is-exactly what all actors have to do—live to please. If they do not please the public thgy lose their jobs, and that is why sometimes, to make even the barest living, actors and actresses are obliged to take parts they would often rather not take. It is for the theatre-going public to see this does not happen. If . the public would only choose worthy plays - instead of unworthy plays it would never, happen. You should-remember that 'All''the world's a stage and all the': men and women merely.players,' and that in the last great act, when the old curtain fall! and the new curtain is rung up, you will all have to. play an actor's partj whatever you may do now." . "PARSONS TO BLAME."- '... Perturbed abovrtr the present-day attitude of Christianity,' and in order to find out why the1 Church leaves people "either cold or bored," the Rev. B. G. Bourchier i3 inviting- those who attend his church and those,"who stay away, to conferences "'with him, so. that he ..'may learn from them exactly what'.they think, of him and'his work. ' ■•'.'. ' '' '■-"..

"I think," he .say's, ,"tiat'what'.'inight be called a sensible ■ presentation of Christianity would always fill a church. But the fault is with the clergy;,' If,".wa did our job attractively, there would :be no empty churches iiv-England;■■ By a sensible presentation, of . Christianity I mean a human presentation. .What'.w have to do is to relate \ Christian faith to human life, Talk atydut1 the things that are most in the.mind* of .the people. The age has gone for talking- about the Kings of Israel, and Jonah, 4nd- isuehlike. We have to touch the people's lives and needs. I am very anxious to get at those-who don't attend church, and to find out why. If they are polite they won't say why. If they are blunt and frank they will say: 'You parsons are to blame.' "