CHURCH HECKLERS.

Waikato Independent, Volume XII, Issue 1019, 1 June 1911, Page 6

CHURCH HECKLERS.

♦ PREACHERS' DEFENCE OF THE THEA'IRE. The Rev. Dr. \Var3cbauer, pastor of Horton Lane Congregational Church, Bradford, in the course of his sermon on March 26th. spoke favorably £of theatres, and advised Christian people to see good plays. At the close he was severely heckled by members of the congregation in all parts of the church. Asked if he would support a national theatre, Dr. Warachauer said: "I think it is a grave omission on our part that while we have national Fupporr of picture galleries and colleges of music, we have not a national theatre, especially in a country which has produced the greatest dramatist the world lias ever known." Replying to another question, Dr. Warschauer said the fact that people appreciate low, frivolous stuff, heard in some of the music-halls and theatres was due partly to the miserable kind of education rnoit people got. Economic condicions had a graat deal to do with it. People worked very hard with great expenditure of nerve force, and felt scarcely inclined for any thing educational. Another answer waa that many people disliked the theatre because they had not been to one, and because they did not know anything about it: They went and found it was not nearly so unholy a placets they imagined. That was the experience of th-3 late Dr. Parker, who was fiercely prejudiced against it until he had been. " i 'o you think an actcn's life is subject to mare than average temptations?" asked a lady. "Dr. Warschauer: I am quite willing to recognise that the actor is open to certain temptations. So is the Civil servant. So are grocers and lawyers. Actors and actresses, he said, in reply to another question, were not Sabbatarians, adding: "I don't regard Sabbatarianism as necessarily an indi3ation of a religious mind." "Is not the drinking bar one of the chief attractions of the theatre?" was another question. Dr. Warschauer: It is only a small proportion of the people who drink between the acts. To imagine that the drinking bar is one of the chief attractions of the theatre is one of those wrong notions held by people who know nothing about the theatre. I wish fanatical temperance people would get the idea from their minds that the man who drinks is necessarily a drunkard.