THE PULPIT AND THE DRAMA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 516, 14 October 1857, Page 3

THE PULPIT AND THE DRAMA.

The ninth anniversary of the American Dramatic Fund Association was celebrated, on the 20th of April, at the Astor House, New York, by a dinner, which e»cited an unusual degree of interest, from the circumstance of the Eev. Dr. Bellows, of All Soul's Church, being one of the guests, it being the first time that any clergyman has lent the sanction of his presence to such an occasion. After the fourth regular toast, " The prosperity of the American Dramatic Fund," Miss Louisa Pj'ne favoured the company with a song which was most rapturously received. Dr. Bellows then rose amid loud and reiterated applause. In the course of his speech he said :—

I have not attended the theatre in New Yoi't, I have made a distinction \vithout a difference by going to the Opera. That seems to be tolerated. The theatre I have wanted to go to very much indeed, but it has not seemed to be entirely the thing; and I confess that I have made a sacrifice of personal feeling—(laughter) —to what may be supposed to be a suggestion of prudence and discretion. (Applause.) 1 beg ro say, however, here, that in conveying these sentiments I make a much smaller sacrifice than you may suppose, because they grow naturally out of that philosophy of morals and religioh which I|bless God it|was from my earliest youth my privilege to entertain and receive. I had never been able to think vilely of human nature I have never been able to think that the good Providence endowed human beings with any faculties or talents for which He did not somewhere make a stage. I have never believed that so wonderful a gift as the Dramatic faculty was meant to be hid in a napkin. (Applause.) I believe that the commission which the possession of that extraordinary power gave to a human being was as genuine a commission to go and fulfil an errand and delight the world, as the possession of any other faculty or talent which the Almighty has chosen to confer. And I must say (to refer to a point to which I have already referred) that I never could regard otherwise than with regret, that a person so seemingly endowed at every point with great and ultimate success in the promotion of human happiness on so vast a scale as Mrs. Kemble— should, under any circumstances, permit herself to retire from a field in which her earliest, and greatest honours were won, and for which her endowments still so eminently fit her. Now, I believe that there is a class of persons who are meant to be actors and actresses, and that their endowments and proclivities form of themselves a right and a duty to be so, and that this wonderful gift is not to be looked uponby any who possess it as an arbitary or capricious endowment; which

they have a iight to abuse or neglect, or which is not to be held as amongst the serious gifts and responsible gifts which the Almighty has conferred. And I believe, gentlemen of the dramatic profession, that if you would regard your own calling as a liiijh vocation, not merely in any worldly sense, hut in the high sense in which any other serious commission from the Almighty is regarded, you would elevate vastly your profession, not only in your own eyes, but the eyes of the world. You would fling from it whatever is unworthy and whatever disparages a position so dignified and so grand, and you would prove soon to the world that you belonged not only, as we somtimes trippingly and sneeringly say, tothe artists, but that you are artists in as higha sense as thesculptor, the poet,orthepainter, and deserve the same sort of consideration which belongs to the other aesthetic representatives of art. (Loud applause.) I never could see the advantage why the dramatic profession and my own profession should be of such loggerheads. I never could see why the friends of morality and religion should not be the friends of innocent enjoyment, of high art, of dramatic and mimic talent. I do not see any proper grounds for this immense antipathy between you and us; and I believe that you have yet to do justice to U3 as well as we have to do justice to you, I assure you that if the members of the clerical profession, so far as I have the happiness of knowing them in all orders and classes, were only more unembarrassed by their position towards the laity, you would find a more liberal, and larger, and fairer justice done to your profession by that cliss of men than you have by any other class of men in the whole community. (Applause.) They know what it is to labour with the brain and with the voice. They know, too, a little of what it is to act. I say it in no invidious sense, but they recognise the fact that we all belong to the talking profession, and that we have somewhat the same responsibility in the use of our tongues. They know, I believe, too, the amount of artistic and aesthetic culture which belongs to the man who minds his profession; they must know in their secret hearts that your profession cannot be the light and frivolous one which it is commonly thought to be. They have learned that it is an immensely laborious profession; that it is a very methodic profession; that it requires time and demands punctuality and 4trict discipline ; and hence £hey cannot hold it in that light estimate in which it is held by unthinking people. We who live by our brains, and are obliged to believe our own hearts, as I trust and hope of you, we, I say, in some degree, are all compelled to do justice to your profession.