STAGE TO PULPIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 973, 16 May 1930, Page 10

STAGE TO PULPIT

FOUNDER OF ACTORS’ CHURCH ALLIANCE HOLDING MISSION HERE To step from the stage to the pulpit does not seem such an unusual change of calling in these enlightened days as it did if* 1888. It was then that the Rev. Walter E. Bentley, an Anglo-American rnissioner who is shortly to conduct a mission at St. Matthew’s Church, left the Shakespearian stage to study for Holy Orders. THERE was a time when a stage ■L performer was looked upon askance by a very large percentage of the pulpit and laity, Mr. Bentley told a Sun representative this morning, but those times have changed. Mr. Bentley was born and educated in England, and began his stage career

under Henry Irving on the latter’s first visit to America. He followed the profession for a number of years, playing in most of the big American cities.

A sermon by the late Phillips Brooks, rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and one of the greatest preachers in America, greatly affected Mr. Bentley. Under the influence of Phillips Brooks, who afterward became Bishop of Massachusetts, Mr. Bentley left the stage and studied at the Syracuse Seminary, and later at the general seminary at Hew York, becoming a lay reader and then vicar. Again turning his attention to the theatre, he founded the Actors’ Church Alliance, which has since been divided into the Episcopal Actors’ Guild, Catholic Actors’ Guild and the Jewish Theatrical Guild. CARE OF ACTORS

“I was stirred to this.” he said, “because I saw the prejudice with which the stage was regarded by the church. I determined to do away with it. to bring the Church into the stage. I also wanted to arrange for the mental, spiritual and physical care of actors in different towns of the country where no provision was made for them.”

In extending liis work, Mr. Bentley has since travelled to many corners of the world organising his alliance chaplains. In America Mr. George Arliss, the well-known actor, is president of the lay side of the movement. and in England the Bishop of Winchester is head of the movement. Mr. Bentley’s mission at St. Matthew's will commence on Sunday and will continue until June 1. Special sermons will be preached each day, and on Wednesday and Thursday next the rnissioner will speak on the Rationalist movement. He recently closed a very successful mission at St. Luke's Church, Christchurch, from which he comes to Auckland.