Puslapio vaizdai
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and Charles Brewer, of Hingham; Mr. and Mrs. Jean Paul Selinger, the Rev. and Mrs. E. A. Horton, Charles F. Christie, William Winter, of New York; Mr. and Mrs. John H. Holmes, Mrs. Montgomery Sears, Professor Horsford, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Burnett, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, Mrs. Ole Bull, A. L. Coolidge and Linsay Harris.

The wedding party moved up the main aisle headed by the bridesmaids, each wearing a gown of white tulle and carrying a bouquet of white roses and with small wreaths of forget-me-nots in the hair. The maid of honor, Miss Edith Barrett, wore a gown of white crepe de chene, and carried a bouquet of Catherine Mermet roses. The rest of the principals in the scene, besides the two who were immediately concerned, were Lawrence Barrett and the best man, Antonio de Navarro. Mr. Barrett and others had come from New York by special train, arriving in the morning. The bridesmaids and the maid of honor moved directly to the chancel rail and formed in front of the little gate, leaving a space through which the contracting parties entered. The bride looked very graceful as she stood attired in an elegant white satin gown with long train, trimmed with costly Valenciennes lace and a garniture of lilles of the valley. No jewels or any ornaments other than the flowers were worn. She carried a large bouquet of Catherine Mermet

roses.

The music, which was especially arranged for the occasion by Frank J. Donohue, the organist of the Cathedral, consisted of Overture to Occasional Oratorio, Handel; Offertoire de Sainte Cecile, Batiste; Pastorale, Kullak; First Organ Sonata, Mendelssohn; Improvisation, on a theme of Gounod, and grand chorus by Guilmant. As the bridal party left the church the organist played an improvised march. A reception followed at the bride's

home on Beacon street, which was beautifully decorated with flowers, ferns and potted plants. The wedding breakfast was a magnificent affair.

THE Metropolitan Musical Society will

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gave the first private concert on January 10, at the Metropolitan Opera House. This chorus was organized last year for the purpose of singing the best music of all schools. The society has about 200 members, including many of the best singers of this city. Some of the members are Mrs. C. M. Raymond, Miss Emily Winant, Mrs. Sarah Baron Anderson, Miss Marie S. Bissell, Miss Alma Del Martin, Miss Jennie Dutton, Miss Lizzie Webb Cary, Mrs. Annie N. Hartdegen, Mrs. Carrie HunKing, Miss Mary E. Carr, Miss Fannie Hirsch, Miss M. Clarke, Mrs. L. L. Danforth, Miss Jessamine Hallenbeck, Miss Ida Haring, Mrs. Gerritt Smith, Miss Bertha Stanhope, Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Clarke, Mr. and Mrs. J. Williams Macy, Mr. and Mrs. F. V. Marckwald, C. Judson Bushnell, Ericsson F. Bushnell, Dr. L. L. Danforth, Charles A. Rice, Clarence T. Steele, Beardsley Van de Water and others. Applications for seats should be made to J. Seaver Page, or F. W. Devoe, at 101 Ful

ton street.

The officers and patrons of the society The include some well-known people. officers: President, Dr. William H. Draper; vice-president, Robert Hoe; secretary, J. Seaver Page; treasurer, F. W. Devoe; Executive Committee, Mrs. Arthur Murray Dodge, Miss Marbury, Mrs. William R. Chapman George A. Meyer and Frank GStiles. The Board of Patrons includes: Edward Cooper, William E. Dodge, E. Francis Hyde, D, Willis James, Morris K. Jesup, Thomas L James, Dr. Thomas M. Markoe, Anson Phelps Stokes, Mrs. W

Lanman Bull, Mrs. F. C, Bowman, Mrs. Julius Catlin, Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew, Mrs. Amos Cumming, Mrs. S. J. Colgate, Mrs. George C. Clark, Mrs. Ben Ali Hagan, Mrs. R. Duncan Harris, Mrs. Oliver Harriman, Mrs. Richard Irvin, Jr., Mrs. O. B. Jennings, Mrs. Alex. T. Leith, Mrs. C. M. Raymond, Mrs. Charles C. Pomeroy, Mrs. Lawrence Turnure, Mrs. Edward Winslow. The governing Committee of active members is: Frank G. Styles, Mrs. C. M. Raymond, Mrs. S. B. Anderson, Miss Jennie Dutton, Mrs. Carrie HunKing, Mrs. J. Williams Macy, Mrs. William R. Chapman, Miss Lillie Kompff, Miss Fanny Hirsch, George Martin Huss, C. Judson Bushnell, William H. Rieger, Edward M. Franklin, Henry Ware Jones, Beardsley Van de Water, Thomas M. Prentice, John K. Myers.

MARY

ARY ANDERSON writes in the North American Review that an instance illustrating the power of the dramatic artist to suggest and bring out the meanings of the author where they have not been ap

clanking sound of a man in armor. The sound approached nearer and nearer, and then a guard appeared upon the scene, beating his hands and blowing his warm breath upon his fingers, in an apparent endeavor to restore his circulation. He crossed the stage without a word and disappeared. He could be heard receding in the distance and finally came in sight again at the back of the stage. All this was done before a word was spoken, and it was intended to show just what kind of night it was In this the action was extremely successful. It brought out pictorially the poet's briefly described conditions surrounding the opening of his play.

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parent to the reader or student was made I Do not believe there will be found a

known in the Mount-Sully production of "Hamlet" at the Theatre Francaise. It was the most wonderfnl production of Shakespeare ever known, not merely from the standpoint of splendor and outlay, but as viewed from the point of realistic suggestiveness. Reference to a single event in the representation will confer an idea of the remarkable skill shown in conveying the illusion intended by the author. In the first place the curtain went up on a scene in which there was an atmospheric effect so skilfully devised as to suggest most vividly the blue cold of a winter night. in Denmark. For some moments there was silence on the stage which was deserted. Then there was heard in the distance the

single uninteresting thing in this issue of THE THEATRE. Look it over thoroughly and see. I am especially proud of my contributors-Nym Crinkle, Henry Whiting and Otto Peltzer. Any magazine might be proud of them. I do not "bow my own horn" very often in these pages, but want to say right here there have been some pretty good things in THE THEATRE.

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THE frontispiece in THE THEATRE this

week is an admirable portrait of the veteran Chicago manager, Mr. James H. McVicker, who has taken pride in introducing to the West the true and great actors of the world. He is also a bold and successful defender of the stage. In con

troversy, bearing upon the ethical questions of the theatre, he seldom misses fire. His lecture entiled "The Pulpit, the Press, and the Stage," a cogent and unanswerable argument, was prepared a few years ago, when the clergy of Chicago undertook to denouce the theatre as an immoral institution.

Mr. Mc Vicker was born in New York, February 15, 1822. His parents were Scotch-Irish, and one of them, his father, died when Mr. McVicker was only a year old. He enjoyed little education, for his mother had been left unprovided for. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a printer. In 1837 he went west, and became eventually a journeyman in the office of the St. Louis Republican. Meanwhile he cherished an ambition to go upon the stage. He found his opportunity to do so in 1840, at New Orleans, where he grew steadily in favor. In 1848, after having acted almost constantly for eight years, he arrived in Chicago. There was then only one playhouse in Chicago, managed by Mr. Rice who was afterwards elected mayor of the city. Mr. McVicker made his first appearence under Mr. Rice's management as Mr. Smith, in "My Neighbor's Wife," May 2 1848. Subsequently he acted in other cities and won considerable reputation. In 1855 he visited England, returning to Chicago two years later. He decided to make his permanent home in Chicago, and he established there Mc Vicker's Theatre.

Trophonius.

THE CHURCH OR THE THEATRE. THE PULPIT OR THE STAGE.

THE SERMON OR THE DRAMA.

THERE are at present great and im

portant agitations going on in the world. Agitation brings about revolution.

Revolutions are of two kinds. One kind is inaugurated by the ignorant with brute force, the other is the result of thought and of the superiorty of mind over matter, though it sometimes becomes necessary to resort to justifiable force of arms. The power is brought about by preaching resistance to law and by threats with bombs and dynamite, but history proves that these have never been successful in attaining the reformation aimed at, while those working quietly in the minds of the thoughtful have generally accomplished their aims effectually and permanently. Stubborn resistance by narrow selfishness and intolerance to the advancement of liberal thought may temporarily impede, but it can never permanently defeat progress.

Some one has truly said that mankind advances not by the conversion of the many, but of the few; for the few have the intelligence, they write the books, they for mulate the opinions for the coming gener

ations.

Those however, whose minds run continually in one and the same old rut,-the man who teaches theology and remains ignorant of every practical question of our daily lives, might have been good enough for a spiritual adviser several hundred years. ago, but he is altogether out of place in this bustling, practical and realistic world of today, and so the clergy is loosing its influence, while Atheism has advanced more within the last ten or fifteen years than it did for a hundred prior years.

The eastern as well as the western daily press has recently found upon close count, that the Christian churches of this country, are only attended by a most insignificant portion of the male population, a portion so insignificant that it almost counts for naught. Such a fact considered from a Christian standpoint and in connection with the following dispatch recently sent all over

the country, is certainly a most alarming turn of affairs. Here is the dispatch:

CHICAGO, Dec. 17.-"Der Freisinnige Schulverein" (The Free-Thinking School Society) was organized yesterday afternoon at a meeting of Anarchists and Socialists. Its object for the present is the establishment of secular schools Sunday in Chicago. Discarding the Bible as unfit to be put into the hands of children. It proposes to teach as substitutes history,science, and anarchy.''

May we not, at this last and most startling disclosure, cry in horror with Macbeth: “We have scotched the snake not killed it." And yet the clergy in the face of the waning of their own power and seemingly ignoring the insignificance of their own influence, after having for years, Don Quixotte-like assailed the theatre, have in a conference lately held in Chicago, taken up their stuffed clubs against the Sunday issues of the daily press, thus finally making themselves the laughing stock of all sensible people.

It can be safely said that the press is fully able to take care of its side of such an agitation on the part of the clergy, It ought to be regretted, however, by all well meaning people, that Christianity should be forced backward as it is by the impractiable narrowness and stubbornness of the men in the pulpit.

In a former contribution to THE THEATRE, I took occasion to say that "the eyes of the pulpit must be opened to the absolute necessity of a complete recasting of its methods," but the majority of the clergy are too selfish and bigotted to attempt even the slightest change in their old theories. and methods. They actually resist reformation sought to be inaugurated by others, while they continue giving nothing but the old dry, distasteful and repelling regulation food.

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If the pulpit is bound to compel the public to make a final choice between the Sunday sermon and the Sunday paper, let me tell it that it will not take the people long to make their permanent selection. The sermons will simply be soon delivered to entirely empty pews, so far, at least, as male listeners are concerned. This crusade against the Sunday paper, is the last of the spasmodic and dying effort of puritan theology. In their blind zeal the clergy can not see that in the course of human events and irresistable progress, they are being supplanted.

The Catholic church pursues a more sensible course in matters of this kind than any other. It wisely permits its constituency to indulge in all reasonable pleasures of this life, and does not drive its followers out of its fold because of human fondness for the sensible enjoyments of this world. Besides this it clothes its services with a sublime pomp and show, that add interest to devotion and thus, it retains its hold and exercises a great power over the naturally religious inclinings of mankind.

Rabbi Hirsch, in a recent sermon in Chicago said: The Sunday paper convevs to man not only the news of the world, but it brings to him the reasonings of philosophers, the discoveries of science, the messages of intellectual lights, and reveals the minds of others at their best, so that he is lifted up, benefited, improved and made better through conning the lines of its columns. The general tone of the press is good, and points to the making better of those who read. The test of any one's fitness is the beneficial results he accomplishes in the field of his labors. The Napoleonic aphorism: "The tools to him. who can use them," expresses the broad principle of tolerance in this connection

in connection with the moral reformation and strengthening of the weak and careless in principle, the unstable in character and the vicious elements of the unchurched masses.

Is the pulpit a failure? Read the following from a Chicago Daily ;

SACRILEGE IN THE CHURCHES.

Editor of the Herald: I have just returned from a church entertainment in which the great hit of the evening was a burlesque on the "Resurrection of the body" on the same platform from which, in all probability, the pastor of the church will on next Easter Sunday preach on this subject as the "grand central truth of our religion." An imitation of an old-time choir sang in nasal tones of "The Lord of Glory Waking up the Sleepers in the Old Churchyard." There were five or six verses, rendered in the most ridiculous manner and received by a large audience with hearty laughter and applause. This was not the only objectionable feature of the entertainment by any means. I single it out because of its sacrilegious nature. I suppose these same people would be shocked at any hint of a revival of the miracle plays in which the Almighty and his angels, the devil and his angels, heaven and hell were represented on the stage. Taking into consideration our boasted civilization and refinement, the miracle play of a century or two ago was not so shocking as the modern church en

sermons that are delivered every Sunday in the city of Chicago, are delivered from the stages of theatres. Two of the most enlightened pulpit orators of formerdays have stepped from the pulpit on to the stage. If the stage of a theatre is good enough for these able, yet dry sermons at this day—a thing that would not have been tolerated even as late as ten or fifteen years ago, what is to prevent the stage of a theatre from becoming in a few years, more the field for the exposition and illustration of theological or biblical lore, by means of devotional or biblical dramas, interpreted by honorable men trained to the illustration of events and the representation of human character, embellished with the artistic and realistic surroundings of the stage. Bring the lime-light to bear on biblical history and moral theology.!

The church, the pulpit and the sermon of to-day deserve to be supplanted by the theatre, a purer stage, the educational drama, and by the clean and healthy Sunday newspapers-and the sooner the better. Otto Peltzer.

ENGLISH vs. AMERICAN ACTORS.

tertainment. The former aimed at arousing AT present, a matter for solemn and

the fears of the impenitent by an attempt to picture the wrath to come, while in the latter the holiest and most sacred things are held up to ridicule. I read an article not long ago in a Methodist periodical, in which the latter deplored the lack of reverence shown during public worship, especially by the young. Surely one need not seek far for the cause. Those whom our Saviour drove from the temple were not guilty of so great a sin as we of to-day, who not only buy and sell in our churches, but turn "the house of God" into a variety theatre and the Bible into a jest book.

K. D.

I said that the church and the clergy are slowly being supplanted. Two of the best

weighty discussion, with the theatrical world is whether or not the weak and helpless native actor is to be protected from the fierce encroachment on his territory by foreign talent. In the controversy which this momentous subject has given rise to, many statements have been made by the adherents of either side of the question, which are excusable on the ground of partisan enthusiasm, but when the Pall Mall Gazette affirms that the average English actor is superior than the average American actor, the time is ripe for a patriotic denial of such a sweeping assertion.

A few years ago, the Pall Mall Gazette

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