XI
THE ECCLESIASTICAL CHURCH AND THE LIVING CHURCH
Strange that there should be a feud between the
Church and the Theatre! They were originally
one and the same, and as it is the Church remains
a holy theatre where day after day is enacted the
same holy mystery. In passing: how much nearer
the Theatre is brought to the Church by the
constant repetition of the great classical and
mystical dramas such as Hamlet. The reason for
the religious distrust of the Theatre which exists in
all countries,—in England in the Free Churches; in
Russia in the Orthodox Church,—lies in the degradation
of the Theatre, the making it a show of wild
beasts, a stage for indecent dances and comic songs,
an arena for combats of athletes. The common
townspeople are not and never can be the pupils
of Hypatia. They will have their indecencies and
vulgarities, wild beasts, acrobats, invitation to sin.
The showman has usurped the place of the
mystagogue, and money-making has replaced religious
service or service to art and culture as
