REMARKS ON THE IMMORALITY OF THE STAGE.
Why is it that the ear of modesty must be shocked by the indelicacy and immorality which obstinately clings to the stage, that vehicle of good or evil, that splendid engine whose movements may shed a halo of brilliancy around it, or leave behind the blackened traces of its desolating progress?
Can the eye of innocence gaze. even upon the mimic characters of vice, or the ear of delicacy become familiarized to the rude and boisterous, or the more dangerously subtle insinuations of depravity, without quitting the fascinating scene less fastidious in its feelings, less sensible to the bold intrusions of barefaced wickedness? No: though the change be slow and almost imperceptible, still it will not be the less certain; the fatal poison will creep to the very vitals of virtue, and stamp deep stains upon the spotless tablet of innocence.
Must, then, all that is bright and pure be shut out from those scenes of fascination, and delight? Must that very purity which should be cherished and guarded as a sacred deposit, be converted into a chain wherewith to shackle the amusements of its possessor? Would not the frequent indulgence of this amusement be holding forth a strong temptation to those who are but partially fortified in the principles of rectitude to overleap the crumbling ill-formed barrier, and plunge at once into the boundless ocean of vice and immorality?
O why will not authors, those helmsmen in the mighty vessel of improvement, dash the countless stains from the charts which they are holding to our eyes, and transform their blackened pages to pure, spotless records of truth and virtue? Then we should no longer mark the blush of offended modesty mantling the.cheek of sensibility, or the frown of disapprobation clouding the pure brow of refinement and morality. The stage would then become the guardian and the friend, instead of the fell destroyer of all that is pure and virtuous in the human breast.
