=The Theater.= People have always been interested in seeing life presented in a play. The theater has had a large place in the history of every nation. It has furnished the means of recreation and amusement, and in a large measure it has been a great educator of the people. Religion was once taught through the theater. In fact, much of our church ritual is taken from performances that were meant to symbolize great facts and emotions of human life. The modern theater has become highly commercialized, and those who attend the performances continually demand more magnificent scenery, more elaborate costumes, and more thrills. What of the performers? Have you ever wondered, as you looked at the play, just how the people who are taking part would look if you saw them off the stage? For instance, there is a girl that is playing the part of an old woman. She is dressed in a plain black, close-fitting gown, and hobbles across the stage leaning heavily upon a stick. In actual life she is a young woman under twenty-five years of age, has bright red hair, a charming smile, a figure that her friends describe as willowy, and walks with a springy step like that of a high school girl. Another character in the play is a woman who plays the part of the vampire. At home surrounded by her three children, she is a demure, domestic little body. A few years ago one of our theatrical critics said that a glimpse behind the scenes would cure almost any girl of the desire to become an actress. The glamor is all in front of the curtain. Behind the scenes we come face to face with a hard-working group of men and women who are doing their best to furnish amusement. One of the leading actresses, in writing the history of her life, said that the only opportunity for success on the stage was for the person who comprehends fully that the theater offers but one thing--a chance for long hours of drudgery and the uncertain rewards that come from the hands of a fickle public. She described vividly the actors’ boarding-house, with its narrow cramped bedrooms; its dimly-lit halls, with the faded and worn carpet; the smell of cooking that permeated the whole place “like the ghost of a thousand dead dinners;” the bitter loneliness, the jealousies, the misunderstandings, and she added, “my whole being revolts against all the petty details of the life.” Then there is the traveling; nights on the train and days spent in the hotels until time to go to the opera house; then the feverish excitement of dressing; the play; and back to the hotel for a few hours’ sleep and away again to another town.