Then, to go to one theater, sanctions all. To have heard and to have seen Joe Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle," Richard Mansfield in "The Merchant of Venice," or Edwin Booth or Sir Henry Irving, or Maude Adams, or Julia Marlowe in their best plays, is to have received a deeper insight into human nature, and a stronger purpose to become sympathetic and true, but who can afford to sanction all that is base and villainous is the institution of the modern theater for the sake of learning sympathy and truth and human nature from a few worthy actors, when he may find all of this as truthfully, if not as artistically, set forth by the orator, by the musician, by the painter, and by the author? It is not cant, it is not pharisaism, it is not a weak claim of Christianity, but it is common honesty, mighty truth, a cardinal and beautiful teaching of Jesus Christ to deny one's self for the welfare of the weaker brother. Let one go to hear Mansfield in Shakespeare, and his neighbor boy will take his friend and go to the vaudeville, and his only excuse to his parents and to his half-taught mind and heart will be, "Well, Mr. So-and-So goes to the theater, he is a member of the Church and superintendent of the Sunday-school; surely there is no harm for me to go." To the immature mind what seems right for one person seems lawful for another. This is because such a person has not learned to discriminate between what is bad and what is good. Therefore, if the theater as an institution has more in it that is bad than It has in it that is good, rather if the general tendency of the theater, as an institution, is bad, the safe thing for one's self and for those who read one's life as an example, is to discard it entirely. In view of these facts, no person can attend the theater at all without hurting his influence. The ideal life is that one which gives offense of stumbling to no one. A successful preacher who had an aversion toward speaking on the subject of questionable amusements, when asked what he believed concerning a certain form of amusement, replied: "See what I do, and know what I believe." It is a glorious life whose actions are an open epistle of righteousness and peace, read and believed and honored by all men. "Some time ago a gentleman teaching a large class of young men in a Chicago Sunday-school, desired to attend a theater for the purpose of seeing a celebrated actor. He was not a theater-goer, and thought that no harm could come from it. He had no sooner taken his seat, however, than he saw in the opposite gallery some of the members of his class. They also saw him and began commenting on the fact that their teacher was at the theater. They thought it inconsistent in him, lost their interest in the class, and he lost his influence over the young men. That teacher tied his hands by this one act, so that he could not speak out against the gross sins of the theater."