"Only _trying_ to preach the Gospel, only _trying_ to preach the Gospel!" exclaimed the judge. "There is no law, Mr. Prosecutor, against merely _trying_ to preach the Gospel. You can go, sir; but if this Court ever hears that you have succeeded in actually _preaching_ the Gospel, you will be punished, sir!" XXVIII AMONG THE ACTORS THE GIVING OF PLEASURE THE ACTOR'S AIM--PRAISE OF NOTABLE ACTORS --BARRETT, FORREST, McCULLOUGH, EDWIN BOOTH, WILKES BOOTH, JEFFERSON, IRVING--MACBETH'S PRAISE OF SLEEP. On the evening of October 27, 1908, a meeting was held in the Grand Opera House, Chicago, Illinois, in the interest of the Democratic candidates in the campaign then pending. The meeting began a few minutes after midnight, and the immense audience consisted, in a large measure, of actors and actresses and their attendants from the various theatres of the city. After an eloquent political speech of the Hon. Samuel Alschuler and a stirring recitation by one of the actors, I was introduced, and spoke as follows: "I am grateful for the opportunity under such happy auspices, to bid you _good-morning._ I would count myself fortunate, indeed, could I contribute even the smallest mite to the enjoyment of those who have in such unstinted measure dispensed pleasure to so many of the human family, to the representatives of a profession which, struggling up through the centuries, has at last found honored and abiding place in a broader civilization, a calling whose sublime mission it is to give surcease to harassing care, to smooth out the wrinkles from the brow, bring gladness to the eye, to teach that 'Behind the clouds is the sun still smiling'; in a word, to add to the sum of human happiness. "It has been my good fortune, in the happy years gone by, to have had the personal acquaintance of some of the most eminent of your profession. Under the witchery of this inspiring presence, 'the graves of memory render up their dead.' Again I hear from the lips of Barrett: 'Take away the sword; States can be saved without it!' 'How love, like death, levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook beside the sceptre!' "Who that ever saw Forrest 'sitting as if in judgment upon kings' could forget that superb presence? In the silent watches, even yet, steal upon us in ominous accents the words, 'Put out the light, and then put out the light!' Complimented upon the manner in which he played Lear, he angrily exclaimed: 'Played Lear, played Lear? I _play_ Hamlet, I _play_ Macbeth, I _play_ Othello; but I _am_ Lear!' Possibly the art of the tragedian has known no loftier triumph than in Forrest's rendition of Lear's curse upon the unnatural daughter: 'Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains and benefits To laughter and contempt!'