"Good men of even heathen times were opposed to the drama, Plato, Aristotle, because it was ruinous to morals. Socrates it is true, sometimes visited the theatre, but if any one concludes from that, that he approved of it, I deny it; one must see much of which one does not approve. The early Christians were expressly warned against the play, vide Tertullian, and since the revival of the drama in later times, earnest Christians have spoken and written against it, I name such men as Spener and Francke; I name a writer on Christian ethics, as Schwarz, I name Schleiermacher. ('Hear! hear!' cried the captain, for this name he knew.) The two latter admit dramatic representations to be allowable, and Schleiermacher even thinks that in a private company and by amateurs, a good play may be performed, but he condemns the actors on the stage. As a profession, it presents so many temptations to the Christian, that he MUST avoid it. And is it not also a temptation to the spectator? To be moved by fictitious suffering, to be elevated by a fictitious paragon of virtue, such (which in reading one can better defend oneself from,) entice us to believe, that we are ourselves what we see before us, our energy and force of will are weakened by it, it drags us down into the mere wish to see and hear, making us visionary. Is it not so? Who are the frequenters of the theatre? Idlers in search of amusement, voluptuaries who will be stimulated, vain people who wish to be seen, visionaries who flee hither to escape the actual life against which they dare not contend. Sin behind the curtain, sin before it! I have never heard sincere Christians say anything else." The Capt.: "I am beginning to tremble for myself; if I have been in such a den of wolves each time I have attended the theatre, the devil----" "Fie captain," said a little girl who had come in with them, "you mustn't swear, or else you'll go to hell!"--"Aye my child, yes, yes."--Then Odegaard rose to speak: