He is the best loved Actor on the Stage today. He plays to the highest
type audience of any Musical Show. He is the only Musical comedy
comedian that has Matinees packed with Children, for none of our other
Musical Comedy Comedians has ever been able to please the Children and
the grown ups too. He is as great a Pantomimist on the stage as Chaplin
is on the screen.
Now, people must not get the idea that this is a remote case in our
Business. It is, of course, on account of the prominence of the man
that we have heard so much of it, and if he had known that it would be
broadcasted in this way it would have been the only thing to make him
hesitate. No one can say that Fred Stone was ever a publicity seeker.
He is too sincere in all he does for that. I think if all Churches in
communities where Theatrical people live were canvassed you would find
there are as many of them in attendance as any other line of people.
And when you come to Charity and trying to help some one who is in
need, you will find them, not only holding their own, but far in the
lead of any other class.
This could not have come at a more opportune time as Preachers all over
are telling us that there is a gradual weaning away from the Church. If
this will only make people think just for a little it will have done
worlds of good.
I have sometimes wondered if the Preachers themselves have not
something to do with this. You hear or read a sermon nowadays and the
biggest part of it is taken up by knocking or trying to prove the
falseness of some other denomination. They say that the Catholics are
Damned, that the Jews’ religion is all wrong, or that the Christian
Scientists are a fake, or that the Protestants are all out of step.
Now just suppose, for a change, they preached to you about the Lord and
not about the other fellow’s Church, for every man’s religion is good.
There is none of it bad. We are all trying to arrive at the same place
according to our own conscience and teachings. It don’t matter which
Road you take.
Suppose you heard a Preacher say, “I don’t care if you join my Church
or the other fellow’s across the street. I don’t claim mine to be
better or worse than any other. But get with somebody and try and do
better.” Hunt out and talk about the good that is in the other fellow’s
Church, not the bad, and you will do away with all this religious
hatred you hear so much of nowadays. Then you will not only have one
Fred Stone but Millions of them.
Besides, it’s not that we need more people just to join Churches. It’s
that we need more Fred Stones, either in or out of a Church. For this
Man’s life is an object lesson to every Young Man or Boy starting out
on a career in any line of business. Sincerity put him where he is. He
never faked. No man his age in America has worked harder and been more
conscientious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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