But this author finds condemnation there of "stage effects," rehearsed or unrehearsed. You deal with the judgments of God in tragedy, and laugh over the sins of men in comedy; and thereupon he reminds you, not very appositely, that Ham was accursed for deriding his father! Players change their apparel and put on women's attire,--as if they had never read a chapter in Deuteronomy in their lives! If coming on the stage under false representation of their natural names and persons be not an offence against the Epistle to Timothy, he would thank you to inform him _what_ it is! As to looking on these pleasant evils and not falling into sin,--you have heard of Job and King David, and you are worse than a heathen if you do not remember what _they_ looked upon with innocent intent, or if you have forgotten what came of the looking. He reminds parents, that while _they_ are at the play, there are wooers who are carrying off the hearts of their daughters at home; perhaps, the very daughters themselves _from_ home. This seems to me to be less an argument against resorting to the theatre than in favour of your taking places for your "young ladies," as well as for yourselves. The writer looks too wide abroad to see what lies at his feet. He is in Asia, citing the Council of Laodicea against the theatre. He is in Africa, vociferating, as the Council of Carthage did, against audiences. He is in Europe, at Arles, where the Fathers decided that no actor should be admitted to the sacrament. Finally, he unites all these Councils together at Constantinople, and in a three-piled judgment sends stage, actors, and audiences to Gehenna. If you would only remember that many royal and noble men have been slain when in the theatre, on their way thither, or returning thence, you will have a decent horror of risking a similar fate in like localities. He has known actors who have died after the play was over; he would fain have you believe that there is something in _that_. And when he has intimated that theatres have been burnt and audiences suffocated; that stages have been swept down by storms and spectators trodden to death; that less than forty years previous to the time of his writing, eight persons had been killed and many more wounded, by the fall of a London playhouse; and that a similar calamity had lately occurred in the city of Lyons--the writer conceives he has advanced sufficient argument, and administered more than enough of admonition, to deter any person from entering a theatre henceforth and for ever.