Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/127

 and then to plump them down in the public pleasure-ground for any unsuspecting wayfarer to sicken at!

So far I have been thinking chiefly of the theatre, and I hope I have convinced you that if Free Churchmen distrust the theatre as it is they have reason for their distrust. At the same time I hope you see that it is as irrational to accuse us of a hatred of the Drama, as it would be to accuse the physician who should prescribe plentiful doses of quinine to some poor victim of malaria of hating his unfortunate patient. It is not hatred which causes the surgeon to cut off the gangrened limb, it is not hatred which makes me caution my little ones to shun the fever-stricken slum, and it is not hatred which impels us to denounce the horrors and the indecency of the so-called "classic" drama, and to take care that those we love shall not enter the halls of so deadly a contagion.

But before I pass from my consideration of the Drama to that of other forms of art, I should like to say a word on the