Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/260

248 Recreation is the pillory of pride. It proclaims the offender, and holds him up to be pelted.

9. "Let priests abstain from exhibitions unworthy of ecclesiastics, from the clamours of hunting with horse and hounds, from public dancing and unlawful games, and from feastings which are protracted to unseasonable hours of night." "We strictly forbid, moreover, all ecclesiastics in sacred Orders to be present at scenic representations in public theatres, or in places which serve for the time as a public theatre, imposing upon the transgressors the pain of suspension incurred thereby ipso facto, hitherto in force in England, and reserved to the Ordinaries respectively."

May this wise and wholesome tradition of our forefathers never be relaxed. The theatre in their days was high, intellectual, and pure compared with the modern stage and its moral fall.

In his epistle to Donatus, S. Cyprian denounces theatres: pœnitenda contagia. … Adulterium discitur dum videtur, et lenocinante ad vitia publicæ auctoritatis malo. S. John Chrysostom calls fathers who took their sons to theatres.