e different States
to suppress theatrical performances by law; and soon after they passed
another act declaring that no person who visited the theatre should hold
an office under the government. It seems impossible to make them
otherwise than disreputable. Attempts have been made to establish
_respectable_ theatres, but they have always failed. Such an attempt was
made to reform one of the royal theatres of London, some years ago, and
the committee to whom the subject was submitted reported that the
institution could not be supported after such reform. The experiment was
actually tried with the late Tremont Theatre, in Boston. Intoxicating
drinks were not allowed to be sold, and no females were admitted
unaccompanied by gentlemen, as the better class of people would not
attend if profligate persons were admitted. But the theatre could not be
supported on these principles, and the plan was abandoned. A report was
published, in which it was stated, that if the rent of the building was
free, it could not be sustained by the reform system. Intemperance and
licentiousness appear to be indispensable to support the theatre. There
is good reason, then, for the legend recorded by Tertullian, running as
follows: A Christian woman went to the theatre, and came home possessed
of a demon. Her confessor, seeking to cast out the evil one, demanded of
him how he dared to take possession of a believer, who, by holy baptism,
had been redeemed out of his kingdom. "I have done nothing but what is
proper," said the devil, "for I found her on my own territory." He might
have made a captive of Nat for the same reason.

Some pronounce this hostility to theatres a prejudice of Christian
ministers and their sympathizers, but this is not true. The popular
actor, Macready, who won a world-wide fame in the business, by his long
connection with the stage, expressed a similar opinion of theatres after
he left the play. He settled in Sherbourne, England, where he had a
pleasant, promising family, and one rule to which his children were
subjected was, "None of my children shall ever, with my consent or on
any pretence, enter a theatre, or have any visiting connection with
actors and actresses." The honored Judge Bulstrode at one time expressed
the feelings of the English bench, when, in his charge to the grand jury
of Middlesex, he said, "One play-house ruins more souls than fifty
churches are able to save." Sir Matthew Hale relates that when he was at