fred was sitting erect, looking straight at the
speaker. His attitude seemed to say: "If you are going to hit them all I
can stand it but don't hold me up as a lone example of all that's sinful
in this congregation."

Then the speaker waded into the popular frivolities of the times; cards,
dice, gambling, drinking, dancing and other pastimes. As Alfred was
immune from all of the above sins he sat up still more straight and even
ventured to look around at some of the society young folks of the
congregation. He began to feel that Uncle Tom was a very good preacher.

After a moment's pause as if to pull himself together for the final
onslaught upon all that was sinful, the preacher resumed: "I do not
hesitate for a moment to condemn show life and all who are aware of its
iniquity that engage in it. The circus, the theatre, the actors therein,
the proprietors, those who, for sordid gain, place these terrible
temptations before our young people." Alfred felt himself sinking in the
pew. "I do not hesitate to condemn the theatre as one of the broadest
roads that leads to destruction. Fascinating no doubt to the young of
susceptible and impressionable feelings, on that account all the more
dangerous. Show life is a delusion. It holds out hopes never realized;
it poisons the mind and diseases the soul; it takes innocence and
happiness and repays with suffering and misery. It separates families;
it desolates homes; it makes wanderers on the face of the earth of those
who are allured to it. Once let a young man acquire a taste for show
life and yield himself up to its wicked gratifications; that young man
is in great danger of losing his reputation. He is rushing headlong to
certain ruin."

Alfred was sitting straight up. His cheeks burned like fire but there
was no shame in his face, he even looked about him; he met the gaze of
those who stared and held it until the eyes of the others dropped.

The preacher continued: "All the evils that can blight a young life,
waste his property, corrupt his morals, blast his hopes, impair his
health and wreck his soul, lurk in the purlieus of this abominated show
life that is threatening some of the best beloved and most talented of
our young people. Folly consists in drawing false conclusions from just
principles; and that is what the theatre does. Men may live fools but
fools they cannot die. The instruction of fools is folly; therefore, the
actor cannot teach wisdom or morality. He that