THE ACTRESS-EVANGELIST.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2515, 31 May 1909, Page 2

THE ACTRESS-EVANGELIST.

SNARES AND DELUSIONS OF STAGE LIFE.

“Can an actress be a Christian?” was the text taken by Miss Ada Ward ex-actress and evangelist, in her discourse at the Pitt-street Methodist Church, in Auckland last week, and briefly for herself she confessed it had not been possible, wherefore apparently she proceeded to pronounce judgment on tlie stage and all its wickednesses and weaknesses, in little more than so many words, trying it, and finding it guilty, and generally condemning it. With speech and gesture craft, stageborn Miss Ward delivered her phillipic, or jeremiad rather, respecting tho deplorable but well-nigh irresistible lures that tempt so many young girls, with little or no talent, but with the dangerous possession of a beautiful face or form, to walk blindly into all the besetting perils of the stage. “And for what?” she asked. “No religion in their hearts and no God to uphold them, what is their destiny ? The answer is to be found by asking what becomes of all the girls who for £1 a week or loss stand half nude id tho ballet or pantomime for the men in the stalls to gaze upon. Where do these girls obtain their diamond rings and earrings? How often have I seen young and beautiful girls abandoned? Seen them slip from bad to worse- —to drink, untold •misery, death in a workhouse, and a pauper’s grave ? Some of them have died in my arms. For one that rises 50 sink into the veriest slough of despair and degradation.” And the speaker appealed dramatically to all Christians that they must eschew the theatre. Nor did the religious play escape Miss Ward’s denunciation. Hs very pretensions were the root of its most deadly influences on both public and stage morality, she declared. Picking uj), so to speak, “The Sign of the Cross,” Miss Ward practically stamped it as a Machiavellian invention for the damnation of souls. Christians could be heard speaking of the beautiful hymns in it, though they were mockingly sung, and the prayers, though they were mockingly prayed by profane lips. And the audience "were subjected to a word picture of ministers of religion in the Old Country visiting the play by the hundreds, to dine afterwards, in their enthusiasm, with the actors and actresses in Oxford-street. Young men devoted to Sunday schools had gone to the play, and never afterwards returned to the Sunday school. Hundreds of men and women had deserted the churches and Sunday schools through its devilish influence. Coining to the New Zealand stage, the lecturess expressed her pleasure in discovering a comparative blamelessness concerning it, after contemplating the stages of Britain and America. She warned her hearers to boycott the awful and infamous dances so popular in those countries—when they arrive here. She thought but little of the general Christianity of people nowadays but was glad to see a higher spiritual life in New Zealand than in any other country she had visited for many years, wherefore she hopes for the boycott.—‘ ‘Auckland Star. ’ ’