Victoria Magazine (Volume 28) - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877. Excerpt: ... The Church and the Stage. On Thursday, the 2nd of February, from the dress circle of the Manchester Theatre Royal--which was specially reserved on that occasion for the Directors of the Company, to which the theatre belongs--we viewed, with feelings of peculiar interest, a somewhat strange, and certainly novel, ceremony. The stage--the front of which was enclosed by a scene representing a Gothic chamber--was occupied by the Right Rev. James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, while the leading actors, actresses, and chorus, filled the stalls, and the other members of the companies, now playing at the Royal and Queen Theatres, the pit. A Church " Mission " was prevailing throughout the district, and the Bishop had wisely resolved to include the theatres in the range of his special ministrations. We have so often protested, in the pages of the Victoria, against the too common denunciation of the stage, as necessarily exercising a demoralizing influence on society, that we welcomed with feelings of unqualified satisfaction the sight of a Bishop of the Church of England face to face with a theatre full of actors and actresses, courageously acknowledging that the profession, though "perilous," did not exclude its followers from leading Christian lives, and firmly maintaining the true mission of the stage to be a moral and educational influence, as well as a healthful relaxation, co-operating with the Church in the instruction and culture of the people. The proceedings were opened by singing the hymn, "Come unto Me, ye weary;" and after the Rev. J. A. Atkinson had read three prayers from the Church Service, and one specially written for the occasion, the Bishop of Manchester, in his usual earnest, straightforward style, began by saying that all those who knew their B...