One who has studied the theater tells us that the "fruits of the Spirit
and the fruits of the stage exhibit as pointed a contrast as the human
imagination can conceive." The famous Macready, as he retired from
the stage, wrote: "None of my children, with my consent under any
pretense, shall ever enter the theater, nor shall they have any visiting
connection with play actors or actresses." Dr. Johnson asks the question:
"How can they mingle together as they do, men and women, and make
public exhibitions of themselves as they do, in such circumstances,
with such surroundings, with such speech as much often be on their
lips to play the plays that are written, in such positions as they must
sometimes take, affecting such sentiment and passions--how can they do
this without moral contamination?" And we would ask, how can persons
live enrapt with this sort of thing for hours and hours each week, the year
around, and not become equally contaminated, for to the onlooker all this
comes as a reality, while to those who are performing, it is hired shamming?
Therefore, as the pupil becomes the teacher, so the attendant at the theater
becomes like the one who performs. So that to go to the theater is to "sit in
the seat of the scornful or to stand in the way of sinners." "There you find
the man," says one, "who has lost all love for his home, the careless, the
profane, the spendthrift, the drunkard, and the lowest prostitute of the street.
They are found in all parts of the house; they crowd the gallery, and
together should aloud the applause, greeting that which caricatures religion,
sneers at virtue, or hints at indecency." Not only the actors and the onlookers
of the average theater are vile, but all of the immediate associations of the
playhouse must correspond with it. If not in the same building with the
theater, in adjoining ones, at least, are found the wine-parlor and the
brothel. It is generally conceded that no theater can be prosperous if it is
wholly separated from these adjuncts of evil.

The theater, therefore, kills spiritually and degrades the moral life