Modern Problems and Christian Ethics. By W. J. Hocking. (Wells
Gardner, Darton, and Co.)—These sermons discuss in a manly, religious, and common-sensical spirit many of the problems that most exercise the minds of average men and women who wish to live as Christians without becoming hermits. How we are to apply the Spirit of Christ to the morality of our amusements (especially play-going), the Sunday question, gambling, war, politics in general, our duty to animals, our duty to our children, the problems of labour and the problems of city life, — such are the matters discussed in a dozen sermons preached on a regular monthly Sunday evening set apart by Mr. Hocking for talking to his congregation about " popular" topics. The addresses are well worth reading, by some for guidance, and by others, who have already made up their mind what part to take, for sympathy and encouragement. The sermon on " the theatre " is the one to which one turns instinctively for an example by which to test the preacher's attitude of mind ; and ona finds him sound. He ignores no facts connected with the stage :— " Of the effects of the stage on our English life, it is difficult to speak. I know that, as I have previously stated, it has been the source of some of our best literature ; that connected with it have been some of our noblest characters ; that from its proceeds many charitable and religious institutions have received in. valuable help ; that music and art, eloquence and poetry, have been mightily strengthened, developed, and ennobled by it. But I cannot close my eyes to the fact that it has also mightily fostered, encouraged, and produced profligacy, vice, and impurity, that in the past it has not been friendly to religious life, religious thought, religious reverence—things of the highest importance to man, to society, to the world."
He quotes and emphasises the remarkable teaching of Fanny Kemble as to the dangers of stage-life to a woman's purity and self-respect. And yet he declares that he cannot for a moment believe that the evils and the dangers he has recognised are " inseparable from histrionic interpretation and histrionic art." And upon the final question, "Ought a Christian man, or Christian woman, to go to the theatre ? " be declines to give any answer pretending to be a general rule, meeting it only by an adaptation of the Pauline principle, "To him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean,"—and of course to him who esteemeth it clean, it is clean. On the Sunday question Mr. Hocking is more explicit, and he states very admirably the case for the general opening of places of intelligent amusement, and the increase—if increase is possible—of facilities for escape from London into the country on the day of rest. The style of the sermons is easy and colloquial, sometimes a little too much so,—as when we are told in the sermon on " Parental Duties" that there is only one thing Mr. Hocking loves Martin Luther for, " and that is, not his theses on the doors of the Wittenberg church wherein he defied the Pope—I don't care an old button about those theses—but I love him because he played at trundling hoops with his children."
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