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Show CIII'IICIIUS AND THEATRES. The HiL'liuiitnii Eiiqu!ir i dL-uv ! sing the probable i-fiVct of the serious competition which the fashionable churches are affording to the theatrical theat-rical eslabliahineuts of our lare cities, j The followiug paragraph U to the ! poinl: ! The effort io maintain the theatre languishes even in the east; hut our people linJ no lack of amusement at church. Instead of spending their money endowing a mammoth opera-house opera-house "to be kept going by oScial patronage," wo respectfully suggest to the citizens of Louisville to try and ! wake their churches up. It used to i be tho custom in this part of the I world (and still is to a great extent in j many of our places of worship) to spend the Sabbath in prayer and preaching and congregational singing; and the thing was pretty slow. That large clement in the community who do not belong to the church were not entertained at all, und a considerable proportion even of the members found it a drag. Now, in some of our fashionable fash-ionable churches, a man can spend as pleasant a Sunday a.s he could in .Paris. W'a have razEnd the serai on down to twenty minutes and it is more a matter mat-ter of form than anything clfe people are not expected to listen. The entertainment enter-tainment is chiefly musical the most exquisite music mainly secuiar and quite lively. Our young people so in throngs to church, and take the most marked interest in the services. There has been a great revival of religion, and pews aro sold at a high figure that were formerly regularly unnoccupicd. Scoffers who formerly regarded religion as a bore attend church now, and go into raptures over the music. Silly girls with the greatest repugnance to the thought of regeneration go in tlio most gorgeous attire, and behave as well ad they would do at the theatre; and are frequently converted that is, join the church. In New York they have, in some of the church choirs, introduced the drum and ihe violin, and, we believe, the flageolet. The effect is said to be spleudid. The church originated the modern drama, aud impressed it into her service, it is the tendency of history to repeat it self, and the disposition manileoled to return to the primitive worship, requires only lobe encouraged and boldly developed, to mate our Sunday exercises genuine occasions of relaxation andrefreshmcnt from the toils of the week. If the sermon could be dispensed with altogether it would be a great relief from the dullness and tedium te-dium of our ordinary services. Long aud lugubrious uraycrs ought also to be bani.ihcd, and everything of a sombre som-bre character expurgated from our holy religion. Speciacular exhibitions, accompanied by tiuo singing, and a good band or orchestra something in the slyle of the Black Crook or the White Fiiwu (properly moditied) would draw immense crowds to our city churches, aud the town council of Louisville would havo no occasion to bestow its "official patronogo" on a $1,000,000 opera-houe to make that i metropolis thoroughly attractive and j entirely independe-ut of the Louisville I and Nashville railroad. |