Religious?  Yes, verily, for will not all good Londoners read in the course of a year or two that there will be a performance of “Hamlet” at Drury Lane “towards the defraying the charge of repairing and fitting up the chapel in Russell Court,” said performance to be given “with singing by Mr. Hughes, and entertainment of dancing by Monsieur Cherier, Miss Lambro his scholar, and Mr. Evans.  Boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s.”

Here was an ideal union of church and stage with a vengeance, the one being served by the other, and the whole thing done to the secular accompaniment of singing and dancing.  For an instant the town was scandalised, but Defoe, that perturbed spirit for whom there was no such word as rest, saw the humour of the situation.

“Hard times, gentlemen, hard times these are indeed with the Church,” he informs the promoters of this ecclesiastical benefit, “to send her to the playhouse to gather pew-money.  For shame, gentlemen! go to the Church and pay your money there, and never let the playhouse have such a claim to its establishment as to say the Church is beholden to her....  Can our Church be in danger?  How is it possible?  The whole nation is solicitous and at work for her safety and prosperity.  The Parliament address, the Queen consults, the Ministry execute, the Armies fight, and all for the Church; but at home we have other heroes that act for the Church.  Peggy Hughes sings, Monsieur Ramandon plays, Miss Santlow dances, Monsieur Cherier teaches, and all for the Church.  Here’s heavenly doings! here’s harmony!”

“In short,” concludes the author of “Robinson Crusoe,” “the observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in capital letters:  ’This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation of our morals, and to the eternal scandal and most just reproach of the Church of England and the Protestant religion.  Witness our hands,

“Lucifer, Prince of Darkness,|
and                         | Churchwardens."[A]
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,  |

[Footnote A:  Review, June 20, 1706.]

The “enemies of the reformation of our morals!” Defoe used the expression satirically, but how well it suited the minds of many pious persons, ranging all the way from bishops to humble laymen, who could see nothing in the theatre excepting the prospective flames of the infernal regions.  Clergymen preached against the playhouse then, just as some of them have done since, and will continue so to do until the arrival of the Millennium.  Oftentimes the criticisms of these well-meaning gentlemen had more than a grain of truth to make them half justifiable.  The stage