What was the result?
It is related concerning a certain village in Lancashire that for seventeen years drinking saloons were permitted there; for the following fifteen none were allowed. During the former period immorality was rampant everywhere, so that it can be said with truth that in every alternate house an illegitimate child was born. During the subsequent fifteen years matters underwent a complete change, so that at present cases of immorality are of very rare occurrence.
XLVII. The Enemy in the Theater
1.The theater, the stage, is not merely nothing indifferent as regards religion and morality, but rather something either highly advantageous or extremely injurious. Undoubtedly the theater wields a powerful influence for good or evil. Good plays of a religious tendency raise the tone of morals. The histrionic art resembles the other arts - poetry, painting, rhetoric, sculpture, and music - in the elevating powers they exercise. For this reason the Catholic Church has taken the fine arts one by one into her service, and thereby aided them to attain their highest perfection. The mystery plays of the Middle Ages were employed by her as a means of religious teaching. For the same reason, Catholic educational institutions in
