The lady of the house said this as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but it shocked Rose to find that, in the city where the Sabbath is observed more strictly than anywhere else, this was how the Sabbath night was spent, and, naturally, she had little respect for the piety which could attend church twice a day on the Sunday, and make the Sunday night a convivial carouse.
What was she to do? She went to many a Congregational, or Baptist, or Unitarian, or Episcopalian church in London, where she heard much that was helpful to her spiritual life—much that it did her good to hear.
‘You can’t join my church,’ said a popular divine to her.
‘Why not?
‘Because you are an actress. My deacons would not hear of such a thing.’
‘Have you ever been to a theatre?’
‘Never!’ was the emphatic reply.
‘How, then, can you condemn that of which you are ignorant?’ asked the actress.
‘Well,’ said the preacher, ‘I can go by popular report. Look at the lives of the professionals. Was not Kean a drunkard? Did not the Duke of So-and-so keep an actress? Did not So-and-so’—naming a popular actor—‘run off with another man’s wife?’
‘What of that?’ said Rose. ‘I am told your predecessor in your very chapel did the same.’