But the next morning John read the sermon published in the newspaper. He had already noted that the more doubtful the sermon, the more likely it is to get into the headlines, because from the editor's standpoint it thus becomes news, and late Sunday night, which is the scarcest hour of the whole week for news, there is more joy in the "city room" over one sermon that breathes the fiery spirit of sensation than over ninety and nine which need no hell and damnation in which to express the tender gospel of Jesus. John read it with a sense of wrath, of outrage, and of humiliation. That night he launched himself at the study door of his pastor.
"I was very sorry you did not hear my sermon last night," began Doctor Campbell blandly, sensing the advantage of striking first.
"Brother Campbell, I have come to arraign you for that sermon," retorted John, with an immediate outburst of feeling. "I say that you spoke what you did not know. I say," and his voice almost broke with the weight of its own earnestness, "I say that you bore false witness!"
The amazed minister's mouth opened, but John repressed his utterance with a gesture.
"You will say you preached your convictions. I say you preached your prejudice, your ignorance. I say you bore false witness against struggling women, against aspiring men, against those of whose bitter battlings you know nothing."
The Reverend Charles Thompson Campbell leaned back aghast. No man had ever presumed to talk to him like this, no man of twice his years and spiritual attainments; yet here was this stripling not only talking to him like this, but with a fervor of unction in his utterance that made his upbraiding sound half inspired.
"You are condemning the stage as an institution," went on John scornfully. "You might as well condemn the printing press as an institution. You discriminate with regard to newspapers and books. Do the same with the stage. Taboo the corrupt play and teach your people to avoid it. Support the good and teach the managers that you will. Taboo the notorious actor or actress if you wish. Give the rest of them the benefit of the doubt, as you do in your personal contact with all humanity. Oh, Doctor Campbell, you are so charitable in your personal relations with men and so uncharitable in much of your preaching!"
This one exclamatory sentence had in it enough of affectionate regard to enable the minister to contain himself a little longer, under the impassioned tide which now flowed again.
"The stage? The stage as an institution?" John appeared to pause and wind himself up. "Why, listen! The stage function is a godlike function. When God created man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life he planted in man's breast also the instinct to create. That instinct is the foundation of all art. Man has always exhibited this passion to create something in his own image. It might be a rude drawing on a rock, or only a manikin sculptured in mud and set in the sun to dry; or it might be a marble of Phidias, with the form, the strength, the spirit of life upon it. The painter can go farther. He gets the color and the very visage of thought and even of emotion. Yet each falls short. There is no God to breathe into their creations the breath of life."
The minister leaned back a little as if to put his understanding more at poise.