. Drama in religious service . con-nection with the Community Training School forSunday School workers which is now maintainedin connection with the religious extension workdone at Columbia University. At the International Sunday School Conven-tion, held in Kansas City, Missouri, in June,1922, two evenings were devoted to the presenta-tion of religious pageants, prepared under thedirection of Professor H. Augustine Smith, di-rector of the Department of Fine Arts inReligion, Boston University. These pageantswere produced with the idea that the delegates(more than 8,000 in number, representing1,
. Drama in religious service . con-nection with the Community Training School forSunday School workers which is now maintainedin connection with the religious extension workdone at Columbia University. At the International Sunday School Conven-tion, held in Kansas City, Missouri, in June,1922, two evenings were devoted to the presenta-tion of religious pageants, prepared under thedirection of Professor H. Augustine Smith, di-rector of the Department of Fine Arts inReligion, Boston University. These pageantswere produced with the idea that the delegates(more than 8,000 in number, representing1,677,695 Sunday School officers and teachers,and 12,036,246 pupils from all parts of theUnited States and Canada) should carry backhome with them the correct feeling for the co-ordination of music, light and color in the drama-tized religious appeal. The first of these pageants. The Light of theWorld was participated in by three hundredplayers besides a pageant chorus of one hun-dred singers. The other, The Commonwealth of[124]. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION God, had an even larger cast. ConventionHall, which has a seating capacity of 12,000was taxed to capacity. Not an inch of stand-ing room remained, and hundreds of people hadto be turned away. The pageant depicted Amer-ica as the Commonwealth of God, and its chil-dren as the children of God. No ChristianAmerican citizen could see the strongly stirringseries of scenes, a spectator afterwards wrote,without feeling that he was looking into themirror of his own mind seeing there the idealAmerica as he knows it. The first secular organization to recognize thesocial and spiritual value of church drama, andto take active part in the development of leader-ship, was Community Service, the discovery was made that over thirtyfive per cent, of all the students enrolled for theCommunity Service Drama Institutes of GreaterBoston, were church workers, Mr. Joseph Lee,the president of this national organization and aresident of Bost
Size: 1170px × 2135px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookidcu3192402610, bookyear1922
