While I was staying at Hull House, I saw in their theater a moving
picture of the life of Moses. The dial of time turned back, we all
became spectators of the events of that great life, almost as though
we had been his contemporaries. From the basket in the river to Sinai
and the golden calf, it was all there, vivid, true to the Bible story
and reverent in tone. I left the theater with much the same feeling as
though I had heard a great oratorio, and even today the picture which
ran its course in fifteen minutes is more vivid than the story which I
have read and taught from childhood.
At a lecture in the University of Chicago last summer, the pastor of a
Congregational Church in Madison, Wisconsin, came to me and said that
he would like to put the moving picture into his Sunday School room, if
I could tell him where he could get the films. All that I could say was
to get in touch with the film companies and endeavor to get the ones
that he wanted, but I knew that he would have trouble.
There are a considerable number of churches that have already
introduced the moving picture into their evening service or their
Sunday School. But the difficulty is the same everywhere, it is hard
to get films that are suitable. Undoubtedly all the Bible stories can
be taught more effectively through the moving picture than in any
other way. The church ought to teach its lessons by the most effective
means at hand, and many churches would be using the moving picture if
they could secure suitable films at a reasonable rate. Mr. Edison has
already made a good beginning on a series of films to illustrate the
work of the public school.
Inasmuch as the churches need a special type of films, why should not
the church federations ask the film companies to produce films of this
type and start a church exchange? The churches should indicate which
pictures they wanted and furnish Bible experts to supervise the making
of the films, so as to secure an accurate and reverent reproduction of
the stories. These films might then go out with the approval of the
federation like a Sunday School lesson leaf. The film companies would
be merely the printers of the material furnished them by the federation.
Besides the Bible stories the great morality and passion plays, like
Oberammergau, might well be given, and representations of the great
social movements, such as recreation, child labor, tuberculosis, and
the like, the films for which are largely available at the present time.
+-----------------------------------------------+
| HOUSES SUPPLYING |
| INSTITUTIONAL TRADE |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =China and Glass.= |
| JAMES M. SHAW & CO., |
| 25 Duane St., New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Ready to Wear Garments.= |
| For Men, Women and Children--Wholesale |
| BROADWAY BARGAIN HOUSE, |
| 676 Broadway, New York City |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Dry Goods.= |
| FREDERICK LOESER & CO., |
| 484 FULTON STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y. |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Newspaper Clippings.= |
| HENRY ROMEIKE, |
| 110-112 West 26th Street, New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =House Furnishing Goods.= |
| C. H. & E. S. GOLDBERG, |
| West Broadway and Hudson Street, New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Hardware, Tools and Supplies.= |
| HAMMACHER, SCHLEMMER & CO., |
| Fourth Ave., Thirteenth St., New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Groceries.= |
| SEEMAN BROS., |
| Hudson and North Moore Sts., New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =All Hospital Supplies.= |
| SCHIEFFELIN & CO., |
| 170 William St. New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Ideal Window Ventilators.= |
| IDEAL VENTILATOR CO., |
| 120 Liberty St. New York |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| =Electrical Engineers and Contractors.= |
| BATEMAN & MILLER, |
| East 23d Street, New York City |
+-----------------------------------------------+