Pilgrim

“Under the non-committal name of ‘The Pilgrim,’ a very attractive entertainment has been opened in the church until recently occupied by Dr. CHEEVER’S congregation. It is a series of pictures entirely distinct, but moving in panorama fashion, and illustrating the more effective incidents of BUNYAN’S epic of Christian’s progress; these are paintings, in some instances the entire thought and execution of some of our famous American artists, and when not altogether their works, the pictures have been finished by scenic artists of note from designs made by such painters as NEHLIG, LEUTZE, WILLIAM HART, BALLING and CULVERHOUSE. The body of the church remains unaltered, its Gothic columns and arches and its heavy gallery being untouched; but that portion at the head of the building which was formerly devoted to the officiating minister, is framed off, with a tasteful proscenium, formed by an arrangement of brown stuffe, and with footlights and border jots of all the colored fires necessary to produce the counterfeits of sunrise, sunset and moonlight. These attributes of the theatre are not the only modern improvements introduced to aid the panorama, and such dramatic accessories as hidden choruses and floating figures in a very superb transformation scene which occupies the entire height and breadth of the church, and represents the River of Death changing to the triumphant ascension into the celestial city amid a glare of lights and a shower of gold. These novel improvements upon the ordinary panorama give additional effect to paintings that would excite admiration even if exhibited in an academy exhibition. The entertainment deserves the attention of those whose religious scruples deter them from patronizing the theatre, and who still have a desire to behold the most effective enchantments of that moral bugbear and [illeg.]”