It is a mistake to suppose that the hostility of the reformers was what suppressed these exhibitions. The fathers of the reformation showed no unfriendly feeling towards them. Luther is reported to have said that they often did more good and produced more impres sion than sermons. The most direct encouragement was given to them by the founders of the Swedish • Protestant Church, and by the earlier Lutheran bishops, Swedish and Danish. The authorship of one drama of the kind is assigned to Grotius. In England greatest check they received was from the rise of the secular drama; yet they con tinued to be occasionally performed in the times of James I. and Charles I., and it is well known that the first sketch of Milton's Paradise Last was a sacred drama, where the opecing speech was Satan's Address to the Sun. A degenerate relic of the miracle-play may yet be traced in some remote districts of England, where the story of St. George, the dragon, and Beelzebub, is rudely represented by the peasantry. Strange to say, it was in the Catholic south of Germany, where these miracle-plays and mysteries had pre served most of their old religious character, that the severest blow was levelled against them. Even there, they had begun to be tainted to a limited extent with the burlesque element, which had brought them into disrepute elsewhere. In 1779 a manifesto was issued by the prince-archbishop of condemning them, and prohibiting their per formance, on the ground of their ludicrous mixture of the sacred and the profane, the frequent bad acting in the serious parts, the distraction of the lower orders from more edifying modes of instruction, and the scandal arising from the exposure of sacred sub jects to the ridicule of freethinkers. This ecclesiastical deununeiation was followed by vigorous measures on the part of the civil authorities in Austria and Bavaria. One excep tion was made to the general suppression. In 1633 the villagers of Oberammergau, in the Bavarian highlands, on the cessation of a plague which desolated the surrounding coun try, had vowed to perform every tenth year the Passion of Our Savior, out of gratitude, and as a means of religious instruction; a vow which had ever since been regularly observed. The pleading of a deputation of Ammcrgau peasants with Max. Joseph of
Bavaria saved their mystery from the general condemnation, on condition of everything that could offend good taste being expunged. It was then and afterwards somewhat remodelled, and is perhaps the only mystery or miracle-play which has survived to the present day. The last performance took place in 1870. The inhabitants of this secluded village, long noted for their skill in carving in wood and ivory, have a rare union of artistic cultivation with perfect simplicity. Their familiarity with sacred subjects is even beyond what is usual in the alpine part of Germany, and the spectacle seems still to be looked on with feelings mach like those with which it was originally conceived. What would elsewhere appear impious, is to the alpine peasants devout and edifying. The personator of Christ, considers his part an act of religious worship; he and the other prin cipal performers are said to be selected for their holy life, and consecrated to their work with prayer. The players. about 500 in number, are exclusively the villagers, who, though they have no artistic instruction, except front the parish priest, act their parts with no little dramatic power, and a delicate appreciation of character. The New Testament narrative is strictly adhered to, the only legendary addition to it being the St. Veronica handkerchief. The acts alternate with tableaus- from the Old Testament and choral odes. Many thousands of the peasantry are attracted by the spectacle from all parts of the Tyrol and•Baltria, same earnest an&devout demeanor prevails as among the performers. Plays of a humbler description, from subjects in legendary or sacred history, are not unfrequently got lip by the villagers around Ins bruck. which show a certain rile dramatic talent, though not comparable to what is exhibited at Ammergam Girls very generally repre3ent both the male and female characters.