BRAG A AND BOM JKSUS. 149 



sentation of the words and facts of the Bible in brinmnf 

 them home to the minds, if not the hearts, of the people. 

 To those who believe that, the Bible, and especially the 

 Gospel history, has a peculiarly elevating and purifyintr 

 efifect, beyond any other religious or secular books, it w^ill 

 be a satisfaction to know that thousands of Grerman pea- 

 sants have carried away, graven on* their memories, not a 

 collection of medieval or mythological legends, but the 

 chief facts and doctrines both of the Old and New Testa- 

 ment, with an exactness such as would be vainly sought in 

 the masses of our poorer population.' Again: ' any intelli- 

 gent spectator at this scene will feel it to be a signal 

 example of the infinite differences which, even with regard 

 to subjects of the most universal interest, divide the feel- 

 ings and thoughts of nations and Churches from each other, 

 and of the total absurdity and endless mischief of trans- 

 posing to one phase of mind what belongs exclusively to 

 another. We Englishmen are not more reverential than 

 an audience of Bavarian or TjTolese rustics : probably we 

 are much less so. But from long engrained habit, from 

 the natural reserve and delicacy of a more northern and a 

 more civilized people, from the association of those out- 

 ward exhibitions of sacred subjects with a Church disfigured 

 by superstition and intolerance, we naturally regard as 

 impious what these simple peasants regard as devout and 

 edif3dng. The more striking is the superstition, the more 

 salutary its effects on those for whom it was intended ; the 

 more forcibly we may be ourselves impressed in witnessing 

 it, so much the more pointedly instructive does the lesson 

 become, of the utter inapplicability of such a performance 

 to other times and places than its own.' 



All this, doubtless, applies equally well to the scenes 

 represented at Bom Jesus : and I have made this long di- 

 gression upon kindred displays in other lands, because I 

 desire to point out that this method of instruction is by no 



