The English Moral Plays 339 
says, “lowyt a clene sowll & a mery.” These are mild temptations, 
it seems to-day, but they were regarded then as sufficient to lead 
the powers to actual sin. 
Thus the discourses of Wisdom and Lucifer, one laying the foun- 
dations of the whole play, the other getting the action started, are 
purely theological, and the characters are very far from being real 
beings. Pollard, therefore, calls the play intellectually weak. It is 
such only if we are willing to call all medieval theologians intel- 
lectually deficient, and one can regard it as such only through 
misunderstanding. Let us take from the play a single illustration. 
To be sure, the church did value most highly for those few superior 
minds the life of contemplation. For some, then, celibacy, self- 
renunciation, and other-worldliness, which Lucifer derides, were ur- 
gently insisted on. But for the world in general the active life was 
not disparaged. Augustine taught that both were essential, and that 
in pursuing the life of contemplation a man should not neglect the 
service due to his neighbor.1 Bernard, likewise, exhibited the 
relations that bind together the two modes of life, and insisted that 
one should be able to turn from contemplation to action without 
succumbing to sin.2 This doctrine was repeated in England by 
Richard Rolle of Hampole.2 The harmonizing of the two courses 
of life is also beautifully rendered in stone on the north portal of 
the Chartres cathedral. Two large statues that once symbolized the 
active life and the contemplative life have been destroyed; but 
underneath still remain twelve little statues representing with the 
most naive and expressive realism certain typical duties that each 
may demand. On the left, six statues represent women cheerfully 
at work washing and combing wool, and preparing flax, by breaking 
and carding, for the spinning and the winding on skeins. On the 
right, six other statues show women praying, opening a_ book, 
reading, meditating, teaching, and sunk in a mystical revery. In 
the vaulting, apart from the series, but as a final expression of the 
contrast, are seen a shoemaker at work and a monk at study. 
Into these records of daily toil the sculptors could put all their 
creative force; for, though the church urged upon the few the 
transcendent joys of contemplation, it never slighted for the many 
the necessity of labor, or sought to depreciate it. All this would 
be a commonplace to the spectators who witnessed the performance 

' City of God, Bk. 19. chap, 19. See also Gregory, Morals, 2. 433. 
2 Guvres Completes, 6. 101—02; 7. 270-74. 
s519—25. 
Trans Conn. Acap., Vol. XIV. 23 Marcu, 1910. 
