358 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
to bring relief. The goddess calls her sister, Truth, to her aid, 
for the two are here to meet in full accord rather than in strife, 
and the evil counselors of the queen, who have been ravaging the 
kingdom, are exposed. Justice and Peace are then summoned, the 
one to defend and the other to preserve order, and the four op- 
pressors, Avarice, Adulation, Insolence, and Oppression, are sentenced 
to punishment.1 In a second play, Mankind, the allegory is in- 
directly alluded to by Mercy, who assures Mankind that Justice will 
be abrogated at his trial, and Truth checked in his “streyt argu- 
ment,” and that her counsel will prevail? In the portion of The 
Pride of Life now lost, fuller justice was doubtless done the theme ; 
but only in The Castle of Perseverance is it given in full. In that 
typical morality the triumph of Mercy and Peace, and the release 
of man’s soul from the power of the Devil, close the story of man’s 
career. 
Through three great crises, then, the complete English moral 
play, the so-called full-scope morality, carried the story of man’s 
life and destiny. The earliest crisis, which sprang from the al- 
legory of Prudentius and the early Fathers, formed the foundation 
for the type; without a moral struggle based on the doctrine of 
freedom of the will there was no true moral play. But the Middle 
Ages lived in faith of a future. So, to show the urgent need of 
warfare against carnal and spiritual vices, the sacred dramatists 
embodied concretely the sure approach of Death and the fruitless 
appeals of the soul; to give hope, though, even to the sinner, they 
displayed by means of this debate in heaven the clemency of God. 
In this dramatic trilogy the full account of human destiny was 
embraced; a dramatic narrative of real value in itself as an ad- 
monition, but a web also, as it were, into which might be woven 
the doctrinal teachings regarded as most essential for the common 
man. None of this matter, however, was original with the drama, 
or in any sense even new; it was the old, essential story that the 
church would restate. Yet beyond this familiar material the legit- 
imate moral play could not advance far. To dwell too fully on the 
nature of the temptation confronting man introduced a coarse 

‘ Act 5. See below, 370. We note a somewhat similar seculari- 
zation of the dispute in the Collogue Social de Paix, Justice, Miséricorde et 
Verite, which was written, if not played, in 1559 to celebrate the treaty 
framed by the kings of France and Spain. Peace complains to God that 
she is being oppressed on earth by Mars. God restores her to her rights. 
Justice, Merey, and Truth bring Peace word that Justice and Truth will 
again prevail. See Holl, 41—42. ? 832—35. 
