THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 257 



and the reward of the just. The mediaeval treatment 

 of the world -drama had the same purport as the best 

 melodrama of to-day-. It was not realistic, the social 

 triumphed and the anti-social met with retribution at 

 last, but it emphasised the advantages of the moral 

 life, strengthened the influence of conscience, and so 

 increased the action of the gregarious instinct in man. 

 A more realistic treatment does not always have the 

 same moral weight with the half-cultured. 



The great world -drama as a non- realistic melo- 

 drama with Christ as its chief character is the keynote 

 to the fully developed passion-play. It took several 

 centuries to complete this development ; but it is just 

 because the passion-play developed step by step with the 

 religious ideas of the Middle Ages, and step by step with 

 their social and political conceptions, that its evolution 

 is of such great interest. The history of the religious 

 drama shows us at once the stages in the growth of medi- * 

 seval Christianity and its changing relation to the people. 

 The rise of mediaeval socialism is largely mirrored in the 

 development of Easter-plays and passion-plays. The fully 

 developed passion-play illustrated to the mediaeval man 

 the unity of the world's history, and the unity of all 

 life, good and bad, sublime and ridiculous. In those 

 days religion was a very active feature of everyday 

 life, and every life was itself a factor in the great world- 

 drama which, beginning with the creation, ended only 

 with the day of judgment. The huge Egerer Fron- 

 leichnamsspiel carries us from the fall of Lucifer to the 

 Eesurrection of Christ. Judging from German analogies, 

 I have little hesitation in describing the Townley 



VOL. II S 



