We have another form of evidence that is extremely interesting. Out of these old mystery plays, dramas of the Nativity and of the Passion with the introductions and interludes to these central facts of creation, there developed first the morality plays and then the drama of the modern time. Twice in the history of the world, each time quite independent of the other, the drama has originated anew out of religious ceremonials. In old Greece this is the origin of the drama; in the Middle Ages exactly the same thing happened. Nor was this origin unworthy in any way of the great development that came. Some of the old {180} mystery plays were written with wonderful dramatic insight and with a capacity to bring out dramatic moments that is very admirable. As for the morality plays we have had one of them repeated to us in recent years, "Everyman," and well it has served to show how able was the genius of these old dramatic writers. People of the modern sordid time listened for two hours enraptured and then went away, paying the tribute of silence to this wonderful arrangement of the ideas connected with such a familiar theme as the four last things to be remembered--death, judgment, heaven and hell. Fine as is "Everyman," there are some critics who think the "Castle of Perseverance," written about the same time, the latter part of the fifteenth century, an even greater play. The most important feature of this work in dramatics of the old gilds was not the entertainment, though with what we know of how low entertainment can sink and how much it can mean for degradation, surely that would be sufficient, but the fact that all of the workmen and their families in the towns were occupied with the high thoughts and the beautiful phrases and the uplifting motives and the deep significance of the Bible stories. These are so simple that no one could fail to understand. They are written so close to the heart of human nature that even the simplest child can appreciate their meaning. They are full of the most precious lessons, yet without {181} any of that moralizing that is often so sterile and so characteristic of what we call mere preaching. All the townspeople were occupied for months beforehand with these stories. They got ever closer and closer to the heart of the mystery in them. They got closer thus to the heart of the mystery of life. They were made to feel the presence of the Creator and of Providence while occupying themselves with thoughts that are the essence of deepest poetry. What would one not give to be able to occupy a great number of people, for many hours every winter, with such thoughts, not alone for their moral effect but their real educational value. They did not add useless information to useless information, but they did bring development of mind and, above all, heart. In my book "The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries," [Footnote 14] I tell the story of how the various trades gilds in the