Now we come to consider whether the gospels ought to be regarded as a drama. In the first place, we are familiar with the custom of commenting on and praising the literary merits of the gospel. We say how sweet and fluent and intelligible is the language in which it is written. We understand that portions of it reach the heights of sublimity, particularly the seventeenth chapter of John. We are familiar with the fact that its English is so beautiful that there are men among us to rise and complain if we interfere with a word in it. We are familiar with the idea that the gospels have literary merits of a very high order. But we have been accustomed, as a rule, to regard these things in detail rather than as a whole. Now, when I say that they may be regarded as dramatic, I mean the highest literary merit crowns them as a whole. Their story is told in a dramatic form. No story ever told under the sun was so well told as is this story of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. I must treat this topic illustratingly, for my sole purpose is to get an idea before you. Look, then, at the idea of dramatizing history. It is said that Lord Marlborough read only Shakspere for English history. He found that the dramatist had put his conceptions of the actions and characteristics of leading men in English history in such an effective way, that, whether he was right or wrong, he had fixed the national estimate of these characters—had typed them forever. What Shakspere says a man was, the English people will go on thinking him to have been. These characters give us, on a small scale, the purpose and effect of the dramatization of history. When Shakspere did his work, little historical study had been done. English critical history dates from after his time. But without the help of critics he conceived and typed groups of characters, and he had such power of placing himself in the center of things and working out the characteristics, that he really constructed English history by the dramatic method. He had pitifully few materials, but historians who have come after him have found his types very faithful, and have been content to work out the details, accepting the pictures Shakspere had hung up before the eyes of the nation. Shaksperean English characters can not be much changed by ever so much study. This is only an illustration of the triumph which the dramatic form may win. Another most important distinction is the one between the theatrical and the dramatic. We can best understand it by looking at the common significance of the words. By “theatrical” we mean something false, fictitious, showy, with no reality behind it.