When a human action is theatrical it is insincere and false to the facts. On the other hand, when you use the word “dramatic,” you mean something entirely different. You mean to praise the thing and not condemn it. When the two Senators from New York suddenly resigned their position in 1881—you remember it—the friends of these men spoke of their action as dramatic, and their enemies characterized their action as theatrical; one to praise, the other to blame. An incident like that draws the line better than a definition. The word “drama” has won a place outside of the stage—and it more and more separates itself from the stage, and becomes a word descriptive of the best told story. In such a story there must be reality. It must be a story so put together that the meaning leaps out as the story goes on, and the mind takes hold of the meaning easily and fully—so that the whole meaning flashes on the understanding. You all know the power of a good story teller. You all know that every neighborhood has some man who can grasp an incident and tell it so that it comes strikingly before the mind. This power of narrative is at once epic and dramatic. This village story teller is a miniature Milton and Shakspere. The arrangement of a drama is systematic; and moves to a climax with full force. In order to a dramatic arrangement it is not necessary that the characters should be combined, as in the form of a play; it is only necessary that the story should be told in the most effective way, so that its meaning will flash clear and strong on the understanding. The gospels are told in this way; and it is the only possible way in which their story could reach the understanding. If we consider the gospels from this point of view, there are several things to attract our attention. One of them is the universality of the human nature which is brought out in the gospel. If you take up a picture book, or a fashion book of a hundred years ago, you are interested in a certain way in studying the characters, and discovering that the people dressed in a way very different from the present mode. You study the strange dresses with interest, but at the same time with a kind of feeling that these people were not just like yourself. Your point of observation in the fashion-plate presents you with nothing but unlikeness to yourself and your contemporaries. It is a strange world to you.