Those that remain with us, however, contain qualities which may make us wonder why they did not receive greater recognition. It may be that we misjudge the extent of their popularity, though survival is usually a fairly good guide. Certainly they shared, or borrowed, some of the 'attractive' features of their rivals: there was not lacking a liberal flavour of the horrible, the satanic, the coarse and the comical. Moreover, they possessed much greater possibilities for purely dramatic effect. The cohesion of incidents was firmer, the evolution of the plot more vigorous, the crisis more surprising, the opportunities for originality more plentiful. The very fact that they could not easily be welded together as scenes in a larger play is a testimonial to their art. They are more complete in themselves. They are, that is to say, a further stage on the way to that Elizabethan drama which only became possible when all idea of a day-long play had been discarded in favour of scenes more single and self-contained. The sacredness, also, of the saintly narrative was less binding than that of the Bible story. Those who had a compunction in caricaturing or coarsening the unholy or nameless people of the Scriptures would feel their liberty immensely widened in a representation of the secular and heathen world which surrounded their saint. This is clearly seen in the _Miracle of the Sacrament_, where the figure of Jonathas the Jew is portrayed with distinct originality. His long recital of his wealth in costly jewels, and the equally lengthy statement by Aristorius, the corruptible Christian merchant, of his numerous argosies and profitable ventures, are early exercises in the style perfected by Marlowe's Barabas. The whole story, from the stealing of the Sacred Host by Aristorius and its sale to Jonathas, right on through the villainous assaults, by the Jew and his confederates, upon its sanctity, and the miraculous manifestations of its power, to Jonathas's final conversion and the restoration of the sacrament, is a very fair example of the power which these Saint Plays possessed in the structure of plots. [Footnote 3: go.] [Footnote 4: being.] [Footnote 5: destroy.] [Footnote 6: pleasure.] [Footnote 7: might.] [Footnote 8: power.] [Footnote 9: wrought.] [Footnote 10: one.] [Footnote 11: realms.] [Footnote 12: more worthy.] [Footnote 13: injure.] [Footnote 14: how.] [Footnote 15: offended.] [Footnote 16: those.] [Footnote 17: their.] [Footnote 18: sorrow.] [Footnote 19: See the stage-direction at the end of 'The Trial of Christ', 'Here enteryth Satan into the place in the most orryble wyse, and qwyl (_while_) that he pleyth, thei xal don on Jhesus clothis'.] [Footnote 20: lowly.] [Footnote 21: obedient.] [Footnote 22: counsel.] [Footnote 23: young.] [Footnote 24: courtly.] [Footnote 25: counsel.] [Footnote 26: each one.] [Footnote 27: crippled.] [Footnote 28: overtaxed.] [Footnote 29: overreached.] [Footnote 30: rob.]