All through those years which are known as the Middle Ages it was the custom for men who belonged to the same trade to form themselves into a society, or _guild_ as it was called, to protect and help one another in their own particular work. Each trade had its own guild, and its own special saint as guardian. There was the Tanners’ Guild, the Fishmongers’, the Carpenters’, the Armourers’, the Bakers’, and so forth—too many of them to mention. Now many of these guilds in the course of time had become very rich societies, and could afford to spend a great deal of money upon anything that interested them. Plays interested all the townsfolk immensely, and so even before the clergy had quite left off acting in them, the guilds began to take the management of these plays into their charge, paying the actors, providing rich and costly dresses, such scenery as could in those days be made, and everything in fact that is known as “stage property.” The priests still _wrote_ the stories, but the acting and the whole management of them passed into the care of the rich guilds. _Miracle plays_ was the name given to these religious “acted stories,” and very fortunately, four sets of Miracle plays have been found and preserved, so that we can read the very words spoken by actors long ago to audiences of eager and interested people. These four sets are the York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry plays. Each “set” includes a great many plays—in the York collection, for instance, there are forty-eight—and year after year from the reign of Edward III to the time of Henry VII they were acted at the four towns mentioned. Not in these towns alone either, but all over England; for if a city had no plays of its own it borrowed one of the York, Chester, Wakefield, or Coventry set. If we look at the York collection of Miracle plays, it will do as an example of the rest. We find that it begins with the _Story of the Creation of the World_, and all the chief stories of the Old and New Testament follow in proper order. So that, even if he could not read, any one who saw the whole series one after the other, would have a very good idea of all the teaching of the Bible. Now let us in thought go back to the Middle Ages, and try to picture the scene in some old market-place, soon after Whitsuntide, the time when Miracle plays were generally acted. To help us to do this, let us imagine how the sight of them impressed two out of the thousands of children who with their parents went to see these plays. II How Colin and Margery kept the Feast of Corpus Christi