At last He comes, riding sidewise upon a beast that seems too small for his great stature. He is dressed in a purple robe, over which is a mantle of rich crimson. Beside him, in red and olive-green, is the girlish-looking youth, Peter Rendl, who takes the part of Saint John. Behind him follow his disciples, each with the pilgrim's staff. Two of these are more conspicuous than the others. One is a white-haired, eager old man, wearing a mantle of olive-green. The other, younger, dark, sullen, and tangle-haired, dressed in a robe of saffron over dull yellow, is the only person in the throng out of harmony with the prevailing joyousness. [Illustration: Peter Rendl as Saint John.] Followed by the people, who stand apart in reverence as he passes among them, Christ approaches the temple. His face is pale, in marked contrast to his abundant black hair. His expression is serious, or even care-worn, less mild than in the usual pictures of Jesus, but certainly in keeping with the scenes of the Passion Play. A fine, strong, masterful man of great stature and immense physical strength is the wood-carver, Josef Mayr, who now for three successive decades has taken this part. A man of attractive presence and lofty bearing, one whom every eye follows as he goes about the town on the round of his daily duties, yet simple-hearted and modest, as becomes one who takes on himself not only the dress but the name and figure of the Saviour. Essays have been written on "Christus" Mayr and his conception of Jesus, and I can only assent to the general impression. To me it seems that Mayr's thought of Christ is one which all must accept. He appears as "one driven by the Spirit,"--the great mild teacher, the man who can afford to be silent before kings and before mobs, and to whom the pains of Calvary are not more deep than the sorrows of Gethsemane, the man who comes to do the work of his Father, regardless alike of human praise or of human contempt. The great strength of the presentation is that it brings to the front the essentials of Christ's life and death. There is no suggestion of theological subtleties nor of the ceremonies of any church. It is simply true and terrible. From one of his fellow-actors, I learned this of Josef Mayr. He has always been what he is now, a hand-worker ("_gemeiner Arbeiter_") in Oberammergau. He has never been away from his native town except once, when he went as a workman to Vienna, and once when, in 1870, the play was interrupted by the war with France, and Mayr himself was taken into the army. Out of respect to his art, he was never sent to the front, but kept in the garrison at Munich. When the war was over, and he came back, in 1871, the grateful villagers resumed the play as their "best method of thanking God who had given them the blessings of victory and peace."