again, it was still but an emblem of warfare, no longer a symbol of peace.

There is a single spot of earth where, untouched by the tumult of the world, sheltered behind the lofty, inhospitable wall of a high mountain, the idea of Christianity has been preserved in all its simplicity and purity--Oberammergau. As God once suffered the Saviour of the World to be born in a manger, among poor shepherds, He seems to have extended His protecting hand over this secluded nook and reserved the poor mountaineers to repeat the miracle. Concealed behind the steep Ettal mountain was a monastery where, from ancient times, the beautiful arts had been sedulously fostered.

One of the monks was deeply grieved because, in the outside world, iconoclasm was rudely shaking the old forms and, in blind fear, even rejecting religious art as "Romish." As no holy image would be tolerated; the Saviour and His Saints must disappear entirely from the eyes of men. Then, in his distress, the inspiration came that a sacred drama, performed by living beings, could produce a more powerful effect than word or symbol. So it was determined in the monastery that one should be enacted.

The young people in the neighborhood, who had long been schooled by the influence of the learned monks to appreciate beauty, were soon trained to act legends and biblical poems. With increasing skill they gained more and more confidence, till at last their holy zeal led them to show mankind the Redeemer Himself, the Master of the world, in His own bodily form, saying to erring humanity; "Lo, thus He was and thus He will be forever."

And while in the churches paintings and relics were torn from the walls and crucifixes destroyed, the first Passion play was performed, A. D. 1634, under the open sky in the churchyard of Oberammergau--for this spot, on account of its solemn associations, was deemed the fitting place for the holy work. The disgraced image of love, defiled by blood and flames, once more rose in its pure beauty! Living, breathing! The wounds inflicted more than a thousand years before again opened, fresh drops of blood trickled from the brow torn by its diadem of thorns, again the "Continue ye in My love" fell from the pallid lips of the Lamb of God, and what Puritanism had destroyed in its dead form was born anew in a living one. But, amid the confusion and roar of battle, the furious yells of hate, no one heard the gentle voice in the distant nook beyond the mountains.

The message of peace died away, the Crucified One shed His blood unseen.

Years passed, the misery of the people constantly increased, lands were ravaged, the ranks of the combatants thinned.

At last the warriors began to be paralyzed, the raging storm subsided and pallid fear stared blankly at the foes who had at last gained their senses--the plague, that terrible Egyptian Sphinx, lured by the odor of corruption emanating from the long war, stole over the earth, and those at whom she gazed with the black fiery eyes of her torrid zone, sank beneath it like the scorched grass when the simoom sweeps over the desert.

Silence fell, the silence of the grave, for wherever this spectre stalks, death follows.

Fear reconciled enemies and made them forget their rancor in union against the common foe, the cruel, invincible plague. They gazed around them for some helping hand, and once more turned to that over which they had so long quarrelled. Then amid the deathlike stillness of the barren fields, the empty houses, the denuded churches, and the desolated land, they at last heard the little bell behind the Ettal mountain, which every decade summoned the Christian world to the Passion Play, for this was the vow taken by the Ammergau peasants to avert the plague and the divine wrath. Again the ever patient Saviour extended His arms, crying: "Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden!" And they did come. They threw themselves at His feet, the wearied, hunted earthlings, stained with dust and blood, and He comforted and refreshed them, while they again recognized Him and learned to understand the meaning of His sacrifice.

Those who thus saw Him and received the revelation announced it to others, who flocked thither from far and near till the little church-yard of Oberammergau became too narrow, and could no longer contain the throngs; the open fields became a sacred theatre to receive the pilgrims, who longed to behold the Redeemer's face.

And, strangely enough, all who took part in the sacred play, seemed consecrated, the plague passed them by, Ammergau alone was spared.

So the pious seed grew slowly, often with periods when it stood still, but the watchful eye can follow it in history.

Peace at last came to the world. Purer airs blew. The Egyptian hyena, satiated, left the ravaged fields, new life bloomed from the graves, and this new life knew naught of the pangs and sufferings of the old. From the brutality and corruption of the long war, the new generation longed for more refined manners, culture, and the pleasures of life. But, as usual after such periods of deprivation and calamity, one extreme followed another. The desire for more refined manners and education led to hyperculture, the love of pleasure into epicureanism and luxury, grace into coquetry, mirth into frivolity. Then came the so-called age of gallantry. The foil took the place of the sword, the lace jabot of the leather jerkin, the smoke of battle gave way to the clouds of powder scattered by heads nodding in every direction.

Masked shepherds and shepherdesses danced upon the graves of a former generation, a new Arcadia was created in apish imitation and peopled with grimacing creatures who tripped about on tiptoe in their high-heeled shoes. Instead of the mediæval representations of martyrs and emaciated saints appeared the nude gods and cupids of a Watteau and his school. Grace took the place of majesty. Instead of moral law, men followed the easy code of convenience and everything was allowable which did not transgress its rules. Thus arose a generation of thoughtless pleasure seekers, which bore within itself a moral pestilence that, in contrast with the "Black Death," might be termed the "Rosy Death" for it breathed upon the cheeks of all whom it attacked the rosy flush of a fever which wasted more slowly, but none the less surely.

And through this rouged, dancing, skipping age, with the click of its high-heeled shoes, its rustling hooped petticoats, its amorous glances and heaving bosoms, the chaste figure of the Man of Sorrows, with a terrible solemnity upon his pallid brow, again and again trod the stage of Ammergau, and whoever beheld Him dropped the flowing bowl of pleasure, while the laugh died on his lips.

Again history and the judgment of the world moved forward. The "Rosy Death" had decomposed and poisoned all the healthful juices of society and corrupted the very heart of the human race--morality, faith, and philosophy, everything which makes men manly, had gradually perished unobserved in the thoughtless whirl. The tinsel and apish civilisation no longer sufficed to conceal the brute in human nature. It shook off every veil and stood forth in all its nakedness. The modern deluge, the French Revolution burst forth. Murder, anarchy, the delirium of fever swept over the earth in every form of horror.

Again came a change, a transformation to the lowest depths of corruption. Grace now yielded to brutality, beauty to ugliness, the divine to the cynical. Altars were overthrown, religion was abjured, the earth trembled under the mass of destroyed traditions.

But from the turmoil of the throng, fiercely rending one another, from the smoke and exhalations of this conflagration of the world, yonder in the German Garden of Gethsemane again rose