dispensation. But it is evidently conceived in a very different spirit
from the Book of Job or the Psalms of David, and its theological
character is so obscured by other associations as to lead many to
inquire whether an enlightened religious sensibility dictated it.

We cannot dismiss this part of our subject without allusion to a species
of drama that prevailed in the Middle Ages, called Mysteries, or
Moralities. These were a sort of scenical illustration of the Sacred
Scripture, and the subjects were events taken sometimes from the New
Testament and sometimes from the Old. It is said they were designed to
supply the place of the Greek and Roman theatre, which had been banished
from the Church. The plays were written and performed by the clergy.
They seem to have first been employed to wile away the dulness of the
cloister, but were very soon introduced to the public. Adam and Eve in
Paradise, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection were theatrized. The effect
could hardly be salutary. The different persons of the Trinity appeared
on the stage; on one side of the scene stretched the yawning throat of
an immense wooden dragon; masked devils ran howling in and out.

"In the year 1437,"--we follow the literal history, as we find it quoted
in D'Israeli,--"when the Bishop of Metz caused the Mystery of the
Passion to be represented near that city, God was an old gentleman, a
curate of the place, and who was very near expiring on the cross, had he
not been timely assisted. He was so enfeebled that another priest
finished his part. At the same time this curate undertook to perform the
Resurrection, which being a less difficult task, he did it admirably
well. Another priest, personating Judas, had like to have been stifled
while he hung on the tree, for his neck slipped. This being at length
luckily perceived, he was cut down, and recovered." In another instance,
a man who assumed the Supreme Being becoming nearly suffocated by the