_By Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D._
About fifteen years ago the good people of America were shocked at the
proposition to put on the theatrical stage of New York the Passion Play,
or a dramatic representation of the sufferings of Christ. It was to be
an imitation of that which had been every ten years, since 1634, enacted
in Ober-Ammergau, Germany. Every religious newspaper and most of the
secular journals, and all the pulpits, denounced the proposition. It
would be an outrage, a sacrilege, a blasphemy. I thought so then; I
think so now. The attempt of ordinary play actors amid worldly
surroundings, and before gay assemblages, to portray the sufferings of
Christ and His assassination would have been a horrible indecency that
would have defied the heavens and invoked a plague worse than that for
the turning back of which the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau was
established. We might have suggested for such a scene a Judas, or a
Caiaphas, or a Pilate, or a Herod. But who would have been the Christ?
The Continental protest which did not allow the curtain of that
exhibition to be hoisted was right, and if a similar attempt should ever
be made in America I hope it may be as vehemently defeated. But as
certain individuals may have an especial mission which other individuals
are not caused to exercise, so neighbourhoods and provinces and
countries may have a call peculiar to themselves.
Whether the German village of Ober-Ammergau which I have just been
visiting, may have such an especial ordination, I leave others to judge
after they have taken into consideration all the circumstances. The
Passion Play, as it was proposed for the theatrical stage in New York,
would have been as different from the Passion Play as we saw it at
Ober-Ammergau a few days ago as midnight is different from mid-noon.
Ober-Ammergau is a picture-frame of hills.
The mountains look down upon the village, and the village looks up to
the mountains. The river Ammer, running through the village, has not
recovered from its race down the steeps, and has not been able to
moderate its pace. Like an arrow, it shoots past. Through exaltations
and depressions of the rail train, and on ascending and descending
grades, we arrived at the place of which we had heard and read so much.
The morning was as glorious as any other morning that was let down out
of the heavens. Though many thousands of people from many quarters of
the earth had lodged that night in Ober-Ammergau, the place at dawn was
as silent as a hunter's cabin in any of the mountains of Bavaria. The
Ammergauers are a quiet people. They speak in low tones, and are
themselves masters of the art of silence. Their step, as well as their
voice, is quiet. Reverence and courtesy are among their
characteristics. Though merry enough, and far from being dolorous, I
think the most of them feel themselves called to a solemn duty, that in
some later time they will be called to take part in absorbing
solemnities, for about 700 performers appear in the wonderful
performance; there are only about 1,400 inhabitants.
While the morning is still morning, soon after 7 o'clock, hundreds and
thousands of people, nearly all on foot, are moving in one direction, so
that you do not have to ask for the place of mighty convocation. Through
fourteen large double doors the audience enter. Everything in the
immense building is so plain that nothing could be plainer, and the
seats are cushionless, a fact which becomes thoroughly pronounced after
you have for eight hours, with only brief intermissions, been seated on
them.
All is expectancy!
The signal gun outside the building sounds startlingly. We are not about
to witness an experiment, but to look upon something which has been in
preparation and gathering force for two hundred and sixty-six years. It
was put upon the stage not for financial gain but as a prayer to God for
the removal of a Destroying Angel which had with his wings swept to
death other villages, and was then destroying Ober-Ammergau. It was a
dying convulsion in which Widowhood and Orphanage and Childlessness
vowed that if the Lord should drive back that Angel of Death, then every
ten years they would in the most realistic and overwhelming manner show
the world what Christ had done to save it.
They would reproduce His groan. They would show the blood-tipped spear.
They would depict the demoniac grin of ecclesiastics who gladly heard
perjurers testify against the best Friend the world ever had, but who
declined to hear anything in His defence. They would reproduce the
spectacle of silence amid wrong; a silence with not a word of protest,
or vindication, or beseechment; a silence that was louder than the
thunder that broke from the heavens that day when at 12 o'clock at noon
was as dark as 12 o'clock at night.
Poets have been busy for many years putting the Passion Play into
rhythm. The Bavarian Government had omitted from it everything
frivolous. The chorus would be that of drilled choirs. Men and women who
had never been out of the sight of the mountains which guarded their
homes would do with religious themes what the David Garricks and the
Macreadys and the Ristoris and the Charlotte Cushmans did with secular
themes. On a stage as unpretentious as foot ever trod there would be an
impersonation that would move the world. The greatest tragedy of all
times would find fit tragedian. We were not there that August morning to
see an extemporised performance. As long ago as last December the
programme for this stupendous rendering was all made out. No man or
woman who had the least thing objectionable in character or reputation
might take part.
The Passion Council, made up of the pastor of the village church and six
devout members, together with the Mayor and ten councillors selected for
their moral worth, assembled. After special Divine service, in which
heaven's direction was sought, the vote was taken, and the following
persons were appointed to appear in the more important parts of the
Passion Play: Rochus Lang, _Herod_; John Zwink, _Judas_; Andreas Braun,
_Joseph of Arimathea_; Bertha Wolf, _Magdalen_; Sebastian Baur,
_Pilate_; Peter Rendi, _John_; William Rutz, _Nicodemus_; Thomas Rendi,
_Peter_; Anna Flunger, _Mary_; Anton Lang, _Christ_.
The music began its triumphant roll, and the curtains were divided and
pulled back to the sides of the stage. Lest we repeat the only error in
the sacred drama, that of prolixity, we will not give in minutiæ what we
saw and heard. The full text of the play is translated and published by
my friend, the Reverend Doctor Dickey, pastor of the American Church of
Berlin, and takes up 169 pages, mostly in fine print.