There is a throng of people of all classes in the streets of Jerusalem,
by look and gesture indicating that something wonderful is advancing.
Acclamations fill the air. The crowd parts enough to allow Christ to
pass, seated on the side of a colt, which was led by the John whom Jesus
especially loved. The Saviour's hands are spread above the throng in
benediction, while He looks upon them with a kindness and sympathy that
win the love of the excited multitude. Arriving at the door of the
Temple, Jesus dismounts and, walking over the palm branches and garments
which are strewn and unrolled in His way, He enters the Temple, and
finds that parts of that sacred structure are turned into a marketplace,
with cages of birds and small droves of lambs and heifers which the
dealers would sell to those who wanted to make a "live offering" in the
Temple. Indignation gathers on the countenance of Christ where
gentleness had reigned. He denounces these merchants, who stood there
over-reaching in their bargains and exorbitantly outrageous in their
charges. The doors of the cages holding the pigeons are opened, and in
their escape they fly over the stage and over the audience. The table
on which the exchangers had been gathering unreasonable percentage was
thrown down, and the coin rattled over the floor, and the place was
cleared of the dishonest invaders, who go forth to plot the ruin and the
death of Him who had so suddenly expelled them.
The most impressive character in all the sacred drama is Christ.
The impersonator, Anton Lang, seems by nature far better fitted for this
part than was his predecessor, Josef Mayr, who took that part in 1870,
1880, and 1890. Mayr is very tall, brawny, athletic. His hair was black
in those days, and his countenance now is severe. He must have done it
well, but I can hardly imagine him impersonating gentleness and complete
submission to abuse. But Anton Lang, with his blonde complexion, his
light hair, blue eyes and delicate mouth, his exquisiteness of form and
quietness of manner, is just like what Raphael and many of the old
masters present. When we talked with Anton Lang in private he looked
exactly as he looked in the Passion Play. This is his first year in the
Christ character, and his success is beyond criticism. In his trade as a
carver of wood he has so much to do in imitating the human countenance
that he understands the full power of expression. The way he listens to
the unjust charges in the court room, his bearing when the ruffians bind
him, and his manner when, by a hand, thick-gloved so as not to get hurt,
a crown of thorns was put upon his brow, and the officers with long
bands of wood press it down upon the head of the sufferer, all show that
he has a talent to depict infinite agony.
No more powerful acting was ever seen on the stage than that of John
Zwink, the Judas. In repose there is no honester face in Ober-Ammergau
than his. Twenty years ago he appeared in the Passion Play as St. John;
one would suppose that he would do best in a representation of geniality
and mildness. But in the character of Judas he represents, in every
wrinkle of his face, and in every curl of his hair, and in every glare
of his eye, and in every knuckle of his hand with which he clutches the
money bag, hypocrisy and avarice and hate and low strategy and
diabolism. The quickness with which he grabs the bribe for the betrayal
of the Lord, the villainous leer at the Master while seated at the holy
supper, show him to be capable of any wickedness. What a spectacle when
the traitorous lips are pressed against the pure cheek of the Immaculate
One, the disgusting smack desecrating the holy symbol of love.
But after Judas has done his deadly work then there comes upon him a
remorse and terror such as you have never seen depicted unless you have
witnessed the Passion Play at the foot of the Bavarian mountains. His
start at imaginary sounds, his alarm at a creaking door, his fear at
nothing, the grinding teeth and the clenched fist indicative of mental
torture, the dishevelled hair, the beating of his breast with his hands,
the foaming mouth, the implication, the shriek, the madness, the flying
here and there in the one attempt to get rid of himself, the horror
increased at his every appearance, whether in company or alone, regarded
in contrast with the dagger scene of "Macbeth" makes the latter mere
child's play. That day, John Zwink, in the character of Judas, preached
fifty sermons on the ghastliness of betrayal. The fire-smart of
ill-gotten gain, the iron-beaked vulture of an aroused conscience; all
the bloodhounds of despair seemed tearing him. Then, when he can endure
the anguish no longer, he loosens the long girdle from his waist and
addresses that girdle as a snake, crying out:--
"Ha! Come, thou serpent, entwine my neck and strangle the betrayer," and
hastily ties it about his neck and tightens it, then rushes up to the
branch of a tree for suicide, and the curtain closes before the 4,000
breathless auditors.
Do I approve of the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau?
My only answer is that I was never so impressed in all my life with the
greatness of the price that was paid for the redemption of the human
race. The suffering depicted was so awful that I cannot now understand
how I could have endured looking upon its portrayal. It is amazing that
thousands in the audience did not faint into a swoon as complete as that
of the soldiers who fell on the stage at the Lord's reanimation from
Joseph's mausoleum.
Imagine what it would be to see a soldier seemingly thrust a spear into
the Saviour's side, and to see the crimson rush from the laceration.
Would I see it acted again? No. I would not risk my nerves again under
the strain of such a horror. One dreams of it nights after.
When Christ carrying His cross falls under it, and you see Him on His
hands and knees, His forehead ensanguined with the twisted brambles, and
Veronica comes to Him offering a handkerchief to wipe away the tears,
and sweat and blood, your own forehead becomes beaded with perspiration.
As the tragedy moves on, solemnity is added to solemnity. Not so much as
a smile in the eight hours, except the slight snicker of some fool, such
as is sure to be found in all audiences, when the cock crew twice after
Peter had denied him thrice.
What may seem strange to some, I was as much impressed with Christ's
mental agony as with his physical pangs. Oh! what a scene when in
Gethsemane He groaned over the sins of the world for which He was making
expiation, until the angelic throngs of heaven were so stirred by His
impassioned utterance that one of their white-winged number came out and
down to comfort the Angel of the New Covenant!
Some of the tableaux or living pictures between the acts of this drama
were graphic and thrilling, such as Adam and Eve expelled from
arborescence into homelessness; Joseph, because of his picturesque
attire sold into serfdom, from which he mounts to the Prime Minister's
chair; the palace gates shut against Queen Vashti because she declines
to be immodest; manna snowing down into the hands of the hungry
Israelites; grapes of Eshcol so enormous that one cluster is carried by
two men on a staff between them; Naboth stoned to death because Ahab
wants his vineyard; blind Samson between the pillars of the Temple of
Dagon, making very destructive sport for his enemies. These tableaux are
chiefly intended as a breathing spell between the acts of the drama. The
music rendered requires seven basses and seven tenors, ten sopranos and
ten contraltos. Edward Lang has worked thirty years educating the
musical talent of the village. The Passion Play itself is beyond
criticism, though it would have been mightier if two hours less in its
performance. The subtraction would be an addition.
The drama progresses from the entering into Jerusalem to the
condemnation by the Sanhedrim, showing all the world that crime may be
committed according to law as certainly as crime against the law.
Oh, the hard-visaged tribunal; countenances as hard as the spears, as
hard as the spikes, as hard as the rocks under which the Master was
buried! Who can hear the metallic voice of that Caiaphas without
thinking of some church court that condemned a man better than
themselves? Caiaphas is as hateful as Judas. Blessed is that
denomination of religionists which has not more than one Caiaphas!
On goes the scene till we reach the goodby of Mary and Christ at
Bethany. Who will ever forget that woman's cry, or the face from which
suffering has dried the last tear? Who would have thought that Anna
Flunger, the maiden of twenty-five years, could have transformed her
fair and happy face into such concentration of gloom and grief and woe?
Mary must have known that the goodbye at Bethany was final, and that the
embrace of that Mother and Son was their last earthly embrace. It was
the saddest parting since the earth was made, never to be equalled while
the earth stands.
What groups of sympathetic women trying to comfort her, as only women
can comfort!
On goes the sacred drama till we come to the foot-washing. A few days
before, while we were in Vienna, we had explained to us the annual
ceremony of foot washing by the Emperor of Austria. It always takes
place at the close of Lent. Twelve very old people are selected from the
poorest of the poor. They are brought to the palace. At the last
foot-washing the youngest of the twelve was 86 years of age, and the
oldest 92. The Imperial family and all those in high places gather for
this ceremony. An officer precedes the Emperor with a basin of water.
For many days the old people have been preparing for the scene. The
Emperor goes down on one knee before each one of these venerable people,
puts water on the arch of the foot and then wipes it with a towel. When
this is done a rich provision of food and drink is put before each one
of the old people, but immediately removed before anything is tasted.
Then the food and the cups and the knives and the forks are put in
twelve sacks and each one has his portion allotted him. The old people
come to the foot-washing in the Emperor's carriage and return in the
same way, and they never forget the honour and splendour of that
occasion.
Oh, the contrast between that foot-washing amid pomp and brilliant
ceremony and the imitated foot-washing of our Lord at Ober-Ammergau.
Before each one of the twelve Apostles Christ comes down so slowly that
a sigh of emotion passes through the great throng of spectators. Christ
even washes the feet of Judas. Was there in all time or eternity past,
or will there be in all time or eternity to come, such a scene of
self-abnegation? The Lord of heaven and earth stooping to such a service
which must have astounded the heavens more than its dramatisation
overpowered us! What a stunning rebuke to the pride and arrogance and
personal ambition of all ages!
The Hand of God on Human Foot in Ablution!
No wonder the quick-tempered Peter thought it incongruous, and forbade
its taking place, crying out: "Thou shalt never wash my feet!" But the
Lord broke him down until Peter vehemently asked that his head and his
hands be washed as well as his feet.
During eight hours on that stage it seems as though we were watching a
battle between the demons of the Pit and the seraphs of Light, and the
demons triumph. Eight hours telling a sadness, with every moment worse
than its predecessor. All the world against Him, and hardly any let up
so that we feel like leaving our place and rushing for the stage and
giving congratulations with both hands to Simon of Cyrene as he lightens
the Cross from the shoulder of the sufferer, and to Nicodemus who voted
an emphatic "No" at the condemnation, and to Joseph of Arimathea who
asks the honour of being undertaker at the obsequies.
Scene after scene, act after act, until at the scourging every stroke
fetches the blood; and the purple mantle is put upon Him in derision,
and they slap His face and they push Him off the stool upon which He
sits, laughing at His fall. On, until from behind the curtain you hear
the thumping of the hammers on the spikes; on, until hanging between two
bandits, He pledges Paradise within twenty-four hours to the one, and
commits His own broken-hearted mother to John, asking him to take care
of her in her old age; and His complaint of thirst brings a sponge
moistened with sour wine on the end of a staff; and blasphemy has hurled
at Him its last curse, and malice has uttered concerning Him its last
lie, and contempt has spit upon Him its last foam, and the resources of
perdition are exhausted, and from the shuddering form and white lips
comes the exclamation, "It is finished!"
At that moment there resounded across the river Ammer and through the
village of Ober-Ammergau a crash that was responded to by the echoes of
the Bavarian mountains. The rocks tumbled back off the stage, and the
heavens roared and the graves of the dead were wrecked, and it seemed as
if the earth itself had foundered in its voyage through the sky. The
great audience almost leaped to its feet at the sound of that tempest
and earthquake.
Look! the ruffians are tossing dice for the ownership of the Master's
coat. The darkness thickens. Night, blackening night. Hark! The wolves
are howling for the corpse of the slain Lord. Then, with more pathos and
tenderness than can be seen in Rubens' picture, "Descent from the
Cross," in the cathedral at Antwerp, is the dead Christ lowered, and
there rises the wailing of crushed motherhood, and with solemn tread the
mutilated body is sepulchred. But soon the door of the mausoleum falls
and forth comes the Christ and, standing on the shoulder of Mount
Olivet, He is ready for ascension. Then the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the
700 voices before and behind the scenes closes the most wonderful
tragedy ever enacted.
As we rose for departure we felt like saying with the blind preacher,
whom William Wirt, the orator of Virginia, heard concluding his sermon
to a backwoods congregation:
"Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus died like a God!"
I have been asked whether this play would ever be successfully
introduced into America or England. I think there is some danger that it
may be secularised and turned into a mercenary institution. Instead of
the long ride by carriages over rough mountain roads for days and days,
as formerly was necessary in order to reach Ober-Ammergau, there are now
two trains a day which land tourists for the Passion Play, and among
them may appear some American theatrical manager who, finding that John
Zwink of Ober-Ammergau impersonates the spirit of grab and cheat and
insincerity better than any one who treads the American stage, and only
received for his wonderful histrionic ability what equals forty-five
pounds sterling for ten years, may offer him five times as much
compensation for one night. If avarice could clutch Judas with such a
relentless grasp at the offer of thirty pieces of silver, what might be
the proportionate temptation of a thousand pieces of gold!
The impression made upon Dr. Talmage by the Passion Play was stirring
and reverent. He described it as one of the most tremendous and fearful
experiences of his life.
"I have seen it once, but I would not see it again," he said, "I would
not dare risk my nerves to such an awful, harrowing ordeal. Accustomed
as I am to think almost constantly on all that the Bible means, the
Passion Play was an unfolding, a new and thrilling interpretation, a
revelation. I never before realised the capabilities of the Bible for
dramatic representation."
We went from Ober-Ammergau to that modern Eden for the overwrought
nerves of kings and commoners--Baden-baden, where we spent ten days. At
the end of this time we returned to Paris to enjoy the Exposition at our
leisure. Paris is always a place of brightness and pleasure. King
Leopold of Belgium was among the distinguished guests of the French
capital, whom we saw one day while driving in the Bois. We made visits
to Versailles and the palace of Fontainebleau. The Doctor enjoyed these
trips into the country, and always manged to make his arrangements so
that he could go with us. From Paris we went to London for a farewell
visit. Dr. Talmage had promised to preach in John Wesley's chapel in the
City Road, known as "The Cathedral of Methodism."
On Sunday, September 30, 1900, the crowd was so great that had come to
hear Dr. Talmage that a cordon of police was necessary to guard the big
iron gates after the church was filled. The text of his sermon that day
was significant. It may have been a conception of his own life work--its
text. It was taken from a passage in the eleventh chapter of Daniel:--
"The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits."
It is difficult to conceive of the enthusiasm that Dr. Talmage aroused
everywhere the immense crowds that gathered to see and hear him. During
our stay in London this time, after a preaching service in a church in
Piccadilly, the wheels of our carriage were seized and we were like a
small island in a black sea of restless men and women. The driver
couldn't move. The Doctor took it with great delight and stood up in the
carriage, making an address. From where he was standing he could not see
the police charging the crowd to scatter them. When he did, he realised
that he was aiding in obstructing the best regulated thoroughfare in
London. Stopping his address, he said, "We must recognise the authority
of the law," and sat down. It was said that Dr. Talmage was the only man
who had ever stopped the traffic in Piccadilly.
From London Dr. Talmage and I went together for a short visit to the
Isle of Wight, and later to Swansea where he preached; we left the girls
with Lady Lyle, at Sir John Lyle's house in London.
It had become customary whenever the Doctor made an address to ask me to
sit on the platform, and in this way I became equal to looking a big
audience in the face, but one day the Doctor over-estimated my talents.
He came in with more than his usual whir, and said to me:
"Eleanor, I have been asked if you won't dedicate a new building at the
Wood Green Wesleyan Church in North London. I said I thought you would,
and accepted for you. Won't you please do this for me?"
There was no denying him, and I consented, provided he would help me
with the address. He did, and on the appointed day when we drove out to
the place I had the notes of my speech held tightly crumpled in my
glove. There was the usual crowd that had turned out to hear Dr. Talmage
who was to preach afterwards, and I was genuinely frightened. I remember
as we climbed the steps to the speaker's platform, the Doctor whispered
to me, "Courage, Eleanor, what other women have done you can do." I
almost lost my equilibrium when I was presented with a silver trowel as
a souvenir of the event. There was nothing about a silver trowel in my
notes. However, the event passed off without any calamity but it was my
first and last appearance in public.
As the time approached for us to return to America the Doctor looked
forward to the day of sailing. It had all been a wonderful experience
even to him who had for so many years been in the glare of public life.
He had reached the highest mark of public favour as a man, and as a
preacher was the most celebrated of his time. I wonder now, as I realise
the strain of work he was under, that he gave me so little cause for
anxiety considering his years. He was a marvel of health and strength.
There may have been days when his genius burned more dimly than others,
and often I would ask him if the zest of his work was as great if he was
a bit tired, hoping that he would yield a little to the trend of the
years, but he was as strong and buoyant in his energies as if each day
were a new beginning. His enjoyment of life was inspiring, his hold upon
the beauty of it never relaxed.
From London we went to Belfast, on a very stormy day. Dr. Talmage was
advised to wait a while, but he had no fear of anything. That crossing
of the Irish Channel was the worst sea trip I ever had. We arrived in
Belfast battered and ill from the stormy passage, all but the Doctor,
who went stoically ahead with his engagements with undiminished vigour.
Going up in the elevator of the hotel one day, we met Mrs. Langtry. Dr.
Talmage had crossed the ocean with her.
"Won't you come and see my play to-night?" she asked him.
"I am very sorry, Madame, but I am speaking myself to-night," said the
Doctor courteously. He told me afterwards how fortunate he felt it to be
that he was able to make a real excuse. Invitations to the theatre
always embarrassed him.
From Belfast we went to Cork for a few days, making a trip to the
Killarney lakes before sailing from Queenstown on October 18, 1900, on
the "Oceanic."
"Isn't it good to be going back to America, back to that beautiful city
of Washington," said the Doctor, the moment we got on board.
Whatever he was doing, whichever way he was going, he was always in
pursuit of the joy of living. Although the greatest year of my life was
drawing to a close, it all seemed then like an achievement rather than a
farewell, like the beginning of a perfect happiness, the end of which
was in remote perspective.