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