“And now, as to the right or wrong of the performance as a whole. Do you see any objection to the play from a religious point of view?”
“No,” I reply, “I do not; nor do I understand how anybody else, and least of all a really believing Christian1, can either. To argue as some do, that Christianity should be treated as a sacred mystery, is to argue against the whole scheme of Christianity. It was Christ himself that rent the veil of the Temple, and brought religion down into the streets and market-places of the world. Christ was a common man. He lived a common life, among common men and women. He died a common death. His own methods of teaching were what a Saturday reviewer, had he to deal with the case, would undoubtedly2 term vulgar. The roots of Christianity are planted deep down in the very soil of life, amid all that is commonplace, and mean, and petty, and everyday. Its strength lies in its simplicity3, its homely4 humanness. It has spread itself through the world by speaking to the hearts, rather than to the heads of men. If it is still to live and grow, it must be helped along by such methods as these peasant players of Ober-Ammergau employ, not by high-class essays and the learned discussions of the cultured.
“The crowded audience that sat beside us in the theatre yesterday saw Christ of Nazareth nearer than any book, however inspired, could bring him to them; clearer than any words, however eloquent5, could show him. They saw the sorrow of his patient face. They heard his deep tones calling to them. They saw him in the hour of his so-called triumph, wending his way through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, the multitude that thronged6 round him waving their branches of green palms and shouting loud hosannas.
“What a poor scene of triumph!—a poor-clad, pale-faced man, mounted upon the back of a shuffling7, unwilling8 little grey donkey, passing slowly through the byways of a city, busy upon other things. Beside him, a little band of worn, anxious men, clad in thread-bare garments—fishermen, petty clerks, and the like; and, following, a noisy rabble9, shouting, as crowds in all lands and in all times shout, and as dogs bark, they know not why—because others are shouting, or barking. And that scene marks the highest triumph won while he lived on earth by the village carpenter of Galilee, about whom the world has been fighting and thinking and talking so hard for the last eighteen hundred years.
“They saw him, angry and indignant, driving out the desecrators from the temple. They saw the rabble, who a few brief moments before had followed him, shouting ‘Hosanna,’ slinking away from him to shout with his foes10.
“They saw the high priests in their robes of white, with the rabbis and doctors, all the great and learned in the land, sitting late into the night beneath the vaulted11 roof of the Sanhedrin’s council-hall, plotting his death.
“They saw him supping with his disciples12 in the house of Simon. They saw poor, loving Mary Magdalen wash his feet with costly13 ointment14, that might have been sold for three hundred pence, and the money given to the poor—‘and us.’ Judas was so thoughtful for the poor, so eager that other people should sell all they had, and give the money to the poor—‘and us.’ Methinks that, even in this nineteenth century, one can still hear from many a tub and platform the voice of Judas, complaining of all waste, and pleading for the poor—‘and us.’
“They were present at the parting of Mary and Jesus by Bethany, and it will be many a day before the memory of that scene ceases to vibrate in their hearts. It is the scene that brings the humanness of the great tragedy most closely home to us. Jesus is going to face sorrow and death at Jerusalem. Mary’s instinct tells her that this is so, and she pleads to him to stay.
“Poor Mary! To others he is the Christ, the Saviour15 of mankind, setting forth16 upon his mighty17 mission to redeem18 the world. To loving Mary Mother, he is her son: the baby she has suckled at her breast, the little one she has crooned to sleep upon her lap, whose little cheek has lain against her heart, whose little feet have made sweet music through the poor home at Bethany: he is her boy, her child; she would wrap her mother’s arms around him and hold him safe against all the world, against even heaven itself.
“Never, in any human drama, have I witnessed a more moving scene than this. Never has the voice of any actress (and I have seen some of the greatest, if any great ones are living) stirred my heart as did the voice of Rosa Lang, the Burgomaster’s daughter. It was not the voice of one woman, it was the voice of Motherdom, gathered together from all the world over.
“Oliver Wendell Holmes, in The Autocrat19 of the Breakfast Table, I think, confesses to having been bewitched at different times by two women’s voices, and adds that both these voices belonged to German women. I am not surprised at either statement of the good doctor’s. I am sure if a man did fall in love with a voice, he would find, on tracing it to its source, that it was the voice of some homely-looking German woman. I have never heard such exquisite20 soul-drawing music in my life, as I have more than once heard float from the lips of some sweet-faced German Fraulein when she opened her mouth to speak. The voice has been so pure, so clear, so deep, so full of soft caressing21 tenderness, so strong to comfort, so gentle to soothe22, it has seemed like one of those harmonies musicians tell us that they dream of, but can never chain to earth.
“As I sat in the theatre, listening to the wondrous23 tones of this mountain peasant-woman, rising and falling like the murmur24 of a sea, filling the vast sky-covered building with their yearning25 notes, stirring like a great wind stirs Æolian strings26, the thousands of trembling hearts around her, it seemed to me that I was indeed listening to the voice of the ‘mother of the world,’ of mother Nature herself.
“They saw him, as they had often seen him in pictures, sitting for the last time with his disciples at supper. But yesterday they saw him, not a mute, moveless figure, posed in conventional, meaningless attitude, but a living, loving man, sitting in fellowship with the dear friends that against all the world had believed in him, and had followed his poor fortunes, talking with them for the last sweet time, comforting them.
“They heard him bless the bread and wine that they themselves to this day take in remembrance of him.
“They saw his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the human shrinking from the cup of pain. They saw the false friend, Judas, betray him with a kiss. (Alas! poor Judas! He loved Jesus, in a way, like the rest did. It was only his fear of poverty that made him betray his Master. He was so poor—he wanted the money so badly! We cry out in horror against Judas. Let us pray rather that we are never tempted27 to do a shameful28 action for a few pieces of silver. The fear of poverty ever did, and ever will, make scamps of men. We would like to be faithful, and noble, and just, only really times are so bad that we cannot afford it! As Becky Sharp says, it is so easy to be good and noble on five thousand a year, so very hard to be it on the mere29 five. If Judas had only been a well-to-do man, he might have been Saint Judas this day, instead of cursed Judas. He was not bad. He had only one failing—the failing that makes the difference between a saint and a villain30, all the world over—he was a coward; he was afraid of being poor.)
“They saw him, pale and silent, dragged now before the priests of his own countrymen, and now before the Roman Governor, while the voice of the people—the people who had cried ‘Hosanna’ to him—shouted ‘Crucify him! crucify him!’ They saw him bleeding from the crown of thorns. They saw him, still followed by the barking mob, sink beneath the burden of his cross. They saw the woman wipe the bloody31 sweat from off his face. They saw the last, long, silent look between the mother and the son, as, journeying upward to his death, he passed her in the narrow way through which he once had ridden in brief-lived triumph. They heard her low sob32 as she turned away, leaning on Mary Magdalen. They saw him nailed upon the cross between the thieves. They saw the blood start from his side. They heard his last cry to his God. They saw him rise victorious33 over death.
“Few believing Christians34 among the vast audience but must have passed out from that strange playhouse with their belief and love strengthened. The God of the Christian, for his sake, became a man, and lived and suffered and died as a man; and, as a man, living, suffering, dying among other men, he had that day seen him.
“The man of powerful imagination needs no aid from mimicry35, however excellent, however reverent36, to unroll before him in its simple grandeur37 the great tragedy on which the curtain fell at Calvary some eighteen and a half centuries ago.
“A cultivated mind needs no story of human suffering to win or hold it to a faith.
“But the imaginative and cultured are few and far between, and the peasants of Ober-Ammergau can plead, as their Master himself once pleaded, that they seek not to help the learned but the lowly.
“The unbeliever, also, passes out into the village street full of food for thought. The rude sermon preached in this hillside temple has shown to him, clearer than he could have seen before, the secret wherein lies the strength of Christianity; the reason why, of all the faiths that Nature has taught to her children to help them in their need, to satisfy the hunger of their souls, this faith, born by the Sea of Galilee, has spread the farthest over the world, and struck its note the deepest into human life. Not by his doctrines38, not even by his promises, has Christ laid hold upon the hearts of men, but by the story of his life.”
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1
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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34
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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mimicry
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| n.（生物）拟态，模仿 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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