From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

It was a sort of recitative or plaintive melody, fit keynote of the sad scenes that were to follow. The voices ceased, and the curtain rose.

The first Biblical characters who appeared on the stage were Cain and Abel, who were dressed in skins after the primitive fashion of our race. Abel, who was of light complexion and hair, was clad in the whitest and softest sheep's wool; while Cain, who was dark-featured, and of a sinister and angry countenance, was covered with a flaming leopard's skin, as best betokened the ferocity of his character. In the background rose the incense of Abel's offering. Cain was disturbed and angry; he spoke to his brother in a harsh voice. Abel replied in the gentlest accents, trying to soften his brother's heart and turn away his wrath. Father Adam, too, appears on the scene, using his parental authority to reconcile his children; and Eve comes in, and lays her light hand on the arm of her infuriated son, and tries to soothe him to a gentler mood. Even the Angel of the Lord steps forth from among the trees of the Garden, to warn the guilty man of the evil of unbridled rage, and to urge him to timely repentance, that his offering may be accepted. These united persuasions for the moment seem to be successful, and there is an apparent reconciliation between the brothers; Cain falls on Abel's neck, and embraces him. Yet even while using the language of affection, he has a club in his hand, which he holds behind him. But the fatal deed is not done upon the stage; for throughout the play there is an effort to keep out of sight any repulsive act. So they retire from the scene. But presently nature itself announces that some deed of violence and blood is being done; the lightnings flash and thunders roll; and Adam reappears, bearing Abel in his aged arms, and our first parents together indulge in loud lamentations over the body of their murdered son.

This story of Cain and Abel occupied several short acts, in which the curtain rose and fell several times, and at the end of each the chorus came upon the stage to give the moral of the scene.

In the dialogues the speakers follow closely the Old Testament. If occasional sentences are thrown in to give a little more fulness of detail, at least there is no departure from the general outline of the sacred narrative. It is the story of the first crime, the first shedding of human blood, told in a dramatic form, by the personages themselves appearing on the stage.

These scenes from the Old Testament were mingled with scenes from the New, the aim being to use one to illustrate the other—the antitype following the type in close succession. Thus the pendant of the former scenes (to adopt a word much used by artists when one picture is hung on a wall over against another) was now given in the corresponding crime which darkens the pages of the New Testament history—the betrayal of Christ. But there was this difference between the scenes from the Old Testament and those from the New: in the latter there was no dialogue whatever, and no action, as if it was all too sacred for words—nothing but the tableau, the figures standing in one attitude, fixed and motionless. First there was the scene of Christ driving the money-changers from the temple. Here a large number of figures—I should think twenty or thirty—appeared upon the stage, and held their places with unchanging look. Not one moved; they scarcely breathed; but all stood fixed as marble. All the historic characters were present—the priests in their robes (the costumes evidently having been studied with great care), and the Pharisees glaring with rage upon our Lord, as with holy indignation He spurns the profane intruders from the sacred precincts.

Then there is the scene of Judas betraying Christ. We see him leading the way to the spot where our Saviour kneels in prayer; the crowd follow with lanterns; there are the Roman soldiers, and in the background are the priests, the instigators of this greatest of crimes.

In another scene Judas appears again overwhelmed with remorse, casting down his ill-gotten money before the priests, who look on scornfully, as if bidding him keep the price of blood, and take its terrible consequences.

As might be supposed, the part of Judas is one not to be particularly desired, and we cannot look at a countenance showing a mixture of hatred and greed, without a strong repugnance. There was a story that the man who acted Judas in the Passion Play in 1870 had been killed in the French war, but this we find to be an error. It was a very natural invention of some one who thought that a man capable of such a crime ought to be killed. But the old Judas is still living, and, off from the stage, is said to be one of the most worthy men of the village.

Having thus had set before us the most sticking illustrations of human guilt, in the first crime that ever stained the earth with blood, and in the greatest of all crimes, which caused the death of Christ, we have next presented the method of man's redemption. The chorus again enters upon the stage, and recites the story of the fall, how man sinned, and was to be recovered by the sacrifice of one who was to be an atonement for a ruined world. Again the curtain rises, and we have before us the high priest Melchisedec, in whose smoking altar we see illustrated the idea of sacrifice.

The same idea takes a more terrible form in the sacrifice of Isaac. We see the struggles of his father Abraham, who is bowed with sorrow, and the heart-broken looks of Sarah, his wife. The latter part, as it happened, was taken by a person of a very sweet face, the effect of which was heightened by being overcast with sadness, and also by the Oriental costume, which, covering a part of the face, left the dark eyes which peered out from under the long eyelashes, to be turned on the beholders. Everything in the appearance of Abraham, his bending form and flowing beard, answered to the idea of the venerable patriarch. The couleur locale was preserved even in the attendants, who looked as if they were Arabian servants who had just dismounted from camels at the door of the tent. Isaac appears, an innocent and confiding boy, with no presumption of the dark and terrible fate that is impending over him. And when the gentle Sarah appears, tenderly solicitous for the safety of her child, the coldest spectator could hardly be unmoved by a scene pictured with such touching fidelity. It is with a feeling of relief that, as this fearful tragedy approaches its consummation, we hear the voice of the angel, and behold that the Lord has himself provided a sacrifice.