then as ignorant as the laity; and as the wild work, which in these sacred dramas is sometimes made of the scripture history, may be supposed to have embodied the knowledge of a whole fraternity, we may not unfairly conjecture the kind of instruction to be obtained from each individual.  The state of language in Europe must have greatly contributed to the adoption of public instruction, by means of dramatic representation.  The services of the church were in Latin, now become a dead language.  This originated, perhaps, rather in sincere reverence, and the dread of profaning the sacred mysteries by transferring them into the vulgar tongue, than in any systematic design of keeping the people in the dark; for, from the gradual extinction of the Latin, as the vernacular idiom, and the gradual growth of the modern languages, there was no marked period in which the change might appear to be called for, until the question became involved with weightier matters of controversy.  The confusion of tongues, almost throughout Europe, before the great predominant languages were formed out of the conflicting dialects, must greatly have impeded the preaching the Gospel, for which, in other respects, only a very small part of the clergy were qualified.  Though, in these times, most extraordinary effects are attributed to the eloquence of certain preachers, for instance, Fra. Giovanni di Vicenza, yet many of the itinerant friars, the first, we believe, who addressed the people with great activity in the vulgar tongue, must have been much circumscribed by the limits of their own patois.[1] But the spectacle of the dramatic exhibitions everywhere spoke a common language; and the dialogue, which, in parts of the Chester mysteries, is a kind of Anglicized French, and which, even if translated into the native tongue, was constantly interspersed with Latin, and therefore, but darkly and imperfectly understood, was greatly assisted by the perpetual interpretation which was presented before the eyes.  The vulgar were thus imperceptibly wrought up to profound feelings of reverence for the purity of the Virgin; the unexampled sufferings of the Redeemer; the miraculous powers of the apostles, and the constancy of the martyrs; we must add, (for after all it was a strange Christianity, though in every respect the Christianity of the age,) with the most savage detestation at the cruelty of Herod or Pilate, and the treachery of Judas; and the most revolting horror, at the hideous appearance, and blasphemous language of the Prince of Darkness, who almost always played a principal part in these scriptural dramas.—­Quarterly Review.

[1] It is related in the life of St. Bernard, that his pale and emaciated
    appearance, and the animation and the fire, which seemed to kindle his
    whole being as he spoke, made so deep an impression on those who could
    only see him and hear his voice, that Germans, who understand not a
    word of his language, were often moved to tears.—­Neander, Der
    Heilige Bernard, p. 49.