While we have a certain number of these old-time plays, most of them, of course, have disappeared by time's attrition during the centuries before the invention of printing, when they were handed round only in manuscript form. Of some of these plays we shall have something to say after a moment, stopping only to call attention to the fact that in this literary mode of the mystery and morality plays, dramatic literature in English reached a height of development which has been equaled only by our greatest dramatic geniuses.
Within the last few years most of the large cities of the English-speaking world, besides the more important universities, have been given the opportunity to hear one of the great products of this form of literary activity. "Everyman" is probably as great a play as there is in English and comparable with the best work of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson. Its author only took the four last things to be remembered--Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell--the things which must come to every man, and wrote his story around them, yet he did it with such artistic effectiveness as to make his drama a triumph of literary execution.
The Mystery Plays were as interesting in their way to the medieval generations as "Everyman" to us. As may be seen from the list quoted from Mr. Morley, practically all the significant parts of the Bible story were acted by these craftsmen. Too much can scarcely be said of the educational value of such dramatic exercises; the Bible itself with its deep religious teachings, with its simple but sublime style, with its beautiful poetry, entered for a time into the very lives of these people. No wonder that our English speech during these centuries became saturated with biblical thoughts and words. Anyone who has ever had any experience with amateur theatricals when a really great play was given, will be able to realize how much more thoroughly every quality, dramatic, literary, poetic, even lyric { 252} and historical, that there might be in the drama, entered into the hearts and minds of those who took part. It is this feature that is especially deserving of attention with regard to these mystery plays which began in the Thirteenth Century. The people's interest in them, lifted them out of themselves and their trivial round of life into the higher life of this great religious poetry. On the other hand the teachings of the Bible came down from the distant plane on which they might otherwise have been set and entered into the very life of the people. Their familiarity with scripture made it a something not to be discussed merely, but to be applied in their everyday affairs.