‘“I am glad to find you up, Joseph. This English gentleman seeks shelter for the night, and I scarcely knew whither to take him.”
‘“You will not find a bed in the place,” returned the other; and he continued addressing me. “Since this morning our little village has been overrun, and many strangers have to camp out in the open air. Never has Ober-Ammergau been so thronged.”
‘I scarcely listened to him; I was so lost in contemplation of the awful personality he represented.
‘“Who are you?” I asked, gazing at him in amaze.
‘He smiled, and glanced down at his dress.
‘“I am Joseph Mair,” he replied. “Tomorrow I play the Christus, and as you came I was repairing some portion of the attire, which I have not worn for ten years past.”
‘Jesus of Nazareth! Joseph Mair! I understood all clearly now, but none the less did I tremble with a sickening sense of awe.’
‘That night I remained in the house of Joseph Mail sitting on a bench in the ingle, half dying, half dreaming, till daylight came. Mair himself soon left me, after having set before me some simple refreshment, of which I did not care to partake. Alone in that chamber, I sat like a haunted man, almost credulous that I had seen the Christ indeed.’
‘I _have_ seen him! I understand now all the piteous humble pageant! I have beheld the Master as He lived and died; not the creature of a poet’s dream not the Divine Ideal I pictured in my blind and shadowy creed; but Jesus who perished on Calvary, Jesus the Martyr of the World.
‘All day long, from dawn to sunset, I sat in my place, watching the mysterious show. Words might faintly foreshadow to you what I beheld, but all words would fail to tell you what I felt; for never before, till these simple children of the mountains pictured it before me, had I realised the full sadness and rapture of that celestial Life. How faint, miserable, and unprofitable seemed my former creed, seen in the light of the tremendous Reality foreshadowed on that stage, with the mountains closing behind it, the blue heaven bending tranquilly above it, the birds singing on the branches round about, the wind and sunshine shining over it and bringing thither all the gentle motion of the world. Now for the first time I conceived that the Divine Story was not a poet’s dream, but a simple tale of sooth, a living experience which even the lowliest could understand and before which the highest and wisest must reverently bow.