but what strikes us, perhaps, still more offensively in those old religious plays, is the irreverent and shocking familiarity everywhere used with the sacredest persons and things of the christian faith. the awfullest and most moving scenes and incidents of the gospel history, such as the last supper and the crucifixion, were treated with what cannot but seem to us the most shameless and most disgusting profanity the poor invention of the time was racked to the uttermost, to harrow the audience with dramatic violence and stress; and it seems to us impossible but that all the solemnity of the matter must have been defeated by such coarseness of handling.