21 FEBRUARY 1891, Page 25

The Passion - Play as it is Played To-Day. By W. T.

Stead. (Office of Review of Reviews.)—Many people have written about the Ober- Ammergau Passion-Play, not always in the best taste. But it was reserved for Mr. Stead to outdo all his predecessors in the offensiveness of his language. The story of the Passion has always been very real to him, he tells us. And why P Because he has identified Colaphas, Judas, Pilate, with theological and political adversaries. He could hardly write a new version of the Gospel narrative 'with the applications which this feeling sug- gested; so he goes to Ober-Ammergau, and takes occasion to satisfy his hatreds. A frank travesty of the New Testament story would really have been less odious.