IN writing this book, my desire has been not merely to produce an entertaining volume, but one of an instructive character, throwing light on the manners, customs, and everyday life of bygone times, which have a connection with the English church.

It would be impossible to prepare a book of this class without having recourse to the works of other authors, more especially some of the older writers. I have tried, however, to render every acknowledgment to those to whom I am indebted for information.

My best thanks are due to the Editors of the following periodicals for kindly allowing me to reproduce from their pages some of the articles I

wrote for them, and which now re-appear here, viz., the British Workwoman, Chambers's Journal, Christian World Magazine, Home Chimes, and the Leisure Hour. A number of the papers were printed simultaneously in several leading provincial journals.

I have only to add that if this volume meets with a welcome from the press and the public similar to that which has been accorded to my former works, I shall have every reason to feel grateful.

HULL LITERARY CLUB,

May 1st, 1890.

WILLIAM ANDREWS.

MEM AOBK

CURIOSITIES OF THE CHURCH.

Early Religious Plays:

Being the Story of the English Stage in its
Church Cradle Days.

HE origin of the drama in England is not, like that of many institutions, lost in the dim past. It is clear that in the days of our Saxon ancestors there was no attempt at dramatic representations. We know that they had a poetic literature, but it was not dramatic in form.

The introduction of the Miracle-play into this country from the Continent forms the starting point in our histrionic annals. The clergy were our first actors, and the churches our first theatres. The earliest pieces were Scriptural-or, at all events, of a pious character-and well calculated

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