est, arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light." This chorus, which for
reasons presently to be given was heard at considerable disadvantage at
Portland, contains some of the best fugue-writing in the work, and is
especially rich and powerful in its instrumentation.

The second part of the oratorio begins with the crucifixion and
ascension of Jesus. Here we must note especially the deeply pathetic
opening chorus, "The Son of Man was delivered into the hands of sinful
men," the joyous allegro, "And on the third day he rose again," the
choral, "Jesus, my Redeemer, lives," and the quartet, "Feed the flock
of God," commenting upon the command of Jesus, "Feed my lambs." This
quartet has all the heavenly sweetness of Handel's "He shall feed
his flock," which it suggests by similarity of subject, though not by
similarity of treatment; but in a certain quality of inwardness, or
religious meditativeness, it reminds one more of Mr. Paine's favourite
master, Bach. The choral, like the one in the first part and the one
which follows the scene of Pentecost, is taken from the Lutheran
Choral Book, and arranged with original harmony and instrumentation, in
accordance with the custom of Bach, Mendelssohn, and other composers,
"of introducing into their sacred compositions the old popular choral
melodies which are the peculiar offspring of a religious age." Thus the
noblest choral ever written, the "Sleepers, wake," in "St. Paul," was
composed in 1604 by Praetorius, the harmonization and accompaniment only
being the work of Mendelssohn.

In "St. Peter," as in "Elijah," the second part, while forming the true
musical climax of the oratorio, admits of a briefer description than
the first part. The wave of emotion answering to the sensuously dramatic
element having partly spent itself, the wave of lyric emotion gathers
fresh strength, and one feels that one has reached the height of
spiritual exaltation, while, nevertheless, there is not so much which
one can describe to others who may not happen to have gone through with
the same experience. Something of the same feeling one gets in studying
Dante's "Paradiso," after finishing the preceding divisions of his poem:
there is less which can be pictured to the eye of sense, or left to
be supplied by the concrete imagination. Nevertheless, in the scene
of Pentecost, which follows that of the Ascension, there is no lack of
dramatic vividness. Indeed, there is nothing in the work mor