unto God," brings us to the grand final chorus in C major, "Great and
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty."

The cadence of this concluding chorus reminds us that one of the
noteworthy points in the oratorio is the character of its cadences.
The cadence prepared by the 6/4 chord, now become so hackneyed from its
perpetual and wearisome repetition in popular church music, seems to be
especially disliked by Mr. Paine, as it occurs but once or twice in the
course of the work. In the great choruses the cadence is usually reached
either by a pedal on the tonic, as in the chorus, "Awake, thou that
sleepest," or by a pedal on the dominant culminating in a chord of the
major ninth, as in the final chorus; or there is a plagal cadence, as in
the first chorus of the second part; or, if the 6/4 chord is introduced,
as it is in the chorus, "He that overcometh," its ordinary effect is
covered and obscured by the movement of the divided sopranos. We do not
remember noticing anywhere such a decided use of the 6/4 chord as is
made, for example, by Mendelssohn, in "Thanks be to God," or in the
final chorus of "St. Paul." Perhaps if we were to confess our lingering
fondness for the cadence prepared by the 6/4 chord, when not too
frequently introduced, it might only show that we retain a liking for
New England "psalm-tunes"; but it does seem to us that a sense of final
repose, of entire cessation of movement, is more effectually secured
by this cadence than by any other. Yet while the 6/4 cadence most
completely expresses finality and rest, it would seem that the plagal
and other cadences above enumerated as preferred by Mr. Paine have a
certain sort of superiority by reason of the very incompleteness with
which they express finality. There is no sense of finality whatever
about the Phrygian cadence; it leaves the mind occupied with the feeling
of a boundless region beyond, into which one would fain penetrate; and
for this reason it has, in sacred music, a great value. Something of
the same feeling, too, attaches to those cadences in which an unexpected
major third usurps the place of the minor which the ear was expecting,
as in the "Incarnatus" of Mozart's "Twelfth Mass," or in Bach's sublime
"Prelude," Part I., No. 22 of the "Well-tempered Clavichord." In a less
degree, an analogous effect was produced upon us by the cadence with a
pedal on the tonic in the choruses, "The Church is built," and "Awake,
thou that sleepest." On thes