overpowers the feelings. There are twenty-one choruses in the Gospel of Palm Sunday, and only fourteen in that of Friday. The phrases in the first are longer and more capable of varied expression than in the latter. When the Jews cried out "Crucify Him" or " Barabbas" The music like the words is concentrated with rightful energy, and consists of just as many notes as syllables. Yet in the three notes of the last word a passage of key is effected simple as it is striking. The effect is rendered far more powerful by a most abrupt termination. The entire harmony is given in a quick but marked, so to speak stamping way, well suiting the tumultous outcries of a fierce mob. In the three choruses of St. Matthew's Passion where the two false witnesses speak, there is a duet between soprano and contralto, and the words are made to follow one another in a stumbling way, a though one always took up his story from the other, and the music is in a syncopated style; one part either jarring with or clearly imitating the others movements, so that it most aptly represents the judgment that "their testimony was not agreeing." In the 16th nothing could succeed the soft and moving tone in which the words "Hail King of the Jews" are uttered. They powerfully draw the soul to utter in earnest what was intended in blasphemy. The 17th and 18th are masterpieces.
The 10th of St. John's Gospel is most exquisite in modulation: "If you let him go you are no friend of Ceasar's." The most beautiful and pathetic in all the collection is the last chorus, "Let us not divide it, but cast lots." They succeed one another in a following cadence, growing softer and softer and almost dying away, till the entire chorus swells in a mildened but majestic burst. As the catastrophe approaches the strong voice in which the historical recitation is delivered softens gradually, being reduced almost to a whisper as the last words upon the Cross are related, and die away as the last breath of of our Saviour's life is yielded up. All fall upon their knees, and a
