in the biggest Handel manner.  But just as “He was despised” and “I know that my Redeemer liveth” tower above all the other songs, so three or four choruses tower above all the other choruses in not only the “Messiah,” but all Handel’s oratorios.  “Worthy is the Lamb” stands far above the rest, and indeed above all choruses in the world save Bach’s very best; then comes “For unto us a Child is born”; and after that “And He shall purify,” “His yoke is easy,” and “Surely He hath borne our griefs”—­each distinctive, complete in itself, an absolute piece of noble invention.  “Unto us a Child is born” is written in a form devised by Handel and used with success by no other composer since, until in a curiously modified shape Tschaikowsky employed it for the third movement of his Pathetic symphony.  The first theme is very simply announced, played with awhile, then the second follows—­a tremendous phrase to the words “The government shall be upon His shoulders”; suddenly the inner parts begin to quicken into life, to ferment, to throb and to leap, and with startling abruptness great masses of tone are hurled at the listener to the words “Wonderful, Counsellor.”  The process is then repeated in a shortened and intensified form; then it is repeated again; and finally the principal theme, delivered so naively at first, is delivered with all the pomp and splendour of full chorus and orchestra, and “Wonderful, Counsellor” thundered out on a corresponding scale.  A scheme at once so simple, so daring and so tremendous in effect, could have been invented by no one but Handel with his need for working rapidly; and it is strange that a composer so different from Handel as Tschaikowsky should have hit upon a closely analogous form for a symphonic movement.  The forms of the other choruses are dissimilar.  In “He shall purify” there are two big climaxes; in “His yoke is easy” there is only one, and it comes at the finish, just when one is wondering how the splendid flow of music can be ended without an effect of incompleteness or of anti-climax; and “Surely He hath borne our griefs” depends upon no climactic effects, but upon the sheer sweetness and pathos of the thing.

Handel’s secular oratorios are different from anything else in the world.  They are neither oratorios, nor operas, nor cantatas; and the plots are generally quaint.

Some years ago it occurred to me one morning that a trip by sea to Russia might be refreshing; and that afternoon I started in a coal-steamer from a northern seaport.  A passport could hardly be wrested from hide-bound officialdom in so short a time, and, to save explanations in a foreign tongue at Cronstadt, the reader’s most humble servant assumed the lowly office of purser—­wages, one shilling per month.  The passage was rough, the engineers were not enthusiastic in their work, some of the seamen were sulky; and, in a word, the name of God was frequently in the skipper’s mouth.  Otherwise he did not strike one as being a particularly religious man.