No mind, for instance, can be in a low or degraded condition, while it is in sympathy with the pure and delectable genius of Haydn. No mind can have communed with him through his oratorio of the “Creation,” can have drunk in its liquid melodies—its gladdening hymns of praise—its soft and heart-soothing airs—its songs, which seem to sparkle with the light which they celebrate—with the dew that bathed first the flowers of Paradise—with its anthems of holy exultation, such as the sons of God might have shouted—with the whole breathing in every part as it does—with the young soul of goodness and beauty—no mind, I say, can be in such communion, and for the time be otherwise than transported beyond all that can belittle or defile. But Handel excites a profounder sentiment. He is not so cheerful as Haydn. He could not be; for this he is too massive and austere. He does not, like Haydn, lead the mind out to nature, he turns it in upon itself. Not loveliness, but mysteries make the spirit of his music. We find in Haydn the picturesqueness and the buoyancy of the Catholic worship; in Handel, the sombre, the inquiring, the meditative thoughtfulness of the Protestant faith. By Haydn’s “Creation” we are charmed and elated; by Handel’s “Messiah” we are moved with an overcoming sense of awe and power. Though nothing can surpass the sweetness of Handel’s melodies, yet interspersed amidst such masses of harmony, they seem like hymns amidst the billows of the ocean, or songs among the valleys of the Alps. Handel’s genius was made for a subject that placed him in the presence of eternity and the universe. His moods and movements are too vast for the moods and movements of common interests or the common heart. They require the spaces of the worlds. They require interests coincident with man’s destiny, and with man’s duration. Though Handel’s airs in the “Messiah” are of sweetest and gentlest melody, they have majesty in their sweetness and their gentleness. We can associate them with no event lower than that with which they are connected. In such tones we can conceive the Saviour’s birth celebrated in the song of angels; in such tones we can fancy the Redeemer welcomed in hosannas by those who ignorantly dragged him afterward to Calvary. And then the plaintiveness of Handel in the “Messiah,” has its true horizon only in that which girds the immortal. It is not simply plaintive, it is mysteriously awful. It is not a grief for earthly man, it is a grief for him who bore the griefs of all men—for Him who carried our sorrows—who was wounded for our transgressions—who was bruised for our iniquities, who was oppressed and afflicted, and who bore the chastisement of our peace. It is not a grief in which any common spirit dare complain. It is fit only for Him who had sorrows to which no man’s sorrows were like. It does not cause us to pity, but to tremble. It does not move us to weeping, because there lie beneath it, thoughts which are too deep for tears. And