She exhorts the trembling people to trust and patience, and informs them that she has formed a great resolve, which as yet she can communicate to no one; while she prepares herself, all are to unite in prayer; the former chorus is repeated. Carmi brings Achior as a prisoner, who relates that, having told Holofemes of the courage of the Israelites and the wonderful power of their God, who renders them invincible as long as they trust in Him, he has been sent into the city to share its destruction. Judith approaching, is left alone with Ozia, who is surprised to see her richly adorned; she demands egress from the town with her maid, and departs, the chorus (in the distance) expressing astonishment at her enterprise. In the second part Ozia seeks to convince the heathen Achior that there is but one God. Before his arguments have been quite successful Amital enters and describes the death-stillness, expressive of the extreme of need and despair, which hangs over the city. Shrieks and tumult interrupt him; Judith returns, and relates how she has slain Holofernes; she holds the decapitated head before the incredulous Achior, who swoons for fear. After Judith's song, he comes to himself and declares his conversion to the faith of the God of Abraham. Carmi enters, and relates that at Judith's bidding they had raised a war-cry; the Assyrians, discovering the death of Holofernes, were seized with terror and fled precipitately. A song of thanksgiving to God, in which Judith leads the chorus, forms the conclusion. The composers treated the oratorio in the same way as the opera seria,[14] only that the want of dramatic variety favoured the adoption of the concert style of music. In its form there was no important difference; we find the same treatment of the recitatives, secco and obbligato, of the songs and of all important parts, including the choruses; only {"BETULIA"--OVERTURE.} (197) that the bass voice is made use of in solo singing. We might expect to find the musical conceptions inspired by earnestness and reverence; and this was so far the case that the oratorio excluded all that was trifling, voluptuous, or that related to the passion of love. But a religious tone was entirely wanting, and the operatic style was only modified, not essentially altered. Every song in an oratorio would have been quite in place at a corresponding point in an opera seria, and many operatic songs might have been transferred to an oratorio with perfect propriety. The bravura of the vocalists was considered as appropriate in the churches as on the stage, only that a certain amount of moderation was becoming. During Lent, when the opera was closed, the public looked for entertainment to the oratorios, and flattered themselves that they were at the same time fulfilling a religious duty, because the performance took place in a church.