In the minds of those who have specially at heart the welfare and progress of musical art in this country nothing at the present time looms larger than the church music of Bach. To acquiesce in the prevalent indifference of the public to that music we feel to be impossible. If Shakespeare is nothing but a bore, there seems to be an end of imaginative literature; and similarly, in music, any person whom Bach entirely fails to interest had better give up all pretence to being musical. For Bach is not one of the composers, like Berlioz, Liszt, Tchaïkovsky, Dvoràk, or Richard Strauss, whom it is allowable to like or dislike. Bach is the musical Bible--the foundation of the faith. Historically considered, both Bach and Handel are artists of the Reformation and the Renaissance. But if we fix attention on their essential musical personalities, we find a certain broad difference between the two great eighteenth century composers, which is fairly well suggested by calling Bach a Gothic and Handel a Renaissance artist. Bach's "Passion according to St. Matthew" stands to Handel's "Messiah" in something like the same kind of contrast that Strasburg Cathedral presents to St. Peter's in Rome. On the other hand, in its course of development music has been quite different from architecture and the graphic and plastic arts, and modern music owes quite a hundred times more to Bach than it does to Handel. Bach represents by far the greatest stimulating influence that has ever existed in the musical world. His stupendous industry, resulting in a body of first-rate work that may be reckoned among the greatest wonders of the world (it is not possible for a modern to know it all); his awe-inspiring union of very great talent with very great character; the completeness of his human nature and the absolute purity of his life and art--these things unite to make of Bach's personality something truly august, something that administers a quietus to the ordinary critical, fault-finding spirit. Glancing over the huge library of his collected works and knowing the glories that a few of them contain, one is fain to say, "There were giants in the earth in those days." Yet "giant" is scarcely the word. For the astounding sinew and sturdiness of the man were quite secondary in the composition of his character to that quality, in virtue of which he worked on throughout a long life as though in perpetual consciousness of something higher than ordinary human judgment; not waiting for full appreciation, which did not come till about a century after his death (very much as in Shakespeare's case), but perfectly realising the great ethical ideal of Marcus Aurelius--the good man producing good works, just as the vine produces grapes. No greater praise can be bestowed on Handel than to say that in his very best moments he is almost worthy of Bach, as, for example, in the choral section "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity