This curious persistence may be explained by the fact that devotional feeling is not demonstrative. Western people in really devotional frame of mind do not gesticulate or fling their arms and legs about to express their feelings, but are bowed down in spiritual ecstasy. The music was the true expression of the spirit; and, till secular music began to react upon religious music after the beginning of the seventeenth century, the music of the services of the church might fairly be described as anti-rhythmic. And it still remains a fact that whenever rhythm makes its appearance prominently in music which purports to be devotional it is a proof of its insincerity. But there are always many things which concur in achieving a big result, and it must be admitted that conjoined with the instinct which avoided rhythm in religious music was the fact that all the early religious music was essentially vocal; and vocal music in its purest simplicity is comparatively unrhythmic. It learnt definite and consistent rhythm from instrumental music when that came to be cultivated with vigor from the beginning of the seventeenth century onward. It is true that dance music was sung, and that the _Balletti_ of such a delightful composer as Morley have wonderful rhythmic verve; but such compositions represent the time when musical expansion was moving strongly in a secular direction and instruments were beginning to exert their influence. The greater madrigals of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries still illustrate the inherent peculiarity of pure choral music and give ample proofs of the composers’ endeavors to disguise the rhythmic element and represent the underlying principle of the grouping of strong and weak beats without adopting obvious rhythmic organization. Instrumental music, on the other hand, inevitably implies rhythm. In its most primitive phases it was probably nothing but rhythm, and that rhythm of a perfectly frank and undisguised description. In its early artistic, phases it was generally full of rhythmic life without obtruding the rhythm as a special means of appeal to the audience, as is the case in modern popular music. The deeply ingrained habits of counterpoint which still persisted in the eighteenth century made even suites of dance tunes so full of texture in detail that the rhythm was rather the basis of the definition of pulses than a factor in the effect. If the story of modern music were followed up with special reference to rhythm it would be found that the aim of all composers who took their art seriously has been to avoid the commonplaces and to sophisticate rhythm in such a way as to make it serve as an additional source of expression, instead of a mere mechanical incitement to movement. The increase of orchestral instruments offered ample opportunities to sophisticate rhythms in a manner analogous to the charming effects of early choral music, in which syncopation and cross-rhythms add a genuine interest to the