Charles Gounod (1818-1893), who turned his thoughts almost exclusively to religious music in the later years of his life, wrote several oratorios which will be mentioned in detail in Chapter VIII. His smaller works--the 137th Psalm (‘By Babylon’s Wave’), the 129th Psalm (‘Out of Darkness’), and especially the motet, ‘Gallia,’ with soprano solo--evidence a fund of pleasing melody that, while not ecclesiastical in feeling, lies close enough to the apprehension of the average listener to make his music deeply prized by lovers of sweet melody. The ‘Gallia’ (to words from the Lamentations of Jeremiah) is a lamentation over the disaster that befell his country in the war of 1870; it was written for soprano, chorus and orchestra and was first produced at the Albert Hall, London, May 1, 1871, at the opening of the International Exhibition. Théodore Dubois (born 1837), who was one of the many winners of the coveted _Prix de Rome_, on his return from Italy produced an important choral work, ‘The Seven Last Words of Christ’ (_Les sept Paroles du Christ_), on Good Friday, 1867, at St. Clotilde’s, of which he was then choir-master. The writer of melodious opera-music, Jules Massenet (1842-1912), has written one charming cantata, _Narcisse_ (‘Narcissus’), for chorus and orchestra, that was produced in 1877. After 1880, however, choral works in the smaller forms became more numerous in France. At the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century elements of distinctive individuality began to creep into English cantata-music and assert themselves more and more. Out of the mass of cantatas that came into being to feed the choral appetites of the vast number of English singing societies and festivals, works of impressive beauty and fine workmanship appeared that would reflect credit on the choral literature of any nation. English composers have seized upon the ballad, the legend and the fairy-tale, upon scenes from secular and sacred history, and have exercised especial industry in using them as material for choral works. Their number is so great that but a few can be named. Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) is best known in the field of cantata by the ‘Golden Legend,’ though it was preceded by two others, ‘Kenilworth,’ written in 1864 for the Birmingham Festival, and ‘The Martyr of Antioch,’ in 1875, for the Leeds Festival.