‘The Legend of St. Christopher,’ a dramatic oratorio on a theme that has often been chosen by composers, was written soon after the _Hora Novissima_ and was published in 1898. In September, 1902, Parker conducted the third part of this oratorio at the Worcester (England) Festival and in October of the same year the entire work was performed at the Bristol Festival. The text, as in the case of many of the composer’s choral works, is by his mother, Isabella G. Parker. It presents in attractive poetic form the main features of the familiar legend and requires the following characters: Offerus, the King, the Queen, the Hermit and Satan. The chorus frequently assumes the burden of narration. The legend relates how the giant Offerus sought the mightiest earthly monarch, that he might serve him with his great strength and stature. But he finds that the king to whom he attaches himself is not the mightiest on earth, for he fears Satan, whom the giant straightway seeks to serve. Satan in turn trembles as they pass a cross by the roadside before which women are singing a hymn to the Lord of Heaven. Offerus finally finds a hermit who serves this Lord of Heaven and who teaches him the meaning of service. During a furious storm at night a child with a quiet light upon its head piteously begs to be carried across the raging stream. Offerus heeds the cry and carries the child in his strong arms, only to find, when he reaches the further shore, that it was the Christ-child he bore; the hermit exclaims ‘Christopher be now thy name, thine henceforth by rightful claim.’ The musical handling of the theme shows the composer’s marked skill and preference for choral-writing. The choral portions of the work are the strongest, though there are not wanting lyric solo-passages of great beauty, as witness the melodies assigned to the Queen and the Hermit, and the fine trio in the last part (an Angel, the Hermit and Offerus). It would be difficult to find among modern works a more exquisite piece of effective unaccompanied part-writing than Parker has given in his setting of the Latin hymn, _Jam sol recedit igneus_, which follows immediately after the above trio. CHAPTER X THE MODERN MASS