The _Te Deum Laudamus_ (‘We praise Thee, O God’) seems to owe its origin to Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana in Dacia (about A. D. 400), and it was at once used as an important part of the Nocturns or Matins. Music was used with it from the beginning, in fact the words were used with chants already existent. It is in three parts or sections. The praise of the Trinity occupies all of the first section; ‘Thou art the King of Glory’ begins the second section, which ends with two verses of prayer, ‘We therefore pray Thee’ and ‘Make them to be numbered.’ The third section begins with ‘O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine heritage.’ It was at first sung to a free chant but was later developed into complex settings for solos, chorus and elaborate accompaniment. While it is a part of the service of both the Roman and the Anglican Churches, the finest examples of this great canticle seem to come from England, that by Purcell, written for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1694, and published in 1697, being one of the earliest large ones, and indeed one of the greatest Te Deums. This was doubtless the model for Handel’s ‘Utrecht Te Deum,’ written in 1712, which is even a nobler work than that by Purcell. These, together with the ones of Macfarren and Sullivan, that of Dvořák in 1896, Stanford’s, performed at the Leeds Festival in 1898, and Parry’s, performed at the Hereford Festival of 1900, are the most famous Te Deums of modern times. II The decadence in church-music that began to set in early in the seventeenth century and that soon caused the glories of the ‘Palestrina style’ to disappear, may be traced, not so much to the monodic revolution and the consequent change in the style of writing it entailed, but primarily to the fact that the composers of church music in the main wrote at the same time for church and theatre. Blinded by the greater brilliance of the stage, they were not able to keep separate these two widely divergent styles and the operatic mode of speech soon found entrance into the church service, and later there was very little to distinguish the one style from the other. This condition continued uninterrupted until the movement for the restoration of Catholic Church music was started near the middle of the nineteenth century by Kaspar Ett (1788-1847) and Karl Proske (1794-1861), and further developed by Franz Witt (1834-1888) and the Cecilian Society.