ceremonies is to be found, outside of Schindler’s statement, in a letter to the Archduke written in 1819, in which he says: The day on which a high mass of my composition is performed at the ceremony for Y. I. H. will be to me the most beautiful in my life and God will enlighten me so that my poor powers may contribute to the glory of this solemn day. [Sidenote: BEETHOVEN AND RELIGION] Something was said, in the conclusion of the chapter of this biography devoted to a review of the incidents of the years 1807 to 1809, concerning the views Beethoven entertained on the subject of religion and dogmatic and sectarian Christianity. His attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church becomes an almost necessary subject of contemplation in a study of the Solemn Mass in D; but it is one into which the personal equation of the student must perforce largely enter. The obedient churchman of a Roman Catholic country will attach both less and more importance, than one brought up in a Protestant land, to the fact that he admonished his nephew when a lad to say his prayers and said them with him (as the boy testified in the guardianship proceedings), that he himself at least once led him to the door of the confessional,[68] that he consented to the summoning of a priest when _in extremis_ and that he seemed to derive comfort and edification from the sacred function. It is not necessary, however, to go very deeply into a critical study of the Mass in order to say that while the composition shows respect for traditions in some portions and while it is possible to become eloquent without going beyond the demonstration contained in the music itself, in describing the overwhelming puissance of his proclamation of the fatherhood of God and belief in Him as the Creator of all things visible and invisible, the most obvious fact which confronts the analytical student is that Beethoven approached the missal text chiefly with the imagination and the emotions of an artist, and that its poetical, not to say dramatic elements were those which he was most eager to delineate.[69] One proof of this is found in what may be called the technical history of the Mass, and is therefore pertinent here. It was scarcely necessary for Beethoven to do so, but he has nevertheless given us an explanation of his singular treatment of the prayer for peace. Among the sketches for the movement is found the remark: “_dona nobis pacem_ darstellend den _innern_ und äussern Frieden” (“delineating internal and external peace”), and in agreement with this he superscribes the first _Allegro vivace_ in the autograph with the same words. In the later copy this phrase is changed to “Prayer for internal and external peace,” thus showing an appreciation of the fact that the words alone contain the allusion to peace which in its external aspect is disturbed by the sounds of war suggested by the instruments. The petition for peace is emphasized by the threatening