With Bach, the passion-music accomplished its purpose, and we now enter upon the third and last stage of the evolution of oratorio. It is a new form, and the change leads us to a new country. We have examined the sacred dramas, with their musical setting, in Italy, and the passion-music in Germany; and now comes the oratorio in England,--the oratorio as we know it and hear it to-day. Handel was its great originator. He began his English career as an operatic writer; but he soon tired of setting music to the trivial subjects so common in opera, which, as he himself declared, were not suited to a composer advancing in years. There were other inducements, however, which led him to turn to the oratorio, and among them one of the most powerful unquestionably was his disgust with the cabals which were organized against him by Italian rivals. "Esther" was his first English oratorio, and it made a great success. It was followed by "Deborah" and "Athalia." His vigorous dramatic power and close musical scholarship were never more apparent than in these works. They aroused such an enthusiasm that from this time forth (1737) he devoted himself exclusively to this species of composition. He wrote in all seventeen English oratorios. In 1739 he produced "Saul," one of the most dramatic of his sacred works, and the colossal "Israel in Egypt." In 1741 he began "The Messiah," the most sublime of all his oratorios and one of the profoundest works of human genius in music. It still holds its place upon the stage as one of the grandest expressions of human aspiration and divine truth, and no Christmas is complete without its performance. Other works followed it, among them "Samson," "Joseph," "Belshazzar," "Judas Maccabaeus," "Joshua," and "Theodora," which Handel considered his best work; but none of them equalled "The Messiah," in which his genius reached its climax. Of those last named, only "Samson" and "Judas Maccabaeus" still hold their place in the modern repertory, though the other oratorios mentioned contain many of his most effective numbers.