rament
roamed through the realms of nature, and brought us near to the
understanding of their varied utterance. At Leipsic he finished the
education of his life and his career as a tone-poet. He seeks again the
shelter of the temple, but his genius has matured and ripened. He has
examined the mysteries of life. His enthusiasm for the pure and good is
stronger than ever, but life is still a mystery. Evil, pain, love deep
as hell and high as heaven, the Titanic conflict of opposing principles,
Nature and her decrees, sorrow, remorse, sweet, unaffected joy, and
tranquil resignation--what mean they all? The answer, the solution, is
on Calvary. There is no other solution. Intellect, deny it how it will,
is baffled by the complex problem. The solution is of love through
trouble and anguish. The Passion music of Bach rises to the sublime
understanding of this grand mystery, and again the evolution of the old
mystery and Passion-play consummates in a kindred mind. Again the
triumph of faith is with the German. Luther frees the understanding from
tyranny. Bach raises it to the region of genius and sympathy, and closes
the labors of a thousand years of Christian tonal effort by his Passion
music of the Redeemer. But while this is so, he initiated the modern
period of tonal art, leaving, however, this Passion music as his noblest
legacy, as if to warn men that no other solution of life exists.

But though Bach's genius was thus supreme, it was not because he was
undisturbed by the vexations of daily life. Rarely, if ever, has an
artist equally great produced in such boundless profusion the highest
works of genius, when engaged with men most frequently unable to
understand his thought, and immersed in the arduous duties of teacher in
an art noteworthy of producing fatigue and exhaustion of spirit. But his
enthusiasm and strength were equal to the task. With grand integrity,
and desire for the welfare of the congregations of the churches alluded
to, he obtained from their respective ministers the texts of their
discourses for the ensuing Sundays, and produced, apparently without
effort, hundreds of cantatas to convey to the hearers the inner meaning
of the words which fell from the preacher's lips. These cantatas
frequently opened with orchestral introduction followed by a chorus,
usually very impressive, and imbued with the meaning of the text. The
recitatives and solo airs would still further convey this meaning, while
a chorale o