They are full, if I may use the phrase, of pagan-religious
feeling. Purcell's age was not a devotional age, and Purcell himself,
though he wrote Church music in a serious, reverential spirit, could not
detach himself from his age and get back to the sublime religious
ecstasy of Byrde. He seizes upon the texts to paint vivid descriptive
pieces; he thrills you with lovely passages or splendours of choral
writing; but he did not try to express devotional moods that he never
felt. A mood very close to that of religious ecstasy finds a voice in
"Thou knowest, Lord, the Secrets of our Hearts"--the mood of a man clean
rapt away from all earthly affairs, and standing face to face, alone,
with the awful mystery of "the infinite and eternal energy from which
all things proceed." It is plain, direct four-part choral writing, but
the accent is terrible in its distinctness. At Queen Mary's funeral (we
can judge from Tudway's written reflections) the audience was
overwhelmed, and we may believe it. A more elaborately wrought and
longer piece of work is the setting of the Latin Psalm, "Jehova, quam
multi sunt." It is the high-water mark of all Church music after the
polyphonists.
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