religious growth first implanted by these miracle plays. The stages, it
should be explained, were of curious construction, being divided into
three stories, the upper one containing the heavenly characters, the
middle one being for the people upon earth, and the lowest for the
denizens of hell.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the whole Catholic world was
influenced by those reforms so necessary to the Christian Church of that
time, and so bravely contended for and gained by Luther. The
demoralisation which weakened all the church's fabric was deeply
deplored by the Catholic clergy, and we find at the close of this
century St. Philip Neri founding a congregation of priests in Rome and
drawing youths to church by dramatising in simple form such stories as
the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, etc., which were set to music in
four parts with alternate solos, first by Animuccia (a pupil of
Goudimel), and later on by the great Palestrina. These "sacred actions"
or plays were not performed in the church itself, but in an adjoining
chamber, called in Italian "oratorio," an oratory, and the title has
since then adhered to this species of sacred work.

Our girls will be pleased to know that the first oratorio, set to music
by Emilio del Cavalieri, was written by a lady, Laura Guidiccioni. It
was acted for the first time in the year 1600, probably in the oratory
of the Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella, in Rome. The name of the
work is "The Representation of the Soul and the Body." It was to be
played in appropriate costumes, and certain choruses were to be
accompanied, in a reverent and sedate manner, by solemn dances. Some of
the characters were Time, Pleasure, the World, Human Life, the Body,
etc.