initiated from earliest childhood in the mystical sanctuary of
our religion; when there one does not know whither to go with all
the vague but urgent feelings, but waits with a heart full of
devotion for the divine service without really knowing what to
expect, yet rises lightened and uplifted without knowing what one
has received; when one deemed those fortunate who knelt under the
touching strains of the Agnus Dei and received the sacrament, and
at the moment of reception the music spoke in gentle joy from the
hearts of the kneeling ones, 'Benedictus qui venit,' etc.;--then
it is a different matter. True, it is lost in the hurly-burly of
life; but,--at least it is so in my case,--when you take up the
words which you have heard a thousand times, for the purpose of
setting them to music, everything comes back and you feel your
soul moved again."

(Spoken in Leipsic, in 1789, when somebody expressed pity for
those capable musicians who were obliged to "employ their powers
on ecclesiastical subjects, which were mostly not only unfruitful
but intellectually killing." Rochlitz reports the utterance but
does not vouch for its literalness.)