Looking at the present status of the mission at Jerusalem, we may record the following from the latest report. Besides the bishop, there are employed twenty-one persons : viz. three ordained missionaries, two unordained missionaries and superior lay agents, eight colporteurs. Scripture readers, depositaries, and assistants, and eight school masters and mistresses, all employed by the London Jews' Society, partly engaged in direct missionary work, the Hospital, House of In- dustry, Jewess's Institution, and Boj's' School. It is also a fact worthy to be noticed that until the arrival
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of bishop Gobat there was not one school. Now there are more than thirteen schools, with more than 600 children, under his care. All denominations are repre- sented there — Mohammedans, Greeks, Latins, Armeni- ans, Druses, Abyssinians, etc. We may also notice the Orphan Asi/luin of the bishop before the Jaffa fjate, un- der the care of two Germans, Palmer and Baldcnsper- ger. At Nabliis, the ancient Sichem, the missionary Fallscheer works in the service of the bishop; Gnihler at Jaffa, and others in other places. To defray the ex- penses of all these institutions, the Bishop Gobafs Fund for Missions in Abijssinia, Egypt, Si/ria, and Chal- dma, has been formed. The Common Church Mission- ary Society has also a station in Jerusalem, Nazareth, etc. In the latter place tliere exists a small Arabic congregation, where Dr. Zeller, son-in-law of the bishop, is building an evangelical churct, which promises to be one of the handsomest evangelicai churches in the coun- try. The centre of all missionary operation is and will be Jerusalem, and from this centre, under the indefati- gable bishop, a net of stations, schools, and institutions is laid out throughout Palestine, which promises great things for the future. Comp. the Annual Reports and Monthly Proceedings of the London Society for Promot- ing Christianity among the Jews; Narrative of a Mis- sion of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland (Edinb. 1859) ; Anderson, Oriental Churches (Boston, 1873), vol. i ; Dalton, Reisebilder aus dem Orient (St. Petersburg, 1871) ; Kalkar, Israel und die Kirche (Ham- burg, 1869), p. Ifi-l sq. ; Steger, Die evangelische Mission unter Heiden und Juden (Halle, 1857). (B. P.)
Palestrina, Giovanni Pikrluigi da, one of the most distinguished musical composers of the world, flourished in Italy in the 16th century. He derived his surname from the town of Palestrina, in the Roman states, where he was born in 1521: of very humble par- entage. At the age of sixtoeu he went to Rome, and studied music under Claude (inudimel, afterwards one of the victims of the St. Bartholomew massacre. In 1551 Palestrina was made maestro di capellu of the Julian Chapel, and in 1554 he published a collection of masses, so highly approved by pope Julius III, to whom they were dedicated, that he appointed their author one of the singers of the pontifical chapel. On the accession to the pontificate of Paul IV, in whose eyes celibacy was a necessary qualification for the duties of the higher appointments in the pontifical chapel, Palestrina was dismissed. For some time he felt severely his strait- ened circumstances, and not even the appointment as choir-master of St. Maria Maggiore brouglit much relief to hitn. In 1571, however, his services to musical art were rewarded by his restoration to the office at St. Pe- ter's. Up to the year 1560 Palestrina composed many works for the Church, among which Ba'ini especially mentions those improvised, "so remarkable for depth of science and perfect adaptation of music to the sense of the word." In 1563, the Council of Trent having un- dertaken to reform the music of the Church, and con- demned the profane words and music introduced into masses, some compositions by Palestrina were pointed to as models, and their author was intrusted with the task of remodelling this part of religious worship. He composed three masses on the reformed plan; one of them, known as the Mass of Pope Marcellus (to ^vhose memory it is dedicated), may be considered to have saved music to the Church by establishing a type infinitely beyond anything that had preceded it, and, amid all the improvements which music has since im- dergone, continues to be prized and admired. The num- ber and quality of his productions during the remaining years of his life, arc etpially remarkable. His published works consist of thirteen books of Classes, six books of Motets, one book of Lamentations, one book of Hymns, one book of Offertories, one book of IMagnilicats, one book of Litanies, one book of Spiritual Madrigals, and three books of INFaiirigals. Ecjually estimaljle in jirivate life, and talented as a musician, Palestrina struggled
through a life of poverty during eight pontificates; his appointments for the most of his days of activity were meagre, and his publications unremunerative. He died in 1591. Palcstrina's music is learned and grave; and that written for the Church, when heard in the kind of place for which it is adapted, and attended by pomp and pageantry, is very impressive, and acts with irre- sistible force on sensitive minds. But in the concert- room or chamber his compositions, whether sacred or secular, have, with few exceptions, no charms for hear- ers who have not cultivated a taste for simple, solid, airless harmony, or for the intricacies of fugal points well woven with a skill that owes more to studj' than genius. Though Palcstrina's compositions are not above criticism, it must be conceded that he ranks head and shoulders above all his predecessors and contempora- ries, and must be considered the first musician who reconciled musical science with musical art; in short, his works form a most important epoch in the history of music. His memoir has been written bv the abbe Baini (1828) and by Winterfeld (1832). (J.'lI.W.)