Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/76

64 of the triumphant chorus of the Funeral Anthem, attesting to the beneficence of the dead Queen.

One year, almost to the day, before Händel's death, there stands on the register of the Foundling Hospital the name of a little Maria Augusta Händel, born on the 15th April, 1758. She was a foundling to whom he had given his name.

For him, charity was the true religion. He loved God in the poor.

For the rest, he was by no means religious in the strict sense of the word,—except at the close of his life, after the loss of his sight had cut him off from the society of his kind and isolated him almost completely. Hawkins used to see him then, in the last three years of his life, diligently attending the services of his parish church,—St. George's, Hanover Square—kneeling "and manifesting, by his gestures and his attitude, the most fervent devotion." During his last illness he said: "I wish I might die on Good Friday, in the hope of joining my God, my sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of his Resurrection."

But during the greater part of his lifetime, when he was in the fullness of his strength, he rarely attended a place of worship. A Lutheran by birth, replying ironically in Rome, where an attempt was made to convert him, "that he was determined to die in the communion in which he had been brought up, whether it was true or false," he nevertheless found no difficulty in conforming to the Anglican form of worship, and was regarded as very much of an unbeliever.