PART IIGerman HymnodyThe Battle Hymn of the ReformationA mighty Fortress is our God,A trusty Shield and Weapon,He helps us in our every needThat hath us now o’ertaken.The old malignant foeE’er means us deadly woe:Deep guile and cruel mightAre his dread arms in fight,On earth is not his equal.With might of ours can naught be done,Soon were our loss effected;But for us fights the Valiant OneWhom God Himself elected.Ask ye who this may be?Christ Jesus, it is He,As Lord of Hosts adored,Our only King and Lord,He holds the field forever.Though devils all the world should fill,All watching to devour us,We tremble not, we fear no ill,They cannot overpower us.For this world’s prince may stillScowl fiercely as he will,We need not be alarmed,For he is now disarmed;One little word o’erthrows him.The Word they still shall let remain,Nor any thanks have for it;He’s by our side upon the plain,With His good gifts and Spirit.Take they, then, what they will,Life, goods, yea, all; and still,E’en when their worst is done,They yet have nothing won,The kingdom ours remaineth.Martin Luther, 1527?MARTIN LUTHER, FATHER OF EVANGELICAL HYMNODYThe father of evangelical hymnody was Martin Luther. It was through the efforts of the great Reformer that the lost art of congregational singing was restored and the Christian hymn again was given a place in public worship.Luther was an extraordinary man. To defy the most powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy the world has known, to bring about a cataclysmic upheaval in the religious and political world, and to set spiritual forces into motion that have changed the course of human history—this would have been sufficient to have gained for him undying fame. But those who know Luther only as a Reformer know very little about the versatile gifts and remarkable achievements of this great prophet of the Church.Philip Schaff has characterized Luther as “the Ambrose of German hymnody,” and adds: “To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and the hymn book, so that God might speakdirectlyto them in His word, and that they mightdirectlyanswer Him in their songs.” He also refers to him as “the father of the modern High German language and literature.”Luther was divinely endowed for his great mission. From childhood he was passionately fond of music. As a student at Magdeburg, and later at Eisenach, he sang for alms at the windows of wealthy citizens. It was the sweet voice of the boy that attracted the attention of Ursula Cotta andmoved that benevolent woman to give him a home during his school days.The flute and lute were his favorite instruments, and he used the latter always in accompanying his own singing. John Walther, a contemporary composer who later aided Luther in the writing of church music, has left us this testimony: “It is to my certain knowledge that that holy man of God, Luther, prophet and apostle to the German nation, took great delight in music, both in choral and figural composition. I spent many a delightful hour with him in singing; and ofttimes I have seen the dear man wax so happy and merry in heart over the singing that it is well-nigh impossible to weary or content him therewithal. And his discourse concerning music was most noble.”In his “Discourse in Praise of Music,” Luther gives thanks to God for having bestowed the power of song on the “nightingale and the many thousand birds of the air,” and again he writes, “I give music the highest and most honorable place; and every one knows how David and all the saints put their divine thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.”Luther had little patience with the iconoclasts of his day. He wrote in the Preface to Walther’s collection of hymns, in 1525: “I am not of the opinion that all sciences should be beaten down and made to cease by the Gospel, as some fanatics pretend, but I would fain see all the arts, and music, in particular, used in the service of Him who hath given and created them.” At another time he was even more emphatic: “If any man despises music, as all fanatics do, for him I have no liking; for music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, sycophancy, and other vices.”Luther loved the Latin hymns that glorified Christ. He recognized, however, that they were so permeated with Mariolatry and other errors of the Roman Church that a refining process was necessary in order to rid them of their dross and permit the fine gold to appear. Moreover, the Latin hymns, even in their most glorious development, had not grown out of the spiritual life of the congregation. The very genius of the Roman Church precluded this, for church music and song was regarded as belonging exclusively to the priestly office. Moreover, since the entire worship was conducted in Latin, the congregation was inevitably doomed to passive silence.Brave efforts by John Huss and his followers to introduce congregational singing in the Bohemian churches had been sternly opposed by the Roman hierarchy. The Council of Constance, which in 1415 burned the heroic Huss at the stake, also sent a solemn warning to Jacob of Misi, his successor as leader of the Hussites, to cease the practice of singing hymns in the churches. It decreed: “If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much more are they forbidden to sing publicly in the churches.”Luther’s ringing declaration that all believers constitute a universal priesthood necessarily implied that the laity should also participate in the worship. Congregational singing therefore became inevitable.Luther also realized that spiritual song could be enlisted as a powerful ally in spreading the evangelical doctrines. During the birth throes of the Reformation he often expressed the wish that someone more gifted than himself might give to the German people in their own language some of the beautiful pearls of Latin hymnody. He also wantedoriginal hymns in the vernacular, as well as strong, majestic chorales that would reflect the heroic spirit of the age.“We lack German poets and musicians,” he complained, “or they are unknown to us, who are able to make Christian and spiritual songs of such value that they can be used daily in the house of God.”Then something happened that opened the fountains of song in Luther’s own bosom. The Reformation had spread from Germany into other parts of Europe, and the Catholic authorities had commenced to adopt stern measures in an effort to stem the revolt. In the Augustinian cloister at Antwerp, the prior of the abbey and two youths, Heinrich Voes and Johannes Esch, had been sentenced to death by the Inquisition for their refusal to surrender their new-born faith.The prior was choked to death in his prison cell. The two youths were led to the stake at Brussels, on July 1, 1523. Before the faggots were kindled they were told that they might still be freed if they would recant. They replied that they would rather die and be with Christ. Before the fire and smoke smothered their voices, they sang the ancient Latin hymn, “Lord God, we praise thee.”When news of the Brussels tragedy reached Luther the poetic spark in his soul burst into full flame. Immediately he sat down and wrote a festival hymn commemorating the death of the first Lutheran martyrs. It had been reported to Luther that when the fires began to lick the feet of Voes, witnesses had heard him exclaim, “Behold, blooming roses are strewn around me.” Luther seized upon the words as prophetic and concluded his hymn with the lines:“Summer is even at the door,The winter now hath vanished,The tender flowerets spring once more,And He who winter banishedWill send a happy summer.”The opening words of the hymn are also significant, “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.” Although the poem must be regarded as more of a ballad than a church hymn, Luther’s lyre was tuned, the springtime of evangelical hymnody was indeed come, and before another year had passed a little hymn-book called “The Achtliederbuch” appeared as the first-fruits.It was in 1524 that this first Protestant hymnal was published. It contained only eight hymns, four by Luther, three by Speratus, and one probably by Justus Jonas. The little hymn-books flew all over Europe, to the consternation of the Romanists. Luther’s enemies lamented that “the whole people are singing themselves into his doctrines.” So great was the demand for hymns that a second volume known as the “Erfurt Enchiridion” was published in the same year. This contained twenty-five hymns, eighteen of which were Luther’s. “The nightingale of Wittenberg” had begun to sing.This was the beginning of evangelical hymnody, which was to play so large a part in the spread of Luther’s teachings. The number of hymn-books by other compilers increased rapidly and so many unauthorized changes were made in his hymns by critical editors that Luther was moved to complain of their practice. In a preface to a hymn-book printed by Joseph Klug of Wittenberg, in 1543, Luther writes: “I am fearful that it will fare with this little book as it has ever fared with good books, namely, that throughtampering by incompetent hands it may get to be so overlaid and spoiled that the good will be lost out of it, and nothing kept in use but the worthless.” Then he adds, naively: “Every man may make a hymn-book for himself and let ours alone and not add thereto, as we here beg, wish and assert. For we desire to keep our own coin up to our own standard, preventing no one from making better hymns for himself. Now let God’s name alone be praised and our name not sought. Amen.”Of the thirty-six hymns attributed to Luther none has achieved such fame as “A mighty fortress is our God.” It has been translated into practically every language and is regarded as one of the noblest and most classical examples of Christian hymnody. Not only did it become the battle hymn of the Reformation, but it may be regarded as the true national hymn of Germany. Heine called it “the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” Frederick the Great referred to it as “God Almighty’s grenadier march.”The date of the hymn cannot be fixed with any certainty. Much has been written on the subject, but none of the arguments appear conclusive. D’Aubigné’s unqualified statement that Luther composed it and sang it to revive the spirits of his friends at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 can scarcely be accepted, since it appeared at least a year earlier in a hymn-book published by Joseph Klug.The magnificent chorale to which the hymn is sung is also Luther’s work. Never have words and music been combined to make so tremendous an appeal. Great musical composers have turned to its stirring theme again and again when they have sought to produce a mighty effect. Mendelssohn has used it in the last movement of his Reformation symphony; Meyerbeer uses it to good advantage in his masterpiece, “LesHuguenots”; and Wagner’s “Kaisermarsch,” written to celebrate the triumphal return of the German troops in 1870, reaches a great climax with the whole orchestra thundering forth the sublime chorale. Bach has woven it into a beautiful cantata, while Raff and Nicolai make use of it in overtures.After Luther’s death, when Melanchthon and his friends were compelled to flee from Wittenberg by the approach of the Spanish army, they came to Weimar. As they were entering the city, they heard a little girl singing Luther’s great hymn. “Sing on, my child,” exclaimed Melanchthon, “thou little knowest how thy song cheers our hearts.”When Gustavus Adolphus, the hero king of Sweden, faced Tilly’s hosts at the battlefield of Leipzig, Sept. 7, 1631, he led his army in singing “Ein feste Burg.” Then shouting, “God is with us,” he went into battle. It was a bloody fray. Tilly fell and his army was beaten. When the battle was over, Gustavus Adolphus knelt upon the ground among his soldiers and thanked the Lord of Hosts for victory, saying, “He holds the field forever.”At another time during the Thirty Years’ War a Swedish trumpeter captured the ensign of the Imperial army. Pursued by the enemy he found himself trapped with a swollen river before him. He paused for a moment and prayed, “Help me, O my God,” and then thrust spurs into his horse and plunged into the midst of the current. The Imperialists were afraid to follow him, whereupon he raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded the defiant notes: “A mighty fortress is our God!”George N. Anderson, a missionary in Tanganyika Province, British East Africa, tells how he once heard an assembly of 2,000 natives sing Luther’s great hymn. “I neverheard it sung with more spirit; the effect was almost overwhelming,” he testifies.A West African missionary, Christaller, relates how he once sang “Ein feste Burg” to his native interpreter. “That man, Luther,” said the African, “must have been a powerful man, one can feel it in his hymns.”Thomas Carlyle’s estimate of “Ein feste Burg” seems to accord with that of the African native. “It jars upon our ears,” he says, “yet there is something in it like the sound of Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of earthquakes, in the very vastness of which dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us.”Carlyle, who refers to Luther as “perhaps the most inspired of all teachers since the Apostles,” has given us the most rugged of all translations of the Reformer’s great hymn. There are said to be no less than eighty English translations, but only a few have met with popular favor. In England the version by Carlyle is in general use, while in America various composite translations are found in hymn-books. Carlyle’s first stanza readsA sure stronghold our God is He,A trusty Shield and Weapon;Our help He’ll be, and set us freeFrom every ill can happen.That old malicious foeIntends us deadly woe;Arméd with might from hellAnd deepest craft as well,On earth is not his fellow.The greater number of Luther’s hymns are not original. Many are paraphrases of Scripture, particularly the Psalms, and others are based on Latin, Greek, and German antecedents.In every instance, however, the great Reformer so imbued them with his own fervent faith and militant spirit that they seem to shine with a new luster.The hymns of Luther most frequently found in hymn-books today are “Come, Thou Saviour of our race,” “Good news from heaven the angels bring,” “In death’s strong grasp the Saviour lay,” “Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord,” “Come, Holy Spirit, from above,” “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word,” “Lord, Jesus Christ, to Thee we pray,” “Dear Christians, one and all rejoice,” “Out of the depths I cry to Thee,” and “We all believe in one true God.”A Metrical Gloria in ExcelsisAll glory be to Thee, Most High,To Thee all adoration!In grace and truth Thou drawest nighTo offer us salvation.Thou showest Thy good will toward men,And peace shall reign on earth again;We praise Thy Name forever.We praise, we worship Thee, we trust,And give Thee thanks forever,O Father, for Thy rule is justAnd wise, and changes never.Thy hand almighty o’er us reigns,Thou doest what Thy will ordains;’Tis well for us Thou rulest.O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,Son of the Heavenly Father,O Thou, who hast our peace restored,The straying sheep dost gather,Thou Lamb of God, to Thee on highOut of the depths we sinners cry:Have mercy on us, Jesus!O Holy Ghost, Thou precious gift,Thou Comforter, unfailing,From Satan’s snares our souls uplift,And let Thy power, availing,Avert our woes and calm our dread;For us the Saviour’s blood was shed,We trust in Thee to save us!Nicolaus Decius, 1526, 1539THE HYMN-WRITERS OF THE REFORMATIONThe hymns of the Reformation were like a trumpet call, proclaiming to all the world that the day of spiritual emancipation had come. What they lacked in poetic refinement they more than made up by their tremendous earnestness and spiritual exuberance.They faithfully reflect the spirit of the age in which they were born, a period of strife and conflict. The strident note that often appears in Luther’s hymns can easily be understood when it is remembered that the great Reformer looked upon the pope as Antichrist himself and all others who opposed the Lutheran teachings as confederates of the devil.In 1541, when the Turkish invasion from the East threatened to devastate all Europe, special days of humiliation and prayer were held throughout Germany. It was for one of these occasions that Luther wrote the hymn, “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word.” In its original form, however, it was quite different from the hymn we now sing. The first stanza ran:Lord, keep us in Thy word and work,Restrain the murderous pope and Turk,Who fain would tear from off Thy throneChrist Jesus, Thy beloved Son.When Luther, on the other hand, sang of God’s free grace to men in Christ Jesus, or extolled the merits of the Saviour, or gave thanks for the word of God restored to men, there was such a marvelous blending of childlike trust,victorious faith and spontaneous joy that all Germany was thrilled by the message.The popularity of the Lutheran hymns was astonishing. Other hymn-writers sprang up in large numbers, printing presses were kept busy, and before Luther’s death no less than sixty collections of hymns had been published. Wandering evangelists were often surrounded by excited crowds in the market places, hymns printed on leaflets were distributed, and the whole populace would join in singing the songs of the Reformers.Paul Speratus, Paul Eber, and Justus Jonas were the most gifted co-laborers of Luther. It was Speratus who contributed three hymns to the “Achtliederbuch,” the first hymn-book published by Luther. His most famous hymn, “To us salvation now is come,” has been called “the poetic counterpart of Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.” It was the great confessional hymn of the Reformation. Luther is said to have wept tears of joy when he heard it sung by a street singer outside his window in Wittenberg.Speratus wrote the hymn in a Moravian prison into which he had been cast because of his bold espousal of the Lutheran teachings. Immediately upon his release he proceeded to Wittenberg, where he joined himself to the Reformers. He later became the leader of the Reformation movement in Prussia and before his death in 1551 was chosen bishop of Pomerania. His poetic genius may be seen reflected in the beautiful paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer which forms the concluding two stanzas of his celebrated hymn:All blessing, honor, thanks, and praiseTo Father, Son, and Spirit,The God who saved us by His grace,All glory to His merit:O Father in the heavens above,Thy glorious works show forth Thy love,Thy worthy Name be hallowed.Thy kingdom come, Thy will be doneIn earth, as ’tis in heaven:Keep us in life, by grace led on,Forgiving and forgiven;Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,And from all ills; Thine is the power,And all the glory, Amen!Eber was the sweetest singer among the Reformers. As professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg University and assistant to Melanchthon, he had an active part in the stirring events of the Reformation. He possessed more of Melanchthon’s gentleness than Luther’s ruggedness, and his hymns are tender and appealing in their childlike simplicity. There is wondrous consolation in his hymns for the dying, as witness his pious swan-song:In Thy dear wounds I fall asleep,O Jesus, cleanse my soul from sin:Thy bitter death, Thy precious bloodFor me eternal glory win.By Thee redeemed, I have no fear,When now I leave this mortal clay,With joy before Thy throne I come;God’s own must die, yet live alway.Welcome, O death! thou bringest meTo dwell with God eternally;Through Christ my soul from sin is free,O take me now, dear Lord, to Thee!Another hymn for the dying, “Lord Jesus Christ, true man and God,” breathes the same spirit of hope and trust in Christ. During the years of persecution and suffering that followed the Reformation, the Protestants found much comfort in singing Eber’s “When in the hour of utmost need.”Justus Jonas, the bosom friend of Luther who spoke the last words of peace and consolation to the dying Reformer and who also preached his funeral sermon, has left us the hymn, “If God were not upon our side,” based on Psalm 124.From this period we also have the beautiful morning hymn, “My inmost heart now raises,” by Johannes Mathesius, the pupil and biographer of Luther, and an equally beautiful evening hymn, “Sunk is the sun’s last beam of light,” by Nicholas Hermann. Mathesius was pastor of the church at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, and Hermann was his organist and choirmaster. It is said that whenever Mathesius preached a particularly good sermon, Hermann was forthwith inspired to write a hymn on its theme! He was a poet and musician of no mean ability, and his tunes are among the best from the Reformation period.The example of the Wittenberg hymnists was quickly followed by evangelicals in other parts of Germany, and hymn-books began to appear everywhere. As early as 1526 a little volume of hymns was published at Rostock in the Platt-Deutsch dialect. In this collection we find one of the most glorious hymns of the Reformation, “All glory be to Thee, Most High,” or, as it has also been rendered, “All glory be to God on high,” a metrical version of the ancient canticle,Gloria in Excelsis. Five years later another editionwas published in which appeared a metrical rendering ofAgnus Dei:O Lamb of God, most holy,On Calvary an offering;Despiséd, meek, and, lowly,Thou in Thy death and sufferingOur sins didst bear, our anguish;The might of death didst vanquish;Give us Thy peace, O Jesus!The author of both of these gems of evangelical hymnody was Nicolaus Decius, a Catholic monk in the cloister of Steterburg who embraced the Lutheran teachings. He later became pastor of St. Nicholas church in Stettin, where he died under suspicious circumstances in 1541. In addition to being a popular preacher and gifted poet, he also seems to have been a musician of some note. The two magnificent chorals to which his hymns are sung are generally credited to him, although there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding their composition. Luther prized both hymns very highly and included them in his German liturgy.A Beautiful Confirmation HymnLet me be Thine forever,My gracious God and Lord,May I forsake Thee never,Nor wander from Thy Word:Preserve me from the mazesOf error and distrust,And I shall sing Thy praisesForever with the just.Lord Jesus, bounteous GiverOf light and life divine,Thou didst my soul deliver,To Thee I all resign:Thou hast in mercy bought meWith blood and bitter pain;Let me, since Thou hast sought me,Eternal life obtain.O Holy Ghost, who pourestSweet peace into my heart,And who my soul restorest,Let not Thy grace depart.And while His Name confessingWhom I by faith have known,Grant me Thy constant blessing,Make me for aye Thine own.Nicolaus Selnecker, 1572,et al.HYMNODY OF THE CONTROVERSIAL PERIODMany of our great Christian hymns were born in troublous times. This is true in a very special sense of the hymns written by Nicolaus Selnecker, German preacher and theologian. The age in which he lived was the period immediately following the Reformation. It was an age marked by doctrinal controversy, not only with the Romanists, but among the Protestants themselves. In these theological struggles, Selnecker will always be remembered as one of the great champions of pure Lutheran doctrine.“The Formula of Concord,” the last of the Lutheran confessions, was largely the work of Selnecker. Published in 1577, it did more than any other single document to clarify the Lutheran position on many disputed doctrinal points, thus bringing to an end much of the confusion and controversy that had existed up to that time.Selnecker early in life revealed an artistic temperament. Born in 1532 at Hersbruck, Germany, we find him at the age of twelve years organist at the chapel in the Kaiserburg, at Nürnberg, where he attended school. Later he entered Wittenberg University to study law. Here he came under the influence of Philip Melanchthon, and was induced to prepare himself for the ministry. It is said that Selnecker was Melanchthon’s favorite pupil.Following his graduation from Wittenberg, he lectured for a while at the university and then received the appointmentas second court preacher at Dresden and private tutor to Prince Alexander of Saxony. Many of the Saxon theologians at this time were leaning strongly toward the Calvinistic teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper, and when Selnecker came out boldly for the Lutheran doctrine he incurred the hostility of those in authority. Later, when he supported a Lutheran pastor who had dared to preach against Elector August’s passion for hunting, he was compelled to leave Dresden.For three years he held the office of professor of theology at the University of Jena, but in 1568 he again found favor with the Elector August and was appointed to the chair of theology in the University of Leipzig. It was here that Selnecker again became involved in bitter doctrinal disputes regarding the Lord’s Supper, and in 1576 and 1577 he joined a group of theologians, including Jacob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz, in working out the Formula of Concord.Upon the death of Elector August the Calvinists again secured ecclesiastical control, and Selnecker once more was compelled to leave Leipzig. After many trials and vicissitudes, he finally returned, May 19, 1592, a worn and weary man, only to die in Leipzig five days later.During the stormy days of his life, Selnecker often sought solace in musical and poetical pursuits. Many of his hymns reflect his own personal troubles and conflicts. “Let me be thine forever” is believed to have been written during one of the more grievous experiences of his life. It was a prayer of one stanza originally, but two additional stanzas were added by an unknown author almost a hundred years after Selnecker’s death. In its present form it has become a favorite confirmation hymn in the Lutheran Church.Selnecker’s zeal for his Church is revealed in many of hishymns, among them the famous “Abide with us, O Saviour dear.” The second stanza of this hymn clearly reflects the distressing controversies in which he was engaged at the time:This is a dark and evil day,Forsake us not, O Lord, we pray;And let us in our grief and painThy Word and sacraments retain.In connection with his work as professor in the University of Leipzig, he also served as pastor of the famous St. Thomas church in that city. It was through his efforts that the renowned Motett choir of that church was built up, a choir that was afterward conducted by John Sebastian Bach.About 150 hymns in all were written by Selnecker. In addition to these he also was author of some 175 theological and controversial works.One of the contemporaries of Selnecker was Bartholomäus Ringwalt, pastor of Langfeld, near Sonnenburg, Brandenburg. This man also was a staunch Lutheran and a poet of considerable ability. His judgment hymn, “The day is surely drawing near,” seems to reflect the feeling held by many in those distressing times that the Last Day was near at hand. It was used to a large extent during the Thirty Years’ War, and is still found in many hymn-books.Another hymnist who lived and wrought during these turbulent times was Martin Behm, to whom we are indebted for three beautiful lyrics, “O Jesus, King of glory,” “Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light,” and “O holy, blessed Trinity.” Behm, who was born in Lauban, Silesia, Sept. 16, 1557, served for thirty-six years as Lutheran pastor in his native city. He was a noted preacher and a gifted poet.His hymn on the Trinity is one of the finest ever written on this theme. It concludes with a splendid paraphrase of the Aaronic benediction. Two of its stanzas are:O holy, blessed Trinity,Divine, eternal Unity,God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,Be Thou this day my guide and host.Lord, bless and keep Thou me as Thine;Lord, make Thy face upon me shine;Lord, lift Thy countenance on me,And give me peace, sweet peace from Thee.Valerius Herberger was another heroic representative of this period of doctrinal strife, war, famine, and pestilence. While pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church at Fraustadt, Posen, he and his flock were expelled from their church in 1604 by King Sigismund III, of Poland, and the property turned over to the Roman Catholics. Nothing daunted, however, Herberger and his people immediately constructed a chapel out of two houses near the gates of the city. They gave the structure the name of “Kripplein Christi,” since the first service was held in it on Christmas Eve.During the great pestilence which raged in 1613, the victims in Fraustadt numbered 2,135. Herberger, however, stuck to his post, comforting the sick and burying the dead. It was during these days that he wrote his famous hymn, “Valet will ich dir geben,” one of the finest hymns for the dying in the German language. The hymn was published with the title, “The farewell (Valet) of Valerius Herberger that he gave to the world in the autumn of the year 1613, when he every hour saw death before his eyes, but mercifully andalso as wonderfully as the three men in the furnace at Babylon was nevertheless spared.”The famous chorale tune for the hymn was written in 1613 by Melchior Teschner, who was Herberger’s precentor.Other Lutheran hymn-writers of this period were Joachim Magdeburg, Martin Rutilius, Martin Schalling and Philipp Nicolai. The last name in this group is by far the most important and will be given more extensive notice in the following chapter. To Magdeburg, a pastor who saw service in various parts of Germany and Hungary during a stormy career, we owe a single hymn, “Who trusts in God a strong abode.” Rutilius has been credited with the authorship of the gripping penitential hymn, “Alas, my God! my sins are great,” although the claim is sometimes disputed. He was a pastor at Weimar, where he died in 1618.Schalling likewise has bequeathed but a single hymn to the Church, but it may be regarded as one of the classic hymns of Germany. Its opening line, “O Lord, devoutly love I Thee,” reflects the ardent love of the author himself for the Saviour. It was entitled, “A prayer to Christ, the Consolation of the soul in life and death,” and surely its message of confiding trust in God has been a source of comfort and assurance to thousands of pious souls in the many vicissitudes of life as well as in the valley of the shadow.Although Schalling was a warm friend of Selnecker, he hesitated to subscribe to the Formula of Concord, claiming that it dealt too harshly with the followers of Melanchthon. For this reason he was deposed as General Superintendent of Oberpfalz and court preacher at Heidelberg. Five years later, however, he was appointed pastor of St. Mary’s church in Nürnberg, where he remained until blindness compelled him to retire. He died in 1608.A Masterpiece of HymnodyWake, awake, for night is flying:The watchmen on the heights are crying,Awake, Jerusalem, arise!Midnight’s solemn hour is tolling,His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.Rise up with willing feet,Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:Alleluia!Bear through the night your well trimmed light,Speed forth to join the marriage rite.Zion hears the watchmen singing,And all her heart with joy is springing,She wakes, she rises from her gloom;Forth her Bridegroom comes, all-glorious,The strong in grace, in truth victorious;Her Star is risen, her Light is come!All hail, Thou precious One!Lord Jesus, God’s dear Son!Alleluia!The joyful call we answer all,And follow to the nuptial hall.Lamb of God, the heavens adore Thee,And men and angels sing before Thee,With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone.By the pearly gates in wonderWe stand, and swell the voice of thunder,That echoes round Thy dazzling throne.To mortal eyes and earsWhat glory now appears!Alleluia!We raise the song, we swell the throng,To praise Thee ages all along.Philipp Nicolai, 1599.THE KING AND QUEEN OF CHORALESAt rare intervals in the history of Christian hymnody, we meet with a genius who not only possesses the gift of writing sublime poetry but also reveals talent as a composer of music. During the stirring days of the Reformation such geniuses were revealed in the persons of Martin Luther and Nicolaus Decius. We now encounter another, Philipp Nicolai, the writer of the glorious hymn, “Wachet auf.”Nicolai’s name would have been gratefully remembered by posterity had he merely written the words of this hymn; but, when we learn that he also composed the magnificent chorale to which it is sung, we are led to marvel. It has been called the “King of Chorales,” and well does it deserve the title.But Nicolai was also the composer of the “Queen of Chorales.” That is the name often given to the tune of his other famous hymn, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” Both of Nicolai’s great tunes have been frequently appropriated for other hymns. The “King of Chorales” has lent inspiration to “Holy Majesty, before Thee,” while the “Queen of Chorales” has helped to glorify such hymns as “All hail to thee, O blessed morn,” “Now Israel’s hope in triumph ends,” and “O Holy Spirit, enter in.”Some of the world’s greatest composers have recognized the beauty and majesty of Nicolai’s inspiring themes andhave seized upon his chorales to weave them into a number of famous musical masterpieces. The strains of the seventh and eighth lines of “Wachet auf” may be heard in the passage, “The kingdoms of this world,” of Handel’s “Hallelujah chorus.” Mendelssohn introduces the air in his overture to “St. Paul,” and the entire chorale occurs in his “Hymn of Praise.” The latter composer has also made use of the “Wie schön” theme in the first chorus of his unpublished oratorio, “Christus.”The circumstances that called forth Nicolai’s two great hymns and the classic chorales to which he wedded them are tragic in nature. A dreadful pestilence was raging in Westphalia. At Unna, where Nicolai was pastor, 1,300 villagers died of the plague between July, 1597, and January, 1598. During a single week in the month of August no less than 170 victims were claimed by the messenger of death.From the parsonage which overlooked the churchyard, Nicolai was a sad witness of the burials. On one day thirty graves were dug. In the midst of these days of distress the gifted Lutheran pastor wrote a series of meditations to which he gave the title, “Freuden Spiegel,” or “Mirror of Joy.” His purpose, as he explains in his preface, dated August 10, 1598, was “to leave it behind me (if God should call me from this world) as the token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence.”“There seemed to me,” he writes in the same preface, “nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scripturesas to what they revealed on this matter, read also the sweet treatise of the ancient doctor Saint Augustine (“The City of God”) ... Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content.”Both of Nicolai’s classic hymns appeared for the first time in his “Mirror of Joy.” As a title to “Wachet auf” Nicolai wrote, “Of the voice at Midnight, and the Wise Virgins who meet their Heavenly Bridegroom. Mt. 25.” The title to “Wie schön” reads, “A spiritual bridal song of the believing soul concerning Jesus Christ, her Heavenly Bridegroom, founded on the 45th Psalm of the prophet David.”It is said that the melody to “Wie schön” became so popular that numerous church chimes were set to it.Nicolai’s life was filled with stirring events. He was born at Mengerinhausen, August 10, 1556. His father was a Lutheran pastor. After completing studies at the Universities of Erfürt and Wittenberg, he too was ordained to the ministry in 1583. His first charge was at Herdecke, but since the town council was composed of Roman Catholic members, he soon was compelled to leave that place. Later he served at Niederwildungen and Altwildungen, and in 1596 he became pastor at Unna. After the dreadful pestilence of 1597 there came an invasion of Spaniards in 1598, and Nicolai was forced to flee.In 1601 he was chosen chief pastor of St. Katherine’s church in Hamburg. Here he gained fame as a preacher, being hailed as a “second Chrysostom.” Throughout a long and bitter controversy with the Calvinists regarding the nature of the Lord’s Supper, Nicolai was looked upon as the “pillar” of the Lutheran Church, and the guardian of its doctrines. He died October 26, 1608.A Tribute to the Dying SaviourAh, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,That man to judge Thee hast in hate pretended?By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,O most afflicted!Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee!’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee:I crucified Thee.Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,God intercedeth.For me, kind Jesus, was Thine incarnation,Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,For my salvation.Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee:Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,Not my deserving.Johann Heermann, 1630.HYMNS OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ WARTimes of suffering and affliction have often brought forth great poets. This was especially true of that troublous period in European history known as the “Thirty Years’ War.” Although it was one of the most distressing eras in the Protestant Church, it gave birth to some of its grandest hymns.It was during this dreadful period, when Germany was devastated and depopulated by all the miseries of a bloody warfare, that Johann Heermann lived and wrought. He was born at Rauden, Silesia, October 11, 1585, the son of a poverty-stricken furrier. There were five children in the family, but four of them were snatched away by death within a short time. Johann, who was the youngest, was also taken ill, and the despairing mother was torn by fear and anguish. Turning to God in her hour of need, she vowed that if He would spare her babe, she would educate him for the ministry.She did not forget her promise. The child whose life was spared grew to manhood, received his training at several institutions, and in 1611 entered the holy ministry as pastor of the Lutheran church at Koeben, not far from his birthplace.A few years later the Thirty Years’ War broke out, and all of Germany began to feel its horrors. Four times during the period from 1629 to 1634 the town of Koeben was sacked by the armies of Wallenstein, who had been sent by the king of Austria to restore the German principalitiesto the Catholic faith. Previous to this, in 1616, the city was almost destroyed by fire. In 1631 it was visited by the dreadful pestilence.Again and again Heermann was forced to flee from the city, and several times he lost all his earthly possessions. Once, when he was crossing the Oder, he was pursued and nearly captured by enemy soldiers, who shot after him. Twice he was nearly sabred.It was during this period, in 1630, that his beautiful hymn, “Herzliebster Jesu,” was first published. One of the stanzas which is not usually given in translations reflects very clearly the unfaltering faith of the noble pastor during these hard experiences. It reads:Whate’er of earthly good this life may grant meI’ll risk for Thee; no shame, no cross shall daunt me;I shall not fear what man can do to harm me,Nor death alarm me.The hymn immediately sprang into popularity in Germany, perhaps through the fact that it reflected the feelings of Protestants everywhere, and partly because of the gripping tune written for it in 1640 by the great musician Johann Crüger.Heermann has been ranked with Luther and Gerhardt as one of the greatest hymn-writers the Lutheran Church has produced. Because his hymns were written during such times of distress and suffering, they seemed to grip the hearts of the German people to an extraordinary degree.One of his hymns, published in 1630 under the group known as “Songs of Tears,” is entitled “Treuer Wächter Israel.” It contains a striking line imploring God to “build a wall around us.” A very interesting story is told concerning this hymn. On January 5, 1814, the Allied forceswere about to enter Schleswig. A poor widow and her daughter and grandson lived in a little house near the entrance of the town. The grandson was reading Heermann’s hymns written for times of war, and when he came to this one, he exclaimed, “It would be a good thing, grandmother, if our Lord would build a wall around us.”Next day all through the town cries of terror were heard, but not a soldier molested the widow’s home. When on the following morning they summoned enough courage to open their door, lo, a snowdrift had concealed them from the view of the enemy! On this incident Clemens Brentano wrote a beautiful poem, “Draus vor Schleswig.”Another remarkable story is recorded concerning Heermann’s great hymn, “O Jesus, Saviour dear.” At Leuthen, in Silesia, December 5, 1757, the Prussians under Frederick the Great were facing an army of Austrians three times their number. Just before the battle began some of the Prussians began to sing the second stanza of the hymn. The regimental bands took up the music. One of the commanders asked Frederick if it should be silenced. “No,” said the king, “let it be. With such men God will today certainly give me the victory.” When the bloody battle ended with victory for the Prussians, Frederick exclaimed “My God, what a power has religion!”Other famous hymns by Heermann include “O Christ, our true and only Light,” “Lord, Thy death and passion give” and “Faithful God, I lay before Thee.”Many other noted hymn-writers belong to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, among them Martin Opitz, George Weissel, Heinrich Held, Ernst Homburg, Johannes Olearius, Josua Stegmann, and Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.Opitz was somewhat of a diplomat and courtier, as well as a poet. He was a man of vacillating character, and did not hesitate to lend his support to the Romanists whenever it served his personal interests. However, he has left to posterity an imperishable hymn in “Light of Light, O Sun of heaven.” He is credited with having reformed the art of verse-writing in Germany. He died of the pestilence in Danzig in 1639.Homburg and Held were lawyers. Homburg was born near Eisenach in 1605, and later we find him practising law in Naumburg, Saxony. He was a man of great poetic talent, but at first he devoted his gifts to writing love ballads and drinking songs. During the days of the dread pestilence he turned to God, and now he began to write hymns. In 1659 he published a collection of 150 spiritual songs. In a preface he speaks of them as his “Sunday labor,” and he tells how he had been led to write them “by the anxious and sore domestic afflictions by which God ... has for some time laid me aside.” The Lenten hymn, “Christ, the Life of all the living,” is found in this collection.Held, who practiced law in his native town of Guhrau, Silesia, also was a man chastened in the school of sorrow and affliction. He is the author of two hymns that have found their way into the English language—“Let the earth now praise the Lord” and “Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit.”Weissel, a Lutheran pastor at Konigsberg, has given us one of the finest Advent hymns in the German language, “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”Olearius, who wrote a commentary on the Bible and compiled one of the most important hymn-books of the 17thcentury, has also bequeathed to the Church a splendid Advent hymn, “Comfort, comfort ye My people.”Stegmann, a theological professor at Rinteln who suffered much persecution at the hands of Benedictine monks during the Thirty Years’ War, was the author of the beautiful evening hymn, “Abide with us, our Saviour.”Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who wrote the inspiring hymn, “O Christ, Thy grace unto us lend,” was not only a poet and musician, but also a man of war. He was twice wounded in battle with the Imperial forces, and was once left for dead. He was taken prisoner by Tilly, but was released by the emperor. When Gustavus Adolphus came to Germany to save the Protestant cause, Wilhelm after some hesitation joined him. However, when the Duke in 1635 made a separate peace with the emperor, the Swedish army ravaged his territory.Johann Meyfart also belongs to this period. He was a theological professor at the University of Erfürt, and died at that place in 1642. One of his hymns, “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high,” has found its way into English hymn books.The beautiful hymn, “O how blest are ye,” which was translated into English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, comes to us from the pen of Simon Dach, another Lutheran theologian who lived during these stirring days. Dach, who was professor of poetry and dean of the philosophical faculty of the University of Königsberg, wrote some 165 hymns. They are marked by fulness of faith and a quiet confidence in God in the midst of a world of turmoil and uncertainty. Dach died in 1659 after a lingering illness. The first stanza of his funeral hymn readsO how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!Who through death have unto God ascended!Ye have arisenFrom the cares which keep us still in prison.Tobias Clausnitzer, who has bequeathed to the Church the hymn, “Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word,” was the chaplain of a Swedish regiment during the Thirty Years’ War. He preached the thanksgiving sermon at the field service held by command of General Wrangel at Weiden, in the Upper Palatine, on January 1, 1649, after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. He afterwards became pastor at Weiden, where he remained until his death in 1684.Johann Quirsfeld, archdeacon in Pirna, has given us a very impressive Good Friday hymn, “Sinful world, behold the anguish.” Quirsfeld died in 1686.Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, a noted Orientalist, scientist and statesman of the seventeenth century, in addition to duties of state edited several Rabbinical writings and works on Oriental mysticism. He also wrote hymns, among them “Dayspring of eternity,” which has been referred to by one writer as “one of the freshest, most original, and spirited of morning hymns, as if born from the dew of the sunrise.” He died at Sulzbach, Bavaria, May 8, 1689, at the very hour, it is said, which he himself had predicted.The extent to which Lutheran laymen of this period devoted themselves to spiritual exercises is revealed in the life of Johann Franck, a lawyer who became mayor of his native town of Guben, Brandenburg, in 1661. To him we are indebted for the finest communion hymn in the German language, “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” He also was the author of such gems as “Light of the Gentile nations,” “Lord, to Thee I make confession,” “Lord God, weworship Thee,” “Jesus, priceless Treasure,” and the glorious song of praise:Praise the Lord, each tribe and nation,Praise Him with a joyful heart;Ye who know His full salvation,Gather now from every part;Let your voices glorifyIn His temple God on high.It was Franck who began the long series of so-called “Jesus hymns,” which reached their fullest development in the later Pietistic school of hymnists. Franck held that poetry should be “the nurse of piety, the herald of immortality, the promoter of cheerfulness, the conqueror of sadness, and a foretaste of heavenly glory.” His hymns reflect his beautiful spirit of Christian cheerfulness and hope.The last name that we would mention is Heinrich Theobald Schenk, a pastor at Giessen. Not much is known of this man except that he was the writer of a single hymn, but it is a hymn that has gained for him the thanks of posterity. There is scarcely a hymn-book of any communion today that does not contain, “Who are these, like stars appearing?” Schenk died in 1727, at the age of 71 years.
The Battle Hymn of the ReformationA mighty Fortress is our God,A trusty Shield and Weapon,He helps us in our every needThat hath us now o’ertaken.The old malignant foeE’er means us deadly woe:Deep guile and cruel mightAre his dread arms in fight,On earth is not his equal.With might of ours can naught be done,Soon were our loss effected;But for us fights the Valiant OneWhom God Himself elected.Ask ye who this may be?Christ Jesus, it is He,As Lord of Hosts adored,Our only King and Lord,He holds the field forever.Though devils all the world should fill,All watching to devour us,We tremble not, we fear no ill,They cannot overpower us.For this world’s prince may stillScowl fiercely as he will,We need not be alarmed,For he is now disarmed;One little word o’erthrows him.The Word they still shall let remain,Nor any thanks have for it;He’s by our side upon the plain,With His good gifts and Spirit.Take they, then, what they will,Life, goods, yea, all; and still,E’en when their worst is done,They yet have nothing won,The kingdom ours remaineth.Martin Luther, 1527?
A mighty Fortress is our God,A trusty Shield and Weapon,He helps us in our every needThat hath us now o’ertaken.The old malignant foeE’er means us deadly woe:Deep guile and cruel mightAre his dread arms in fight,On earth is not his equal.
A mighty Fortress is our God,
A trusty Shield and Weapon,
He helps us in our every need
That hath us now o’ertaken.
The old malignant foe
E’er means us deadly woe:
Deep guile and cruel might
Are his dread arms in fight,
On earth is not his equal.
With might of ours can naught be done,Soon were our loss effected;But for us fights the Valiant OneWhom God Himself elected.Ask ye who this may be?Christ Jesus, it is He,As Lord of Hosts adored,Our only King and Lord,He holds the field forever.
With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;
But for us fights the Valiant One
Whom God Himself elected.
Ask ye who this may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He,
As Lord of Hosts adored,
Our only King and Lord,
He holds the field forever.
Though devils all the world should fill,All watching to devour us,We tremble not, we fear no ill,They cannot overpower us.For this world’s prince may stillScowl fiercely as he will,We need not be alarmed,For he is now disarmed;One little word o’erthrows him.
Though devils all the world should fill,
All watching to devour us,
We tremble not, we fear no ill,
They cannot overpower us.
For this world’s prince may still
Scowl fiercely as he will,
We need not be alarmed,
For he is now disarmed;
One little word o’erthrows him.
The Word they still shall let remain,Nor any thanks have for it;He’s by our side upon the plain,With His good gifts and Spirit.Take they, then, what they will,Life, goods, yea, all; and still,E’en when their worst is done,They yet have nothing won,The kingdom ours remaineth.
The Word they still shall let remain,
Nor any thanks have for it;
He’s by our side upon the plain,
With His good gifts and Spirit.
Take they, then, what they will,
Life, goods, yea, all; and still,
E’en when their worst is done,
They yet have nothing won,
The kingdom ours remaineth.
Martin Luther, 1527?
MARTIN LUTHER, FATHER OF EVANGELICAL HYMNODYThe father of evangelical hymnody was Martin Luther. It was through the efforts of the great Reformer that the lost art of congregational singing was restored and the Christian hymn again was given a place in public worship.Luther was an extraordinary man. To defy the most powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy the world has known, to bring about a cataclysmic upheaval in the religious and political world, and to set spiritual forces into motion that have changed the course of human history—this would have been sufficient to have gained for him undying fame. But those who know Luther only as a Reformer know very little about the versatile gifts and remarkable achievements of this great prophet of the Church.Philip Schaff has characterized Luther as “the Ambrose of German hymnody,” and adds: “To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and the hymn book, so that God might speakdirectlyto them in His word, and that they mightdirectlyanswer Him in their songs.” He also refers to him as “the father of the modern High German language and literature.”Luther was divinely endowed for his great mission. From childhood he was passionately fond of music. As a student at Magdeburg, and later at Eisenach, he sang for alms at the windows of wealthy citizens. It was the sweet voice of the boy that attracted the attention of Ursula Cotta andmoved that benevolent woman to give him a home during his school days.The flute and lute were his favorite instruments, and he used the latter always in accompanying his own singing. John Walther, a contemporary composer who later aided Luther in the writing of church music, has left us this testimony: “It is to my certain knowledge that that holy man of God, Luther, prophet and apostle to the German nation, took great delight in music, both in choral and figural composition. I spent many a delightful hour with him in singing; and ofttimes I have seen the dear man wax so happy and merry in heart over the singing that it is well-nigh impossible to weary or content him therewithal. And his discourse concerning music was most noble.”In his “Discourse in Praise of Music,” Luther gives thanks to God for having bestowed the power of song on the “nightingale and the many thousand birds of the air,” and again he writes, “I give music the highest and most honorable place; and every one knows how David and all the saints put their divine thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.”Luther had little patience with the iconoclasts of his day. He wrote in the Preface to Walther’s collection of hymns, in 1525: “I am not of the opinion that all sciences should be beaten down and made to cease by the Gospel, as some fanatics pretend, but I would fain see all the arts, and music, in particular, used in the service of Him who hath given and created them.” At another time he was even more emphatic: “If any man despises music, as all fanatics do, for him I have no liking; for music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, sycophancy, and other vices.”Luther loved the Latin hymns that glorified Christ. He recognized, however, that they were so permeated with Mariolatry and other errors of the Roman Church that a refining process was necessary in order to rid them of their dross and permit the fine gold to appear. Moreover, the Latin hymns, even in their most glorious development, had not grown out of the spiritual life of the congregation. The very genius of the Roman Church precluded this, for church music and song was regarded as belonging exclusively to the priestly office. Moreover, since the entire worship was conducted in Latin, the congregation was inevitably doomed to passive silence.Brave efforts by John Huss and his followers to introduce congregational singing in the Bohemian churches had been sternly opposed by the Roman hierarchy. The Council of Constance, which in 1415 burned the heroic Huss at the stake, also sent a solemn warning to Jacob of Misi, his successor as leader of the Hussites, to cease the practice of singing hymns in the churches. It decreed: “If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much more are they forbidden to sing publicly in the churches.”Luther’s ringing declaration that all believers constitute a universal priesthood necessarily implied that the laity should also participate in the worship. Congregational singing therefore became inevitable.Luther also realized that spiritual song could be enlisted as a powerful ally in spreading the evangelical doctrines. During the birth throes of the Reformation he often expressed the wish that someone more gifted than himself might give to the German people in their own language some of the beautiful pearls of Latin hymnody. He also wantedoriginal hymns in the vernacular, as well as strong, majestic chorales that would reflect the heroic spirit of the age.“We lack German poets and musicians,” he complained, “or they are unknown to us, who are able to make Christian and spiritual songs of such value that they can be used daily in the house of God.”Then something happened that opened the fountains of song in Luther’s own bosom. The Reformation had spread from Germany into other parts of Europe, and the Catholic authorities had commenced to adopt stern measures in an effort to stem the revolt. In the Augustinian cloister at Antwerp, the prior of the abbey and two youths, Heinrich Voes and Johannes Esch, had been sentenced to death by the Inquisition for their refusal to surrender their new-born faith.The prior was choked to death in his prison cell. The two youths were led to the stake at Brussels, on July 1, 1523. Before the faggots were kindled they were told that they might still be freed if they would recant. They replied that they would rather die and be with Christ. Before the fire and smoke smothered their voices, they sang the ancient Latin hymn, “Lord God, we praise thee.”When news of the Brussels tragedy reached Luther the poetic spark in his soul burst into full flame. Immediately he sat down and wrote a festival hymn commemorating the death of the first Lutheran martyrs. It had been reported to Luther that when the fires began to lick the feet of Voes, witnesses had heard him exclaim, “Behold, blooming roses are strewn around me.” Luther seized upon the words as prophetic and concluded his hymn with the lines:“Summer is even at the door,The winter now hath vanished,The tender flowerets spring once more,And He who winter banishedWill send a happy summer.”The opening words of the hymn are also significant, “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.” Although the poem must be regarded as more of a ballad than a church hymn, Luther’s lyre was tuned, the springtime of evangelical hymnody was indeed come, and before another year had passed a little hymn-book called “The Achtliederbuch” appeared as the first-fruits.It was in 1524 that this first Protestant hymnal was published. It contained only eight hymns, four by Luther, three by Speratus, and one probably by Justus Jonas. The little hymn-books flew all over Europe, to the consternation of the Romanists. Luther’s enemies lamented that “the whole people are singing themselves into his doctrines.” So great was the demand for hymns that a second volume known as the “Erfurt Enchiridion” was published in the same year. This contained twenty-five hymns, eighteen of which were Luther’s. “The nightingale of Wittenberg” had begun to sing.This was the beginning of evangelical hymnody, which was to play so large a part in the spread of Luther’s teachings. The number of hymn-books by other compilers increased rapidly and so many unauthorized changes were made in his hymns by critical editors that Luther was moved to complain of their practice. In a preface to a hymn-book printed by Joseph Klug of Wittenberg, in 1543, Luther writes: “I am fearful that it will fare with this little book as it has ever fared with good books, namely, that throughtampering by incompetent hands it may get to be so overlaid and spoiled that the good will be lost out of it, and nothing kept in use but the worthless.” Then he adds, naively: “Every man may make a hymn-book for himself and let ours alone and not add thereto, as we here beg, wish and assert. For we desire to keep our own coin up to our own standard, preventing no one from making better hymns for himself. Now let God’s name alone be praised and our name not sought. Amen.”Of the thirty-six hymns attributed to Luther none has achieved such fame as “A mighty fortress is our God.” It has been translated into practically every language and is regarded as one of the noblest and most classical examples of Christian hymnody. Not only did it become the battle hymn of the Reformation, but it may be regarded as the true national hymn of Germany. Heine called it “the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” Frederick the Great referred to it as “God Almighty’s grenadier march.”The date of the hymn cannot be fixed with any certainty. Much has been written on the subject, but none of the arguments appear conclusive. D’Aubigné’s unqualified statement that Luther composed it and sang it to revive the spirits of his friends at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 can scarcely be accepted, since it appeared at least a year earlier in a hymn-book published by Joseph Klug.The magnificent chorale to which the hymn is sung is also Luther’s work. Never have words and music been combined to make so tremendous an appeal. Great musical composers have turned to its stirring theme again and again when they have sought to produce a mighty effect. Mendelssohn has used it in the last movement of his Reformation symphony; Meyerbeer uses it to good advantage in his masterpiece, “LesHuguenots”; and Wagner’s “Kaisermarsch,” written to celebrate the triumphal return of the German troops in 1870, reaches a great climax with the whole orchestra thundering forth the sublime chorale. Bach has woven it into a beautiful cantata, while Raff and Nicolai make use of it in overtures.After Luther’s death, when Melanchthon and his friends were compelled to flee from Wittenberg by the approach of the Spanish army, they came to Weimar. As they were entering the city, they heard a little girl singing Luther’s great hymn. “Sing on, my child,” exclaimed Melanchthon, “thou little knowest how thy song cheers our hearts.”When Gustavus Adolphus, the hero king of Sweden, faced Tilly’s hosts at the battlefield of Leipzig, Sept. 7, 1631, he led his army in singing “Ein feste Burg.” Then shouting, “God is with us,” he went into battle. It was a bloody fray. Tilly fell and his army was beaten. When the battle was over, Gustavus Adolphus knelt upon the ground among his soldiers and thanked the Lord of Hosts for victory, saying, “He holds the field forever.”At another time during the Thirty Years’ War a Swedish trumpeter captured the ensign of the Imperial army. Pursued by the enemy he found himself trapped with a swollen river before him. He paused for a moment and prayed, “Help me, O my God,” and then thrust spurs into his horse and plunged into the midst of the current. The Imperialists were afraid to follow him, whereupon he raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded the defiant notes: “A mighty fortress is our God!”George N. Anderson, a missionary in Tanganyika Province, British East Africa, tells how he once heard an assembly of 2,000 natives sing Luther’s great hymn. “I neverheard it sung with more spirit; the effect was almost overwhelming,” he testifies.A West African missionary, Christaller, relates how he once sang “Ein feste Burg” to his native interpreter. “That man, Luther,” said the African, “must have been a powerful man, one can feel it in his hymns.”Thomas Carlyle’s estimate of “Ein feste Burg” seems to accord with that of the African native. “It jars upon our ears,” he says, “yet there is something in it like the sound of Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of earthquakes, in the very vastness of which dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us.”Carlyle, who refers to Luther as “perhaps the most inspired of all teachers since the Apostles,” has given us the most rugged of all translations of the Reformer’s great hymn. There are said to be no less than eighty English translations, but only a few have met with popular favor. In England the version by Carlyle is in general use, while in America various composite translations are found in hymn-books. Carlyle’s first stanza readsA sure stronghold our God is He,A trusty Shield and Weapon;Our help He’ll be, and set us freeFrom every ill can happen.That old malicious foeIntends us deadly woe;Arméd with might from hellAnd deepest craft as well,On earth is not his fellow.The greater number of Luther’s hymns are not original. Many are paraphrases of Scripture, particularly the Psalms, and others are based on Latin, Greek, and German antecedents.In every instance, however, the great Reformer so imbued them with his own fervent faith and militant spirit that they seem to shine with a new luster.The hymns of Luther most frequently found in hymn-books today are “Come, Thou Saviour of our race,” “Good news from heaven the angels bring,” “In death’s strong grasp the Saviour lay,” “Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord,” “Come, Holy Spirit, from above,” “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word,” “Lord, Jesus Christ, to Thee we pray,” “Dear Christians, one and all rejoice,” “Out of the depths I cry to Thee,” and “We all believe in one true God.”
The father of evangelical hymnody was Martin Luther. It was through the efforts of the great Reformer that the lost art of congregational singing was restored and the Christian hymn again was given a place in public worship.
Luther was an extraordinary man. To defy the most powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy the world has known, to bring about a cataclysmic upheaval in the religious and political world, and to set spiritual forces into motion that have changed the course of human history—this would have been sufficient to have gained for him undying fame. But those who know Luther only as a Reformer know very little about the versatile gifts and remarkable achievements of this great prophet of the Church.
Philip Schaff has characterized Luther as “the Ambrose of German hymnody,” and adds: “To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and the hymn book, so that God might speakdirectlyto them in His word, and that they mightdirectlyanswer Him in their songs.” He also refers to him as “the father of the modern High German language and literature.”
Luther was divinely endowed for his great mission. From childhood he was passionately fond of music. As a student at Magdeburg, and later at Eisenach, he sang for alms at the windows of wealthy citizens. It was the sweet voice of the boy that attracted the attention of Ursula Cotta andmoved that benevolent woman to give him a home during his school days.
The flute and lute were his favorite instruments, and he used the latter always in accompanying his own singing. John Walther, a contemporary composer who later aided Luther in the writing of church music, has left us this testimony: “It is to my certain knowledge that that holy man of God, Luther, prophet and apostle to the German nation, took great delight in music, both in choral and figural composition. I spent many a delightful hour with him in singing; and ofttimes I have seen the dear man wax so happy and merry in heart over the singing that it is well-nigh impossible to weary or content him therewithal. And his discourse concerning music was most noble.”
In his “Discourse in Praise of Music,” Luther gives thanks to God for having bestowed the power of song on the “nightingale and the many thousand birds of the air,” and again he writes, “I give music the highest and most honorable place; and every one knows how David and all the saints put their divine thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.”
Luther had little patience with the iconoclasts of his day. He wrote in the Preface to Walther’s collection of hymns, in 1525: “I am not of the opinion that all sciences should be beaten down and made to cease by the Gospel, as some fanatics pretend, but I would fain see all the arts, and music, in particular, used in the service of Him who hath given and created them.” At another time he was even more emphatic: “If any man despises music, as all fanatics do, for him I have no liking; for music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, sycophancy, and other vices.”
Luther loved the Latin hymns that glorified Christ. He recognized, however, that they were so permeated with Mariolatry and other errors of the Roman Church that a refining process was necessary in order to rid them of their dross and permit the fine gold to appear. Moreover, the Latin hymns, even in their most glorious development, had not grown out of the spiritual life of the congregation. The very genius of the Roman Church precluded this, for church music and song was regarded as belonging exclusively to the priestly office. Moreover, since the entire worship was conducted in Latin, the congregation was inevitably doomed to passive silence.
Brave efforts by John Huss and his followers to introduce congregational singing in the Bohemian churches had been sternly opposed by the Roman hierarchy. The Council of Constance, which in 1415 burned the heroic Huss at the stake, also sent a solemn warning to Jacob of Misi, his successor as leader of the Hussites, to cease the practice of singing hymns in the churches. It decreed: “If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much more are they forbidden to sing publicly in the churches.”
Luther’s ringing declaration that all believers constitute a universal priesthood necessarily implied that the laity should also participate in the worship. Congregational singing therefore became inevitable.
Luther also realized that spiritual song could be enlisted as a powerful ally in spreading the evangelical doctrines. During the birth throes of the Reformation he often expressed the wish that someone more gifted than himself might give to the German people in their own language some of the beautiful pearls of Latin hymnody. He also wantedoriginal hymns in the vernacular, as well as strong, majestic chorales that would reflect the heroic spirit of the age.
“We lack German poets and musicians,” he complained, “or they are unknown to us, who are able to make Christian and spiritual songs of such value that they can be used daily in the house of God.”
Then something happened that opened the fountains of song in Luther’s own bosom. The Reformation had spread from Germany into other parts of Europe, and the Catholic authorities had commenced to adopt stern measures in an effort to stem the revolt. In the Augustinian cloister at Antwerp, the prior of the abbey and two youths, Heinrich Voes and Johannes Esch, had been sentenced to death by the Inquisition for their refusal to surrender their new-born faith.
The prior was choked to death in his prison cell. The two youths were led to the stake at Brussels, on July 1, 1523. Before the faggots were kindled they were told that they might still be freed if they would recant. They replied that they would rather die and be with Christ. Before the fire and smoke smothered their voices, they sang the ancient Latin hymn, “Lord God, we praise thee.”
When news of the Brussels tragedy reached Luther the poetic spark in his soul burst into full flame. Immediately he sat down and wrote a festival hymn commemorating the death of the first Lutheran martyrs. It had been reported to Luther that when the fires began to lick the feet of Voes, witnesses had heard him exclaim, “Behold, blooming roses are strewn around me.” Luther seized upon the words as prophetic and concluded his hymn with the lines:
“Summer is even at the door,The winter now hath vanished,The tender flowerets spring once more,And He who winter banishedWill send a happy summer.”
“Summer is even at the door,The winter now hath vanished,The tender flowerets spring once more,And He who winter banishedWill send a happy summer.”
“Summer is even at the door,
The winter now hath vanished,
The tender flowerets spring once more,
And He who winter banished
Will send a happy summer.”
The opening words of the hymn are also significant, “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.” Although the poem must be regarded as more of a ballad than a church hymn, Luther’s lyre was tuned, the springtime of evangelical hymnody was indeed come, and before another year had passed a little hymn-book called “The Achtliederbuch” appeared as the first-fruits.
It was in 1524 that this first Protestant hymnal was published. It contained only eight hymns, four by Luther, three by Speratus, and one probably by Justus Jonas. The little hymn-books flew all over Europe, to the consternation of the Romanists. Luther’s enemies lamented that “the whole people are singing themselves into his doctrines.” So great was the demand for hymns that a second volume known as the “Erfurt Enchiridion” was published in the same year. This contained twenty-five hymns, eighteen of which were Luther’s. “The nightingale of Wittenberg” had begun to sing.
This was the beginning of evangelical hymnody, which was to play so large a part in the spread of Luther’s teachings. The number of hymn-books by other compilers increased rapidly and so many unauthorized changes were made in his hymns by critical editors that Luther was moved to complain of their practice. In a preface to a hymn-book printed by Joseph Klug of Wittenberg, in 1543, Luther writes: “I am fearful that it will fare with this little book as it has ever fared with good books, namely, that throughtampering by incompetent hands it may get to be so overlaid and spoiled that the good will be lost out of it, and nothing kept in use but the worthless.” Then he adds, naively: “Every man may make a hymn-book for himself and let ours alone and not add thereto, as we here beg, wish and assert. For we desire to keep our own coin up to our own standard, preventing no one from making better hymns for himself. Now let God’s name alone be praised and our name not sought. Amen.”
Of the thirty-six hymns attributed to Luther none has achieved such fame as “A mighty fortress is our God.” It has been translated into practically every language and is regarded as one of the noblest and most classical examples of Christian hymnody. Not only did it become the battle hymn of the Reformation, but it may be regarded as the true national hymn of Germany. Heine called it “the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” Frederick the Great referred to it as “God Almighty’s grenadier march.”
The date of the hymn cannot be fixed with any certainty. Much has been written on the subject, but none of the arguments appear conclusive. D’Aubigné’s unqualified statement that Luther composed it and sang it to revive the spirits of his friends at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 can scarcely be accepted, since it appeared at least a year earlier in a hymn-book published by Joseph Klug.
The magnificent chorale to which the hymn is sung is also Luther’s work. Never have words and music been combined to make so tremendous an appeal. Great musical composers have turned to its stirring theme again and again when they have sought to produce a mighty effect. Mendelssohn has used it in the last movement of his Reformation symphony; Meyerbeer uses it to good advantage in his masterpiece, “LesHuguenots”; and Wagner’s “Kaisermarsch,” written to celebrate the triumphal return of the German troops in 1870, reaches a great climax with the whole orchestra thundering forth the sublime chorale. Bach has woven it into a beautiful cantata, while Raff and Nicolai make use of it in overtures.
After Luther’s death, when Melanchthon and his friends were compelled to flee from Wittenberg by the approach of the Spanish army, they came to Weimar. As they were entering the city, they heard a little girl singing Luther’s great hymn. “Sing on, my child,” exclaimed Melanchthon, “thou little knowest how thy song cheers our hearts.”
When Gustavus Adolphus, the hero king of Sweden, faced Tilly’s hosts at the battlefield of Leipzig, Sept. 7, 1631, he led his army in singing “Ein feste Burg.” Then shouting, “God is with us,” he went into battle. It was a bloody fray. Tilly fell and his army was beaten. When the battle was over, Gustavus Adolphus knelt upon the ground among his soldiers and thanked the Lord of Hosts for victory, saying, “He holds the field forever.”
At another time during the Thirty Years’ War a Swedish trumpeter captured the ensign of the Imperial army. Pursued by the enemy he found himself trapped with a swollen river before him. He paused for a moment and prayed, “Help me, O my God,” and then thrust spurs into his horse and plunged into the midst of the current. The Imperialists were afraid to follow him, whereupon he raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded the defiant notes: “A mighty fortress is our God!”
George N. Anderson, a missionary in Tanganyika Province, British East Africa, tells how he once heard an assembly of 2,000 natives sing Luther’s great hymn. “I neverheard it sung with more spirit; the effect was almost overwhelming,” he testifies.
A West African missionary, Christaller, relates how he once sang “Ein feste Burg” to his native interpreter. “That man, Luther,” said the African, “must have been a powerful man, one can feel it in his hymns.”
Thomas Carlyle’s estimate of “Ein feste Burg” seems to accord with that of the African native. “It jars upon our ears,” he says, “yet there is something in it like the sound of Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of earthquakes, in the very vastness of which dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us.”
Carlyle, who refers to Luther as “perhaps the most inspired of all teachers since the Apostles,” has given us the most rugged of all translations of the Reformer’s great hymn. There are said to be no less than eighty English translations, but only a few have met with popular favor. In England the version by Carlyle is in general use, while in America various composite translations are found in hymn-books. Carlyle’s first stanza reads
A sure stronghold our God is He,A trusty Shield and Weapon;Our help He’ll be, and set us freeFrom every ill can happen.That old malicious foeIntends us deadly woe;Arméd with might from hellAnd deepest craft as well,On earth is not his fellow.
A sure stronghold our God is He,A trusty Shield and Weapon;Our help He’ll be, and set us freeFrom every ill can happen.That old malicious foeIntends us deadly woe;Arméd with might from hellAnd deepest craft as well,On earth is not his fellow.
A sure stronghold our God is He,
A trusty Shield and Weapon;
Our help He’ll be, and set us free
From every ill can happen.
That old malicious foe
Intends us deadly woe;
Arméd with might from hell
And deepest craft as well,
On earth is not his fellow.
The greater number of Luther’s hymns are not original. Many are paraphrases of Scripture, particularly the Psalms, and others are based on Latin, Greek, and German antecedents.In every instance, however, the great Reformer so imbued them with his own fervent faith and militant spirit that they seem to shine with a new luster.
The hymns of Luther most frequently found in hymn-books today are “Come, Thou Saviour of our race,” “Good news from heaven the angels bring,” “In death’s strong grasp the Saviour lay,” “Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord,” “Come, Holy Spirit, from above,” “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word,” “Lord, Jesus Christ, to Thee we pray,” “Dear Christians, one and all rejoice,” “Out of the depths I cry to Thee,” and “We all believe in one true God.”
A Metrical Gloria in ExcelsisAll glory be to Thee, Most High,To Thee all adoration!In grace and truth Thou drawest nighTo offer us salvation.Thou showest Thy good will toward men,And peace shall reign on earth again;We praise Thy Name forever.We praise, we worship Thee, we trust,And give Thee thanks forever,O Father, for Thy rule is justAnd wise, and changes never.Thy hand almighty o’er us reigns,Thou doest what Thy will ordains;’Tis well for us Thou rulest.O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,Son of the Heavenly Father,O Thou, who hast our peace restored,The straying sheep dost gather,Thou Lamb of God, to Thee on highOut of the depths we sinners cry:Have mercy on us, Jesus!O Holy Ghost, Thou precious gift,Thou Comforter, unfailing,From Satan’s snares our souls uplift,And let Thy power, availing,Avert our woes and calm our dread;For us the Saviour’s blood was shed,We trust in Thee to save us!Nicolaus Decius, 1526, 1539
All glory be to Thee, Most High,To Thee all adoration!In grace and truth Thou drawest nighTo offer us salvation.Thou showest Thy good will toward men,And peace shall reign on earth again;We praise Thy Name forever.
All glory be to Thee, Most High,
To Thee all adoration!
In grace and truth Thou drawest nigh
To offer us salvation.
Thou showest Thy good will toward men,
And peace shall reign on earth again;
We praise Thy Name forever.
We praise, we worship Thee, we trust,And give Thee thanks forever,O Father, for Thy rule is justAnd wise, and changes never.Thy hand almighty o’er us reigns,Thou doest what Thy will ordains;’Tis well for us Thou rulest.
We praise, we worship Thee, we trust,
And give Thee thanks forever,
O Father, for Thy rule is just
And wise, and changes never.
Thy hand almighty o’er us reigns,
Thou doest what Thy will ordains;
’Tis well for us Thou rulest.
O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,Son of the Heavenly Father,O Thou, who hast our peace restored,The straying sheep dost gather,Thou Lamb of God, to Thee on highOut of the depths we sinners cry:Have mercy on us, Jesus!
O Jesus Christ, our God and Lord,
Son of the Heavenly Father,
O Thou, who hast our peace restored,
The straying sheep dost gather,
Thou Lamb of God, to Thee on high
Out of the depths we sinners cry:
Have mercy on us, Jesus!
O Holy Ghost, Thou precious gift,Thou Comforter, unfailing,From Satan’s snares our souls uplift,And let Thy power, availing,Avert our woes and calm our dread;For us the Saviour’s blood was shed,We trust in Thee to save us!
O Holy Ghost, Thou precious gift,
Thou Comforter, unfailing,
From Satan’s snares our souls uplift,
And let Thy power, availing,
Avert our woes and calm our dread;
For us the Saviour’s blood was shed,
We trust in Thee to save us!
Nicolaus Decius, 1526, 1539
THE HYMN-WRITERS OF THE REFORMATIONThe hymns of the Reformation were like a trumpet call, proclaiming to all the world that the day of spiritual emancipation had come. What they lacked in poetic refinement they more than made up by their tremendous earnestness and spiritual exuberance.They faithfully reflect the spirit of the age in which they were born, a period of strife and conflict. The strident note that often appears in Luther’s hymns can easily be understood when it is remembered that the great Reformer looked upon the pope as Antichrist himself and all others who opposed the Lutheran teachings as confederates of the devil.In 1541, when the Turkish invasion from the East threatened to devastate all Europe, special days of humiliation and prayer were held throughout Germany. It was for one of these occasions that Luther wrote the hymn, “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word.” In its original form, however, it was quite different from the hymn we now sing. The first stanza ran:Lord, keep us in Thy word and work,Restrain the murderous pope and Turk,Who fain would tear from off Thy throneChrist Jesus, Thy beloved Son.When Luther, on the other hand, sang of God’s free grace to men in Christ Jesus, or extolled the merits of the Saviour, or gave thanks for the word of God restored to men, there was such a marvelous blending of childlike trust,victorious faith and spontaneous joy that all Germany was thrilled by the message.The popularity of the Lutheran hymns was astonishing. Other hymn-writers sprang up in large numbers, printing presses were kept busy, and before Luther’s death no less than sixty collections of hymns had been published. Wandering evangelists were often surrounded by excited crowds in the market places, hymns printed on leaflets were distributed, and the whole populace would join in singing the songs of the Reformers.Paul Speratus, Paul Eber, and Justus Jonas were the most gifted co-laborers of Luther. It was Speratus who contributed three hymns to the “Achtliederbuch,” the first hymn-book published by Luther. His most famous hymn, “To us salvation now is come,” has been called “the poetic counterpart of Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.” It was the great confessional hymn of the Reformation. Luther is said to have wept tears of joy when he heard it sung by a street singer outside his window in Wittenberg.Speratus wrote the hymn in a Moravian prison into which he had been cast because of his bold espousal of the Lutheran teachings. Immediately upon his release he proceeded to Wittenberg, where he joined himself to the Reformers. He later became the leader of the Reformation movement in Prussia and before his death in 1551 was chosen bishop of Pomerania. His poetic genius may be seen reflected in the beautiful paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer which forms the concluding two stanzas of his celebrated hymn:All blessing, honor, thanks, and praiseTo Father, Son, and Spirit,The God who saved us by His grace,All glory to His merit:O Father in the heavens above,Thy glorious works show forth Thy love,Thy worthy Name be hallowed.Thy kingdom come, Thy will be doneIn earth, as ’tis in heaven:Keep us in life, by grace led on,Forgiving and forgiven;Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,And from all ills; Thine is the power,And all the glory, Amen!Eber was the sweetest singer among the Reformers. As professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg University and assistant to Melanchthon, he had an active part in the stirring events of the Reformation. He possessed more of Melanchthon’s gentleness than Luther’s ruggedness, and his hymns are tender and appealing in their childlike simplicity. There is wondrous consolation in his hymns for the dying, as witness his pious swan-song:In Thy dear wounds I fall asleep,O Jesus, cleanse my soul from sin:Thy bitter death, Thy precious bloodFor me eternal glory win.By Thee redeemed, I have no fear,When now I leave this mortal clay,With joy before Thy throne I come;God’s own must die, yet live alway.Welcome, O death! thou bringest meTo dwell with God eternally;Through Christ my soul from sin is free,O take me now, dear Lord, to Thee!Another hymn for the dying, “Lord Jesus Christ, true man and God,” breathes the same spirit of hope and trust in Christ. During the years of persecution and suffering that followed the Reformation, the Protestants found much comfort in singing Eber’s “When in the hour of utmost need.”Justus Jonas, the bosom friend of Luther who spoke the last words of peace and consolation to the dying Reformer and who also preached his funeral sermon, has left us the hymn, “If God were not upon our side,” based on Psalm 124.From this period we also have the beautiful morning hymn, “My inmost heart now raises,” by Johannes Mathesius, the pupil and biographer of Luther, and an equally beautiful evening hymn, “Sunk is the sun’s last beam of light,” by Nicholas Hermann. Mathesius was pastor of the church at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, and Hermann was his organist and choirmaster. It is said that whenever Mathesius preached a particularly good sermon, Hermann was forthwith inspired to write a hymn on its theme! He was a poet and musician of no mean ability, and his tunes are among the best from the Reformation period.The example of the Wittenberg hymnists was quickly followed by evangelicals in other parts of Germany, and hymn-books began to appear everywhere. As early as 1526 a little volume of hymns was published at Rostock in the Platt-Deutsch dialect. In this collection we find one of the most glorious hymns of the Reformation, “All glory be to Thee, Most High,” or, as it has also been rendered, “All glory be to God on high,” a metrical version of the ancient canticle,Gloria in Excelsis. Five years later another editionwas published in which appeared a metrical rendering ofAgnus Dei:O Lamb of God, most holy,On Calvary an offering;Despiséd, meek, and, lowly,Thou in Thy death and sufferingOur sins didst bear, our anguish;The might of death didst vanquish;Give us Thy peace, O Jesus!The author of both of these gems of evangelical hymnody was Nicolaus Decius, a Catholic monk in the cloister of Steterburg who embraced the Lutheran teachings. He later became pastor of St. Nicholas church in Stettin, where he died under suspicious circumstances in 1541. In addition to being a popular preacher and gifted poet, he also seems to have been a musician of some note. The two magnificent chorals to which his hymns are sung are generally credited to him, although there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding their composition. Luther prized both hymns very highly and included them in his German liturgy.
The hymns of the Reformation were like a trumpet call, proclaiming to all the world that the day of spiritual emancipation had come. What they lacked in poetic refinement they more than made up by their tremendous earnestness and spiritual exuberance.
They faithfully reflect the spirit of the age in which they were born, a period of strife and conflict. The strident note that often appears in Luther’s hymns can easily be understood when it is remembered that the great Reformer looked upon the pope as Antichrist himself and all others who opposed the Lutheran teachings as confederates of the devil.
In 1541, when the Turkish invasion from the East threatened to devastate all Europe, special days of humiliation and prayer were held throughout Germany. It was for one of these occasions that Luther wrote the hymn, “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word.” In its original form, however, it was quite different from the hymn we now sing. The first stanza ran:
Lord, keep us in Thy word and work,Restrain the murderous pope and Turk,Who fain would tear from off Thy throneChrist Jesus, Thy beloved Son.
Lord, keep us in Thy word and work,Restrain the murderous pope and Turk,Who fain would tear from off Thy throneChrist Jesus, Thy beloved Son.
Lord, keep us in Thy word and work,
Restrain the murderous pope and Turk,
Who fain would tear from off Thy throne
Christ Jesus, Thy beloved Son.
When Luther, on the other hand, sang of God’s free grace to men in Christ Jesus, or extolled the merits of the Saviour, or gave thanks for the word of God restored to men, there was such a marvelous blending of childlike trust,victorious faith and spontaneous joy that all Germany was thrilled by the message.
The popularity of the Lutheran hymns was astonishing. Other hymn-writers sprang up in large numbers, printing presses were kept busy, and before Luther’s death no less than sixty collections of hymns had been published. Wandering evangelists were often surrounded by excited crowds in the market places, hymns printed on leaflets were distributed, and the whole populace would join in singing the songs of the Reformers.
Paul Speratus, Paul Eber, and Justus Jonas were the most gifted co-laborers of Luther. It was Speratus who contributed three hymns to the “Achtliederbuch,” the first hymn-book published by Luther. His most famous hymn, “To us salvation now is come,” has been called “the poetic counterpart of Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.” It was the great confessional hymn of the Reformation. Luther is said to have wept tears of joy when he heard it sung by a street singer outside his window in Wittenberg.
Speratus wrote the hymn in a Moravian prison into which he had been cast because of his bold espousal of the Lutheran teachings. Immediately upon his release he proceeded to Wittenberg, where he joined himself to the Reformers. He later became the leader of the Reformation movement in Prussia and before his death in 1551 was chosen bishop of Pomerania. His poetic genius may be seen reflected in the beautiful paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer which forms the concluding two stanzas of his celebrated hymn:
All blessing, honor, thanks, and praiseTo Father, Son, and Spirit,The God who saved us by His grace,All glory to His merit:O Father in the heavens above,Thy glorious works show forth Thy love,Thy worthy Name be hallowed.Thy kingdom come, Thy will be doneIn earth, as ’tis in heaven:Keep us in life, by grace led on,Forgiving and forgiven;Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,And from all ills; Thine is the power,And all the glory, Amen!
All blessing, honor, thanks, and praiseTo Father, Son, and Spirit,The God who saved us by His grace,All glory to His merit:O Father in the heavens above,Thy glorious works show forth Thy love,Thy worthy Name be hallowed.
All blessing, honor, thanks, and praise
To Father, Son, and Spirit,
The God who saved us by His grace,
All glory to His merit:
O Father in the heavens above,
Thy glorious works show forth Thy love,
Thy worthy Name be hallowed.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be doneIn earth, as ’tis in heaven:Keep us in life, by grace led on,Forgiving and forgiven;Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,And from all ills; Thine is the power,And all the glory, Amen!
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
In earth, as ’tis in heaven:
Keep us in life, by grace led on,
Forgiving and forgiven;
Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,
And from all ills; Thine is the power,
And all the glory, Amen!
Eber was the sweetest singer among the Reformers. As professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg University and assistant to Melanchthon, he had an active part in the stirring events of the Reformation. He possessed more of Melanchthon’s gentleness than Luther’s ruggedness, and his hymns are tender and appealing in their childlike simplicity. There is wondrous consolation in his hymns for the dying, as witness his pious swan-song:
In Thy dear wounds I fall asleep,O Jesus, cleanse my soul from sin:Thy bitter death, Thy precious bloodFor me eternal glory win.By Thee redeemed, I have no fear,When now I leave this mortal clay,With joy before Thy throne I come;God’s own must die, yet live alway.Welcome, O death! thou bringest meTo dwell with God eternally;Through Christ my soul from sin is free,O take me now, dear Lord, to Thee!
In Thy dear wounds I fall asleep,O Jesus, cleanse my soul from sin:Thy bitter death, Thy precious bloodFor me eternal glory win.
In Thy dear wounds I fall asleep,
O Jesus, cleanse my soul from sin:
Thy bitter death, Thy precious blood
For me eternal glory win.
By Thee redeemed, I have no fear,When now I leave this mortal clay,With joy before Thy throne I come;God’s own must die, yet live alway.
By Thee redeemed, I have no fear,
When now I leave this mortal clay,
With joy before Thy throne I come;
God’s own must die, yet live alway.
Welcome, O death! thou bringest meTo dwell with God eternally;Through Christ my soul from sin is free,O take me now, dear Lord, to Thee!
Welcome, O death! thou bringest me
To dwell with God eternally;
Through Christ my soul from sin is free,
O take me now, dear Lord, to Thee!
Another hymn for the dying, “Lord Jesus Christ, true man and God,” breathes the same spirit of hope and trust in Christ. During the years of persecution and suffering that followed the Reformation, the Protestants found much comfort in singing Eber’s “When in the hour of utmost need.”
Justus Jonas, the bosom friend of Luther who spoke the last words of peace and consolation to the dying Reformer and who also preached his funeral sermon, has left us the hymn, “If God were not upon our side,” based on Psalm 124.
From this period we also have the beautiful morning hymn, “My inmost heart now raises,” by Johannes Mathesius, the pupil and biographer of Luther, and an equally beautiful evening hymn, “Sunk is the sun’s last beam of light,” by Nicholas Hermann. Mathesius was pastor of the church at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, and Hermann was his organist and choirmaster. It is said that whenever Mathesius preached a particularly good sermon, Hermann was forthwith inspired to write a hymn on its theme! He was a poet and musician of no mean ability, and his tunes are among the best from the Reformation period.
The example of the Wittenberg hymnists was quickly followed by evangelicals in other parts of Germany, and hymn-books began to appear everywhere. As early as 1526 a little volume of hymns was published at Rostock in the Platt-Deutsch dialect. In this collection we find one of the most glorious hymns of the Reformation, “All glory be to Thee, Most High,” or, as it has also been rendered, “All glory be to God on high,” a metrical version of the ancient canticle,Gloria in Excelsis. Five years later another editionwas published in which appeared a metrical rendering ofAgnus Dei:
O Lamb of God, most holy,On Calvary an offering;Despiséd, meek, and, lowly,Thou in Thy death and sufferingOur sins didst bear, our anguish;The might of death didst vanquish;Give us Thy peace, O Jesus!
O Lamb of God, most holy,On Calvary an offering;Despiséd, meek, and, lowly,Thou in Thy death and sufferingOur sins didst bear, our anguish;The might of death didst vanquish;Give us Thy peace, O Jesus!
O Lamb of God, most holy,
On Calvary an offering;
Despiséd, meek, and, lowly,
Thou in Thy death and suffering
Our sins didst bear, our anguish;
The might of death didst vanquish;
Give us Thy peace, O Jesus!
The author of both of these gems of evangelical hymnody was Nicolaus Decius, a Catholic monk in the cloister of Steterburg who embraced the Lutheran teachings. He later became pastor of St. Nicholas church in Stettin, where he died under suspicious circumstances in 1541. In addition to being a popular preacher and gifted poet, he also seems to have been a musician of some note. The two magnificent chorals to which his hymns are sung are generally credited to him, although there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding their composition. Luther prized both hymns very highly and included them in his German liturgy.
A Beautiful Confirmation HymnLet me be Thine forever,My gracious God and Lord,May I forsake Thee never,Nor wander from Thy Word:Preserve me from the mazesOf error and distrust,And I shall sing Thy praisesForever with the just.Lord Jesus, bounteous GiverOf light and life divine,Thou didst my soul deliver,To Thee I all resign:Thou hast in mercy bought meWith blood and bitter pain;Let me, since Thou hast sought me,Eternal life obtain.O Holy Ghost, who pourestSweet peace into my heart,And who my soul restorest,Let not Thy grace depart.And while His Name confessingWhom I by faith have known,Grant me Thy constant blessing,Make me for aye Thine own.Nicolaus Selnecker, 1572,et al.
Let me be Thine forever,My gracious God and Lord,May I forsake Thee never,Nor wander from Thy Word:Preserve me from the mazesOf error and distrust,And I shall sing Thy praisesForever with the just.
Let me be Thine forever,
My gracious God and Lord,
May I forsake Thee never,
Nor wander from Thy Word:
Preserve me from the mazes
Of error and distrust,
And I shall sing Thy praises
Forever with the just.
Lord Jesus, bounteous GiverOf light and life divine,Thou didst my soul deliver,To Thee I all resign:Thou hast in mercy bought meWith blood and bitter pain;Let me, since Thou hast sought me,Eternal life obtain.
Lord Jesus, bounteous Giver
Of light and life divine,
Thou didst my soul deliver,
To Thee I all resign:
Thou hast in mercy bought me
With blood and bitter pain;
Let me, since Thou hast sought me,
Eternal life obtain.
O Holy Ghost, who pourestSweet peace into my heart,And who my soul restorest,Let not Thy grace depart.And while His Name confessingWhom I by faith have known,Grant me Thy constant blessing,Make me for aye Thine own.
O Holy Ghost, who pourest
Sweet peace into my heart,
And who my soul restorest,
Let not Thy grace depart.
And while His Name confessing
Whom I by faith have known,
Grant me Thy constant blessing,
Make me for aye Thine own.
Nicolaus Selnecker, 1572,et al.
HYMNODY OF THE CONTROVERSIAL PERIODMany of our great Christian hymns were born in troublous times. This is true in a very special sense of the hymns written by Nicolaus Selnecker, German preacher and theologian. The age in which he lived was the period immediately following the Reformation. It was an age marked by doctrinal controversy, not only with the Romanists, but among the Protestants themselves. In these theological struggles, Selnecker will always be remembered as one of the great champions of pure Lutheran doctrine.“The Formula of Concord,” the last of the Lutheran confessions, was largely the work of Selnecker. Published in 1577, it did more than any other single document to clarify the Lutheran position on many disputed doctrinal points, thus bringing to an end much of the confusion and controversy that had existed up to that time.Selnecker early in life revealed an artistic temperament. Born in 1532 at Hersbruck, Germany, we find him at the age of twelve years organist at the chapel in the Kaiserburg, at Nürnberg, where he attended school. Later he entered Wittenberg University to study law. Here he came under the influence of Philip Melanchthon, and was induced to prepare himself for the ministry. It is said that Selnecker was Melanchthon’s favorite pupil.Following his graduation from Wittenberg, he lectured for a while at the university and then received the appointmentas second court preacher at Dresden and private tutor to Prince Alexander of Saxony. Many of the Saxon theologians at this time were leaning strongly toward the Calvinistic teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper, and when Selnecker came out boldly for the Lutheran doctrine he incurred the hostility of those in authority. Later, when he supported a Lutheran pastor who had dared to preach against Elector August’s passion for hunting, he was compelled to leave Dresden.For three years he held the office of professor of theology at the University of Jena, but in 1568 he again found favor with the Elector August and was appointed to the chair of theology in the University of Leipzig. It was here that Selnecker again became involved in bitter doctrinal disputes regarding the Lord’s Supper, and in 1576 and 1577 he joined a group of theologians, including Jacob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz, in working out the Formula of Concord.Upon the death of Elector August the Calvinists again secured ecclesiastical control, and Selnecker once more was compelled to leave Leipzig. After many trials and vicissitudes, he finally returned, May 19, 1592, a worn and weary man, only to die in Leipzig five days later.During the stormy days of his life, Selnecker often sought solace in musical and poetical pursuits. Many of his hymns reflect his own personal troubles and conflicts. “Let me be thine forever” is believed to have been written during one of the more grievous experiences of his life. It was a prayer of one stanza originally, but two additional stanzas were added by an unknown author almost a hundred years after Selnecker’s death. In its present form it has become a favorite confirmation hymn in the Lutheran Church.Selnecker’s zeal for his Church is revealed in many of hishymns, among them the famous “Abide with us, O Saviour dear.” The second stanza of this hymn clearly reflects the distressing controversies in which he was engaged at the time:This is a dark and evil day,Forsake us not, O Lord, we pray;And let us in our grief and painThy Word and sacraments retain.In connection with his work as professor in the University of Leipzig, he also served as pastor of the famous St. Thomas church in that city. It was through his efforts that the renowned Motett choir of that church was built up, a choir that was afterward conducted by John Sebastian Bach.About 150 hymns in all were written by Selnecker. In addition to these he also was author of some 175 theological and controversial works.One of the contemporaries of Selnecker was Bartholomäus Ringwalt, pastor of Langfeld, near Sonnenburg, Brandenburg. This man also was a staunch Lutheran and a poet of considerable ability. His judgment hymn, “The day is surely drawing near,” seems to reflect the feeling held by many in those distressing times that the Last Day was near at hand. It was used to a large extent during the Thirty Years’ War, and is still found in many hymn-books.Another hymnist who lived and wrought during these turbulent times was Martin Behm, to whom we are indebted for three beautiful lyrics, “O Jesus, King of glory,” “Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light,” and “O holy, blessed Trinity.” Behm, who was born in Lauban, Silesia, Sept. 16, 1557, served for thirty-six years as Lutheran pastor in his native city. He was a noted preacher and a gifted poet.His hymn on the Trinity is one of the finest ever written on this theme. It concludes with a splendid paraphrase of the Aaronic benediction. Two of its stanzas are:O holy, blessed Trinity,Divine, eternal Unity,God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,Be Thou this day my guide and host.Lord, bless and keep Thou me as Thine;Lord, make Thy face upon me shine;Lord, lift Thy countenance on me,And give me peace, sweet peace from Thee.Valerius Herberger was another heroic representative of this period of doctrinal strife, war, famine, and pestilence. While pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church at Fraustadt, Posen, he and his flock were expelled from their church in 1604 by King Sigismund III, of Poland, and the property turned over to the Roman Catholics. Nothing daunted, however, Herberger and his people immediately constructed a chapel out of two houses near the gates of the city. They gave the structure the name of “Kripplein Christi,” since the first service was held in it on Christmas Eve.During the great pestilence which raged in 1613, the victims in Fraustadt numbered 2,135. Herberger, however, stuck to his post, comforting the sick and burying the dead. It was during these days that he wrote his famous hymn, “Valet will ich dir geben,” one of the finest hymns for the dying in the German language. The hymn was published with the title, “The farewell (Valet) of Valerius Herberger that he gave to the world in the autumn of the year 1613, when he every hour saw death before his eyes, but mercifully andalso as wonderfully as the three men in the furnace at Babylon was nevertheless spared.”The famous chorale tune for the hymn was written in 1613 by Melchior Teschner, who was Herberger’s precentor.Other Lutheran hymn-writers of this period were Joachim Magdeburg, Martin Rutilius, Martin Schalling and Philipp Nicolai. The last name in this group is by far the most important and will be given more extensive notice in the following chapter. To Magdeburg, a pastor who saw service in various parts of Germany and Hungary during a stormy career, we owe a single hymn, “Who trusts in God a strong abode.” Rutilius has been credited with the authorship of the gripping penitential hymn, “Alas, my God! my sins are great,” although the claim is sometimes disputed. He was a pastor at Weimar, where he died in 1618.Schalling likewise has bequeathed but a single hymn to the Church, but it may be regarded as one of the classic hymns of Germany. Its opening line, “O Lord, devoutly love I Thee,” reflects the ardent love of the author himself for the Saviour. It was entitled, “A prayer to Christ, the Consolation of the soul in life and death,” and surely its message of confiding trust in God has been a source of comfort and assurance to thousands of pious souls in the many vicissitudes of life as well as in the valley of the shadow.Although Schalling was a warm friend of Selnecker, he hesitated to subscribe to the Formula of Concord, claiming that it dealt too harshly with the followers of Melanchthon. For this reason he was deposed as General Superintendent of Oberpfalz and court preacher at Heidelberg. Five years later, however, he was appointed pastor of St. Mary’s church in Nürnberg, where he remained until blindness compelled him to retire. He died in 1608.
Many of our great Christian hymns were born in troublous times. This is true in a very special sense of the hymns written by Nicolaus Selnecker, German preacher and theologian. The age in which he lived was the period immediately following the Reformation. It was an age marked by doctrinal controversy, not only with the Romanists, but among the Protestants themselves. In these theological struggles, Selnecker will always be remembered as one of the great champions of pure Lutheran doctrine.
“The Formula of Concord,” the last of the Lutheran confessions, was largely the work of Selnecker. Published in 1577, it did more than any other single document to clarify the Lutheran position on many disputed doctrinal points, thus bringing to an end much of the confusion and controversy that had existed up to that time.
Selnecker early in life revealed an artistic temperament. Born in 1532 at Hersbruck, Germany, we find him at the age of twelve years organist at the chapel in the Kaiserburg, at Nürnberg, where he attended school. Later he entered Wittenberg University to study law. Here he came under the influence of Philip Melanchthon, and was induced to prepare himself for the ministry. It is said that Selnecker was Melanchthon’s favorite pupil.
Following his graduation from Wittenberg, he lectured for a while at the university and then received the appointmentas second court preacher at Dresden and private tutor to Prince Alexander of Saxony. Many of the Saxon theologians at this time were leaning strongly toward the Calvinistic teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper, and when Selnecker came out boldly for the Lutheran doctrine he incurred the hostility of those in authority. Later, when he supported a Lutheran pastor who had dared to preach against Elector August’s passion for hunting, he was compelled to leave Dresden.
For three years he held the office of professor of theology at the University of Jena, but in 1568 he again found favor with the Elector August and was appointed to the chair of theology in the University of Leipzig. It was here that Selnecker again became involved in bitter doctrinal disputes regarding the Lord’s Supper, and in 1576 and 1577 he joined a group of theologians, including Jacob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz, in working out the Formula of Concord.
Upon the death of Elector August the Calvinists again secured ecclesiastical control, and Selnecker once more was compelled to leave Leipzig. After many trials and vicissitudes, he finally returned, May 19, 1592, a worn and weary man, only to die in Leipzig five days later.
During the stormy days of his life, Selnecker often sought solace in musical and poetical pursuits. Many of his hymns reflect his own personal troubles and conflicts. “Let me be thine forever” is believed to have been written during one of the more grievous experiences of his life. It was a prayer of one stanza originally, but two additional stanzas were added by an unknown author almost a hundred years after Selnecker’s death. In its present form it has become a favorite confirmation hymn in the Lutheran Church.
Selnecker’s zeal for his Church is revealed in many of hishymns, among them the famous “Abide with us, O Saviour dear.” The second stanza of this hymn clearly reflects the distressing controversies in which he was engaged at the time:
This is a dark and evil day,Forsake us not, O Lord, we pray;And let us in our grief and painThy Word and sacraments retain.
This is a dark and evil day,Forsake us not, O Lord, we pray;And let us in our grief and painThy Word and sacraments retain.
This is a dark and evil day,
Forsake us not, O Lord, we pray;
And let us in our grief and pain
Thy Word and sacraments retain.
In connection with his work as professor in the University of Leipzig, he also served as pastor of the famous St. Thomas church in that city. It was through his efforts that the renowned Motett choir of that church was built up, a choir that was afterward conducted by John Sebastian Bach.
About 150 hymns in all were written by Selnecker. In addition to these he also was author of some 175 theological and controversial works.
One of the contemporaries of Selnecker was Bartholomäus Ringwalt, pastor of Langfeld, near Sonnenburg, Brandenburg. This man also was a staunch Lutheran and a poet of considerable ability. His judgment hymn, “The day is surely drawing near,” seems to reflect the feeling held by many in those distressing times that the Last Day was near at hand. It was used to a large extent during the Thirty Years’ War, and is still found in many hymn-books.
Another hymnist who lived and wrought during these turbulent times was Martin Behm, to whom we are indebted for three beautiful lyrics, “O Jesus, King of glory,” “Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light,” and “O holy, blessed Trinity.” Behm, who was born in Lauban, Silesia, Sept. 16, 1557, served for thirty-six years as Lutheran pastor in his native city. He was a noted preacher and a gifted poet.His hymn on the Trinity is one of the finest ever written on this theme. It concludes with a splendid paraphrase of the Aaronic benediction. Two of its stanzas are:
O holy, blessed Trinity,Divine, eternal Unity,God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,Be Thou this day my guide and host.Lord, bless and keep Thou me as Thine;Lord, make Thy face upon me shine;Lord, lift Thy countenance on me,And give me peace, sweet peace from Thee.
O holy, blessed Trinity,Divine, eternal Unity,God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,Be Thou this day my guide and host.
O holy, blessed Trinity,
Divine, eternal Unity,
God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Be Thou this day my guide and host.
Lord, bless and keep Thou me as Thine;Lord, make Thy face upon me shine;Lord, lift Thy countenance on me,And give me peace, sweet peace from Thee.
Lord, bless and keep Thou me as Thine;
Lord, make Thy face upon me shine;
Lord, lift Thy countenance on me,
And give me peace, sweet peace from Thee.
Valerius Herberger was another heroic representative of this period of doctrinal strife, war, famine, and pestilence. While pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church at Fraustadt, Posen, he and his flock were expelled from their church in 1604 by King Sigismund III, of Poland, and the property turned over to the Roman Catholics. Nothing daunted, however, Herberger and his people immediately constructed a chapel out of two houses near the gates of the city. They gave the structure the name of “Kripplein Christi,” since the first service was held in it on Christmas Eve.
During the great pestilence which raged in 1613, the victims in Fraustadt numbered 2,135. Herberger, however, stuck to his post, comforting the sick and burying the dead. It was during these days that he wrote his famous hymn, “Valet will ich dir geben,” one of the finest hymns for the dying in the German language. The hymn was published with the title, “The farewell (Valet) of Valerius Herberger that he gave to the world in the autumn of the year 1613, when he every hour saw death before his eyes, but mercifully andalso as wonderfully as the three men in the furnace at Babylon was nevertheless spared.”
The famous chorale tune for the hymn was written in 1613 by Melchior Teschner, who was Herberger’s precentor.
Other Lutheran hymn-writers of this period were Joachim Magdeburg, Martin Rutilius, Martin Schalling and Philipp Nicolai. The last name in this group is by far the most important and will be given more extensive notice in the following chapter. To Magdeburg, a pastor who saw service in various parts of Germany and Hungary during a stormy career, we owe a single hymn, “Who trusts in God a strong abode.” Rutilius has been credited with the authorship of the gripping penitential hymn, “Alas, my God! my sins are great,” although the claim is sometimes disputed. He was a pastor at Weimar, where he died in 1618.
Schalling likewise has bequeathed but a single hymn to the Church, but it may be regarded as one of the classic hymns of Germany. Its opening line, “O Lord, devoutly love I Thee,” reflects the ardent love of the author himself for the Saviour. It was entitled, “A prayer to Christ, the Consolation of the soul in life and death,” and surely its message of confiding trust in God has been a source of comfort and assurance to thousands of pious souls in the many vicissitudes of life as well as in the valley of the shadow.
Although Schalling was a warm friend of Selnecker, he hesitated to subscribe to the Formula of Concord, claiming that it dealt too harshly with the followers of Melanchthon. For this reason he was deposed as General Superintendent of Oberpfalz and court preacher at Heidelberg. Five years later, however, he was appointed pastor of St. Mary’s church in Nürnberg, where he remained until blindness compelled him to retire. He died in 1608.
A Masterpiece of HymnodyWake, awake, for night is flying:The watchmen on the heights are crying,Awake, Jerusalem, arise!Midnight’s solemn hour is tolling,His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.Rise up with willing feet,Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:Alleluia!Bear through the night your well trimmed light,Speed forth to join the marriage rite.Zion hears the watchmen singing,And all her heart with joy is springing,She wakes, she rises from her gloom;Forth her Bridegroom comes, all-glorious,The strong in grace, in truth victorious;Her Star is risen, her Light is come!All hail, Thou precious One!Lord Jesus, God’s dear Son!Alleluia!The joyful call we answer all,And follow to the nuptial hall.Lamb of God, the heavens adore Thee,And men and angels sing before Thee,With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone.By the pearly gates in wonderWe stand, and swell the voice of thunder,That echoes round Thy dazzling throne.To mortal eyes and earsWhat glory now appears!Alleluia!We raise the song, we swell the throng,To praise Thee ages all along.Philipp Nicolai, 1599.
Wake, awake, for night is flying:The watchmen on the heights are crying,Awake, Jerusalem, arise!Midnight’s solemn hour is tolling,His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.Rise up with willing feet,Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:Alleluia!Bear through the night your well trimmed light,Speed forth to join the marriage rite.
Wake, awake, for night is flying:
The watchmen on the heights are crying,
Awake, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight’s solemn hour is tolling,
His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,
He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.
Rise up with willing feet,
Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:
Alleluia!
Bear through the night your well trimmed light,
Speed forth to join the marriage rite.
Zion hears the watchmen singing,And all her heart with joy is springing,She wakes, she rises from her gloom;Forth her Bridegroom comes, all-glorious,The strong in grace, in truth victorious;Her Star is risen, her Light is come!All hail, Thou precious One!Lord Jesus, God’s dear Son!Alleluia!The joyful call we answer all,And follow to the nuptial hall.
Zion hears the watchmen singing,
And all her heart with joy is springing,
She wakes, she rises from her gloom;
Forth her Bridegroom comes, all-glorious,
The strong in grace, in truth victorious;
Her Star is risen, her Light is come!
All hail, Thou precious One!
Lord Jesus, God’s dear Son!
Alleluia!
The joyful call we answer all,
And follow to the nuptial hall.
Lamb of God, the heavens adore Thee,And men and angels sing before Thee,With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone.By the pearly gates in wonderWe stand, and swell the voice of thunder,That echoes round Thy dazzling throne.To mortal eyes and earsWhat glory now appears!Alleluia!We raise the song, we swell the throng,To praise Thee ages all along.
Lamb of God, the heavens adore Thee,
And men and angels sing before Thee,
With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone.
By the pearly gates in wonder
We stand, and swell the voice of thunder,
That echoes round Thy dazzling throne.
To mortal eyes and ears
What glory now appears!
Alleluia!
We raise the song, we swell the throng,
To praise Thee ages all along.
Philipp Nicolai, 1599.
THE KING AND QUEEN OF CHORALESAt rare intervals in the history of Christian hymnody, we meet with a genius who not only possesses the gift of writing sublime poetry but also reveals talent as a composer of music. During the stirring days of the Reformation such geniuses were revealed in the persons of Martin Luther and Nicolaus Decius. We now encounter another, Philipp Nicolai, the writer of the glorious hymn, “Wachet auf.”Nicolai’s name would have been gratefully remembered by posterity had he merely written the words of this hymn; but, when we learn that he also composed the magnificent chorale to which it is sung, we are led to marvel. It has been called the “King of Chorales,” and well does it deserve the title.But Nicolai was also the composer of the “Queen of Chorales.” That is the name often given to the tune of his other famous hymn, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” Both of Nicolai’s great tunes have been frequently appropriated for other hymns. The “King of Chorales” has lent inspiration to “Holy Majesty, before Thee,” while the “Queen of Chorales” has helped to glorify such hymns as “All hail to thee, O blessed morn,” “Now Israel’s hope in triumph ends,” and “O Holy Spirit, enter in.”Some of the world’s greatest composers have recognized the beauty and majesty of Nicolai’s inspiring themes andhave seized upon his chorales to weave them into a number of famous musical masterpieces. The strains of the seventh and eighth lines of “Wachet auf” may be heard in the passage, “The kingdoms of this world,” of Handel’s “Hallelujah chorus.” Mendelssohn introduces the air in his overture to “St. Paul,” and the entire chorale occurs in his “Hymn of Praise.” The latter composer has also made use of the “Wie schön” theme in the first chorus of his unpublished oratorio, “Christus.”The circumstances that called forth Nicolai’s two great hymns and the classic chorales to which he wedded them are tragic in nature. A dreadful pestilence was raging in Westphalia. At Unna, where Nicolai was pastor, 1,300 villagers died of the plague between July, 1597, and January, 1598. During a single week in the month of August no less than 170 victims were claimed by the messenger of death.From the parsonage which overlooked the churchyard, Nicolai was a sad witness of the burials. On one day thirty graves were dug. In the midst of these days of distress the gifted Lutheran pastor wrote a series of meditations to which he gave the title, “Freuden Spiegel,” or “Mirror of Joy.” His purpose, as he explains in his preface, dated August 10, 1598, was “to leave it behind me (if God should call me from this world) as the token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence.”“There seemed to me,” he writes in the same preface, “nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scripturesas to what they revealed on this matter, read also the sweet treatise of the ancient doctor Saint Augustine (“The City of God”) ... Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content.”Both of Nicolai’s classic hymns appeared for the first time in his “Mirror of Joy.” As a title to “Wachet auf” Nicolai wrote, “Of the voice at Midnight, and the Wise Virgins who meet their Heavenly Bridegroom. Mt. 25.” The title to “Wie schön” reads, “A spiritual bridal song of the believing soul concerning Jesus Christ, her Heavenly Bridegroom, founded on the 45th Psalm of the prophet David.”It is said that the melody to “Wie schön” became so popular that numerous church chimes were set to it.Nicolai’s life was filled with stirring events. He was born at Mengerinhausen, August 10, 1556. His father was a Lutheran pastor. After completing studies at the Universities of Erfürt and Wittenberg, he too was ordained to the ministry in 1583. His first charge was at Herdecke, but since the town council was composed of Roman Catholic members, he soon was compelled to leave that place. Later he served at Niederwildungen and Altwildungen, and in 1596 he became pastor at Unna. After the dreadful pestilence of 1597 there came an invasion of Spaniards in 1598, and Nicolai was forced to flee.In 1601 he was chosen chief pastor of St. Katherine’s church in Hamburg. Here he gained fame as a preacher, being hailed as a “second Chrysostom.” Throughout a long and bitter controversy with the Calvinists regarding the nature of the Lord’s Supper, Nicolai was looked upon as the “pillar” of the Lutheran Church, and the guardian of its doctrines. He died October 26, 1608.
At rare intervals in the history of Christian hymnody, we meet with a genius who not only possesses the gift of writing sublime poetry but also reveals talent as a composer of music. During the stirring days of the Reformation such geniuses were revealed in the persons of Martin Luther and Nicolaus Decius. We now encounter another, Philipp Nicolai, the writer of the glorious hymn, “Wachet auf.”
Nicolai’s name would have been gratefully remembered by posterity had he merely written the words of this hymn; but, when we learn that he also composed the magnificent chorale to which it is sung, we are led to marvel. It has been called the “King of Chorales,” and well does it deserve the title.
But Nicolai was also the composer of the “Queen of Chorales.” That is the name often given to the tune of his other famous hymn, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.” Both of Nicolai’s great tunes have been frequently appropriated for other hymns. The “King of Chorales” has lent inspiration to “Holy Majesty, before Thee,” while the “Queen of Chorales” has helped to glorify such hymns as “All hail to thee, O blessed morn,” “Now Israel’s hope in triumph ends,” and “O Holy Spirit, enter in.”
Some of the world’s greatest composers have recognized the beauty and majesty of Nicolai’s inspiring themes andhave seized upon his chorales to weave them into a number of famous musical masterpieces. The strains of the seventh and eighth lines of “Wachet auf” may be heard in the passage, “The kingdoms of this world,” of Handel’s “Hallelujah chorus.” Mendelssohn introduces the air in his overture to “St. Paul,” and the entire chorale occurs in his “Hymn of Praise.” The latter composer has also made use of the “Wie schön” theme in the first chorus of his unpublished oratorio, “Christus.”
The circumstances that called forth Nicolai’s two great hymns and the classic chorales to which he wedded them are tragic in nature. A dreadful pestilence was raging in Westphalia. At Unna, where Nicolai was pastor, 1,300 villagers died of the plague between July, 1597, and January, 1598. During a single week in the month of August no less than 170 victims were claimed by the messenger of death.
From the parsonage which overlooked the churchyard, Nicolai was a sad witness of the burials. On one day thirty graves were dug. In the midst of these days of distress the gifted Lutheran pastor wrote a series of meditations to which he gave the title, “Freuden Spiegel,” or “Mirror of Joy.” His purpose, as he explains in his preface, dated August 10, 1598, was “to leave it behind me (if God should call me from this world) as the token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence.”
“There seemed to me,” he writes in the same preface, “nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scripturesas to what they revealed on this matter, read also the sweet treatise of the ancient doctor Saint Augustine (“The City of God”) ... Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content.”
Both of Nicolai’s classic hymns appeared for the first time in his “Mirror of Joy.” As a title to “Wachet auf” Nicolai wrote, “Of the voice at Midnight, and the Wise Virgins who meet their Heavenly Bridegroom. Mt. 25.” The title to “Wie schön” reads, “A spiritual bridal song of the believing soul concerning Jesus Christ, her Heavenly Bridegroom, founded on the 45th Psalm of the prophet David.”
It is said that the melody to “Wie schön” became so popular that numerous church chimes were set to it.
Nicolai’s life was filled with stirring events. He was born at Mengerinhausen, August 10, 1556. His father was a Lutheran pastor. After completing studies at the Universities of Erfürt and Wittenberg, he too was ordained to the ministry in 1583. His first charge was at Herdecke, but since the town council was composed of Roman Catholic members, he soon was compelled to leave that place. Later he served at Niederwildungen and Altwildungen, and in 1596 he became pastor at Unna. After the dreadful pestilence of 1597 there came an invasion of Spaniards in 1598, and Nicolai was forced to flee.
In 1601 he was chosen chief pastor of St. Katherine’s church in Hamburg. Here he gained fame as a preacher, being hailed as a “second Chrysostom.” Throughout a long and bitter controversy with the Calvinists regarding the nature of the Lord’s Supper, Nicolai was looked upon as the “pillar” of the Lutheran Church, and the guardian of its doctrines. He died October 26, 1608.
A Tribute to the Dying SaviourAh, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,That man to judge Thee hast in hate pretended?By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,O most afflicted!Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee!’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee:I crucified Thee.Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,God intercedeth.For me, kind Jesus, was Thine incarnation,Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,For my salvation.Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee:Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,Not my deserving.Johann Heermann, 1630.
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,That man to judge Thee hast in hate pretended?By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,O most afflicted!
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,
That man to judge Thee hast in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,
O most afflicted!
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee!’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee:I crucified Thee.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee!
’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee:
I crucified Thee.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,God intercedeth.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;
For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,
God intercedeth.
For me, kind Jesus, was Thine incarnation,Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,For my salvation.
For me, kind Jesus, was Thine incarnation,
Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;
Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,
For my salvation.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee:Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,Not my deserving.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,
I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee:
Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,
Not my deserving.
Johann Heermann, 1630.
HYMNS OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ WARTimes of suffering and affliction have often brought forth great poets. This was especially true of that troublous period in European history known as the “Thirty Years’ War.” Although it was one of the most distressing eras in the Protestant Church, it gave birth to some of its grandest hymns.It was during this dreadful period, when Germany was devastated and depopulated by all the miseries of a bloody warfare, that Johann Heermann lived and wrought. He was born at Rauden, Silesia, October 11, 1585, the son of a poverty-stricken furrier. There were five children in the family, but four of them were snatched away by death within a short time. Johann, who was the youngest, was also taken ill, and the despairing mother was torn by fear and anguish. Turning to God in her hour of need, she vowed that if He would spare her babe, she would educate him for the ministry.She did not forget her promise. The child whose life was spared grew to manhood, received his training at several institutions, and in 1611 entered the holy ministry as pastor of the Lutheran church at Koeben, not far from his birthplace.A few years later the Thirty Years’ War broke out, and all of Germany began to feel its horrors. Four times during the period from 1629 to 1634 the town of Koeben was sacked by the armies of Wallenstein, who had been sent by the king of Austria to restore the German principalitiesto the Catholic faith. Previous to this, in 1616, the city was almost destroyed by fire. In 1631 it was visited by the dreadful pestilence.Again and again Heermann was forced to flee from the city, and several times he lost all his earthly possessions. Once, when he was crossing the Oder, he was pursued and nearly captured by enemy soldiers, who shot after him. Twice he was nearly sabred.It was during this period, in 1630, that his beautiful hymn, “Herzliebster Jesu,” was first published. One of the stanzas which is not usually given in translations reflects very clearly the unfaltering faith of the noble pastor during these hard experiences. It reads:Whate’er of earthly good this life may grant meI’ll risk for Thee; no shame, no cross shall daunt me;I shall not fear what man can do to harm me,Nor death alarm me.The hymn immediately sprang into popularity in Germany, perhaps through the fact that it reflected the feelings of Protestants everywhere, and partly because of the gripping tune written for it in 1640 by the great musician Johann Crüger.Heermann has been ranked with Luther and Gerhardt as one of the greatest hymn-writers the Lutheran Church has produced. Because his hymns were written during such times of distress and suffering, they seemed to grip the hearts of the German people to an extraordinary degree.One of his hymns, published in 1630 under the group known as “Songs of Tears,” is entitled “Treuer Wächter Israel.” It contains a striking line imploring God to “build a wall around us.” A very interesting story is told concerning this hymn. On January 5, 1814, the Allied forceswere about to enter Schleswig. A poor widow and her daughter and grandson lived in a little house near the entrance of the town. The grandson was reading Heermann’s hymns written for times of war, and when he came to this one, he exclaimed, “It would be a good thing, grandmother, if our Lord would build a wall around us.”Next day all through the town cries of terror were heard, but not a soldier molested the widow’s home. When on the following morning they summoned enough courage to open their door, lo, a snowdrift had concealed them from the view of the enemy! On this incident Clemens Brentano wrote a beautiful poem, “Draus vor Schleswig.”Another remarkable story is recorded concerning Heermann’s great hymn, “O Jesus, Saviour dear.” At Leuthen, in Silesia, December 5, 1757, the Prussians under Frederick the Great were facing an army of Austrians three times their number. Just before the battle began some of the Prussians began to sing the second stanza of the hymn. The regimental bands took up the music. One of the commanders asked Frederick if it should be silenced. “No,” said the king, “let it be. With such men God will today certainly give me the victory.” When the bloody battle ended with victory for the Prussians, Frederick exclaimed “My God, what a power has religion!”Other famous hymns by Heermann include “O Christ, our true and only Light,” “Lord, Thy death and passion give” and “Faithful God, I lay before Thee.”Many other noted hymn-writers belong to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, among them Martin Opitz, George Weissel, Heinrich Held, Ernst Homburg, Johannes Olearius, Josua Stegmann, and Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.Opitz was somewhat of a diplomat and courtier, as well as a poet. He was a man of vacillating character, and did not hesitate to lend his support to the Romanists whenever it served his personal interests. However, he has left to posterity an imperishable hymn in “Light of Light, O Sun of heaven.” He is credited with having reformed the art of verse-writing in Germany. He died of the pestilence in Danzig in 1639.Homburg and Held were lawyers. Homburg was born near Eisenach in 1605, and later we find him practising law in Naumburg, Saxony. He was a man of great poetic talent, but at first he devoted his gifts to writing love ballads and drinking songs. During the days of the dread pestilence he turned to God, and now he began to write hymns. In 1659 he published a collection of 150 spiritual songs. In a preface he speaks of them as his “Sunday labor,” and he tells how he had been led to write them “by the anxious and sore domestic afflictions by which God ... has for some time laid me aside.” The Lenten hymn, “Christ, the Life of all the living,” is found in this collection.Held, who practiced law in his native town of Guhrau, Silesia, also was a man chastened in the school of sorrow and affliction. He is the author of two hymns that have found their way into the English language—“Let the earth now praise the Lord” and “Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit.”Weissel, a Lutheran pastor at Konigsberg, has given us one of the finest Advent hymns in the German language, “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”Olearius, who wrote a commentary on the Bible and compiled one of the most important hymn-books of the 17thcentury, has also bequeathed to the Church a splendid Advent hymn, “Comfort, comfort ye My people.”Stegmann, a theological professor at Rinteln who suffered much persecution at the hands of Benedictine monks during the Thirty Years’ War, was the author of the beautiful evening hymn, “Abide with us, our Saviour.”Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who wrote the inspiring hymn, “O Christ, Thy grace unto us lend,” was not only a poet and musician, but also a man of war. He was twice wounded in battle with the Imperial forces, and was once left for dead. He was taken prisoner by Tilly, but was released by the emperor. When Gustavus Adolphus came to Germany to save the Protestant cause, Wilhelm after some hesitation joined him. However, when the Duke in 1635 made a separate peace with the emperor, the Swedish army ravaged his territory.Johann Meyfart also belongs to this period. He was a theological professor at the University of Erfürt, and died at that place in 1642. One of his hymns, “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high,” has found its way into English hymn books.The beautiful hymn, “O how blest are ye,” which was translated into English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, comes to us from the pen of Simon Dach, another Lutheran theologian who lived during these stirring days. Dach, who was professor of poetry and dean of the philosophical faculty of the University of Königsberg, wrote some 165 hymns. They are marked by fulness of faith and a quiet confidence in God in the midst of a world of turmoil and uncertainty. Dach died in 1659 after a lingering illness. The first stanza of his funeral hymn readsO how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!Who through death have unto God ascended!Ye have arisenFrom the cares which keep us still in prison.Tobias Clausnitzer, who has bequeathed to the Church the hymn, “Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word,” was the chaplain of a Swedish regiment during the Thirty Years’ War. He preached the thanksgiving sermon at the field service held by command of General Wrangel at Weiden, in the Upper Palatine, on January 1, 1649, after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. He afterwards became pastor at Weiden, where he remained until his death in 1684.Johann Quirsfeld, archdeacon in Pirna, has given us a very impressive Good Friday hymn, “Sinful world, behold the anguish.” Quirsfeld died in 1686.Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, a noted Orientalist, scientist and statesman of the seventeenth century, in addition to duties of state edited several Rabbinical writings and works on Oriental mysticism. He also wrote hymns, among them “Dayspring of eternity,” which has been referred to by one writer as “one of the freshest, most original, and spirited of morning hymns, as if born from the dew of the sunrise.” He died at Sulzbach, Bavaria, May 8, 1689, at the very hour, it is said, which he himself had predicted.The extent to which Lutheran laymen of this period devoted themselves to spiritual exercises is revealed in the life of Johann Franck, a lawyer who became mayor of his native town of Guben, Brandenburg, in 1661. To him we are indebted for the finest communion hymn in the German language, “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” He also was the author of such gems as “Light of the Gentile nations,” “Lord, to Thee I make confession,” “Lord God, weworship Thee,” “Jesus, priceless Treasure,” and the glorious song of praise:Praise the Lord, each tribe and nation,Praise Him with a joyful heart;Ye who know His full salvation,Gather now from every part;Let your voices glorifyIn His temple God on high.It was Franck who began the long series of so-called “Jesus hymns,” which reached their fullest development in the later Pietistic school of hymnists. Franck held that poetry should be “the nurse of piety, the herald of immortality, the promoter of cheerfulness, the conqueror of sadness, and a foretaste of heavenly glory.” His hymns reflect his beautiful spirit of Christian cheerfulness and hope.The last name that we would mention is Heinrich Theobald Schenk, a pastor at Giessen. Not much is known of this man except that he was the writer of a single hymn, but it is a hymn that has gained for him the thanks of posterity. There is scarcely a hymn-book of any communion today that does not contain, “Who are these, like stars appearing?” Schenk died in 1727, at the age of 71 years.
Times of suffering and affliction have often brought forth great poets. This was especially true of that troublous period in European history known as the “Thirty Years’ War.” Although it was one of the most distressing eras in the Protestant Church, it gave birth to some of its grandest hymns.
It was during this dreadful period, when Germany was devastated and depopulated by all the miseries of a bloody warfare, that Johann Heermann lived and wrought. He was born at Rauden, Silesia, October 11, 1585, the son of a poverty-stricken furrier. There were five children in the family, but four of them were snatched away by death within a short time. Johann, who was the youngest, was also taken ill, and the despairing mother was torn by fear and anguish. Turning to God in her hour of need, she vowed that if He would spare her babe, she would educate him for the ministry.
She did not forget her promise. The child whose life was spared grew to manhood, received his training at several institutions, and in 1611 entered the holy ministry as pastor of the Lutheran church at Koeben, not far from his birthplace.
A few years later the Thirty Years’ War broke out, and all of Germany began to feel its horrors. Four times during the period from 1629 to 1634 the town of Koeben was sacked by the armies of Wallenstein, who had been sent by the king of Austria to restore the German principalitiesto the Catholic faith. Previous to this, in 1616, the city was almost destroyed by fire. In 1631 it was visited by the dreadful pestilence.
Again and again Heermann was forced to flee from the city, and several times he lost all his earthly possessions. Once, when he was crossing the Oder, he was pursued and nearly captured by enemy soldiers, who shot after him. Twice he was nearly sabred.
It was during this period, in 1630, that his beautiful hymn, “Herzliebster Jesu,” was first published. One of the stanzas which is not usually given in translations reflects very clearly the unfaltering faith of the noble pastor during these hard experiences. It reads:
Whate’er of earthly good this life may grant meI’ll risk for Thee; no shame, no cross shall daunt me;I shall not fear what man can do to harm me,Nor death alarm me.
Whate’er of earthly good this life may grant meI’ll risk for Thee; no shame, no cross shall daunt me;I shall not fear what man can do to harm me,Nor death alarm me.
Whate’er of earthly good this life may grant me
I’ll risk for Thee; no shame, no cross shall daunt me;
I shall not fear what man can do to harm me,
Nor death alarm me.
The hymn immediately sprang into popularity in Germany, perhaps through the fact that it reflected the feelings of Protestants everywhere, and partly because of the gripping tune written for it in 1640 by the great musician Johann Crüger.
Heermann has been ranked with Luther and Gerhardt as one of the greatest hymn-writers the Lutheran Church has produced. Because his hymns were written during such times of distress and suffering, they seemed to grip the hearts of the German people to an extraordinary degree.
One of his hymns, published in 1630 under the group known as “Songs of Tears,” is entitled “Treuer Wächter Israel.” It contains a striking line imploring God to “build a wall around us.” A very interesting story is told concerning this hymn. On January 5, 1814, the Allied forceswere about to enter Schleswig. A poor widow and her daughter and grandson lived in a little house near the entrance of the town. The grandson was reading Heermann’s hymns written for times of war, and when he came to this one, he exclaimed, “It would be a good thing, grandmother, if our Lord would build a wall around us.”
Next day all through the town cries of terror were heard, but not a soldier molested the widow’s home. When on the following morning they summoned enough courage to open their door, lo, a snowdrift had concealed them from the view of the enemy! On this incident Clemens Brentano wrote a beautiful poem, “Draus vor Schleswig.”
Another remarkable story is recorded concerning Heermann’s great hymn, “O Jesus, Saviour dear.” At Leuthen, in Silesia, December 5, 1757, the Prussians under Frederick the Great were facing an army of Austrians three times their number. Just before the battle began some of the Prussians began to sing the second stanza of the hymn. The regimental bands took up the music. One of the commanders asked Frederick if it should be silenced. “No,” said the king, “let it be. With such men God will today certainly give me the victory.” When the bloody battle ended with victory for the Prussians, Frederick exclaimed “My God, what a power has religion!”
Other famous hymns by Heermann include “O Christ, our true and only Light,” “Lord, Thy death and passion give” and “Faithful God, I lay before Thee.”
Many other noted hymn-writers belong to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, among them Martin Opitz, George Weissel, Heinrich Held, Ernst Homburg, Johannes Olearius, Josua Stegmann, and Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
Opitz was somewhat of a diplomat and courtier, as well as a poet. He was a man of vacillating character, and did not hesitate to lend his support to the Romanists whenever it served his personal interests. However, he has left to posterity an imperishable hymn in “Light of Light, O Sun of heaven.” He is credited with having reformed the art of verse-writing in Germany. He died of the pestilence in Danzig in 1639.
Homburg and Held were lawyers. Homburg was born near Eisenach in 1605, and later we find him practising law in Naumburg, Saxony. He was a man of great poetic talent, but at first he devoted his gifts to writing love ballads and drinking songs. During the days of the dread pestilence he turned to God, and now he began to write hymns. In 1659 he published a collection of 150 spiritual songs. In a preface he speaks of them as his “Sunday labor,” and he tells how he had been led to write them “by the anxious and sore domestic afflictions by which God ... has for some time laid me aside.” The Lenten hymn, “Christ, the Life of all the living,” is found in this collection.
Held, who practiced law in his native town of Guhrau, Silesia, also was a man chastened in the school of sorrow and affliction. He is the author of two hymns that have found their way into the English language—“Let the earth now praise the Lord” and “Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit.”
Weissel, a Lutheran pastor at Konigsberg, has given us one of the finest Advent hymns in the German language, “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”
Olearius, who wrote a commentary on the Bible and compiled one of the most important hymn-books of the 17thcentury, has also bequeathed to the Church a splendid Advent hymn, “Comfort, comfort ye My people.”
Stegmann, a theological professor at Rinteln who suffered much persecution at the hands of Benedictine monks during the Thirty Years’ War, was the author of the beautiful evening hymn, “Abide with us, our Saviour.”
Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who wrote the inspiring hymn, “O Christ, Thy grace unto us lend,” was not only a poet and musician, but also a man of war. He was twice wounded in battle with the Imperial forces, and was once left for dead. He was taken prisoner by Tilly, but was released by the emperor. When Gustavus Adolphus came to Germany to save the Protestant cause, Wilhelm after some hesitation joined him. However, when the Duke in 1635 made a separate peace with the emperor, the Swedish army ravaged his territory.
Johann Meyfart also belongs to this period. He was a theological professor at the University of Erfürt, and died at that place in 1642. One of his hymns, “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high,” has found its way into English hymn books.
The beautiful hymn, “O how blest are ye,” which was translated into English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, comes to us from the pen of Simon Dach, another Lutheran theologian who lived during these stirring days. Dach, who was professor of poetry and dean of the philosophical faculty of the University of Königsberg, wrote some 165 hymns. They are marked by fulness of faith and a quiet confidence in God in the midst of a world of turmoil and uncertainty. Dach died in 1659 after a lingering illness. The first stanza of his funeral hymn reads
O how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!Who through death have unto God ascended!Ye have arisenFrom the cares which keep us still in prison.
O how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!Who through death have unto God ascended!Ye have arisenFrom the cares which keep us still in prison.
O how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!
Who through death have unto God ascended!
Ye have arisen
From the cares which keep us still in prison.
Tobias Clausnitzer, who has bequeathed to the Church the hymn, “Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word,” was the chaplain of a Swedish regiment during the Thirty Years’ War. He preached the thanksgiving sermon at the field service held by command of General Wrangel at Weiden, in the Upper Palatine, on January 1, 1649, after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. He afterwards became pastor at Weiden, where he remained until his death in 1684.
Johann Quirsfeld, archdeacon in Pirna, has given us a very impressive Good Friday hymn, “Sinful world, behold the anguish.” Quirsfeld died in 1686.
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, a noted Orientalist, scientist and statesman of the seventeenth century, in addition to duties of state edited several Rabbinical writings and works on Oriental mysticism. He also wrote hymns, among them “Dayspring of eternity,” which has been referred to by one writer as “one of the freshest, most original, and spirited of morning hymns, as if born from the dew of the sunrise.” He died at Sulzbach, Bavaria, May 8, 1689, at the very hour, it is said, which he himself had predicted.
The extent to which Lutheran laymen of this period devoted themselves to spiritual exercises is revealed in the life of Johann Franck, a lawyer who became mayor of his native town of Guben, Brandenburg, in 1661. To him we are indebted for the finest communion hymn in the German language, “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” He also was the author of such gems as “Light of the Gentile nations,” “Lord, to Thee I make confession,” “Lord God, weworship Thee,” “Jesus, priceless Treasure,” and the glorious song of praise:
Praise the Lord, each tribe and nation,Praise Him with a joyful heart;Ye who know His full salvation,Gather now from every part;Let your voices glorifyIn His temple God on high.
Praise the Lord, each tribe and nation,Praise Him with a joyful heart;Ye who know His full salvation,Gather now from every part;Let your voices glorifyIn His temple God on high.
Praise the Lord, each tribe and nation,
Praise Him with a joyful heart;
Ye who know His full salvation,
Gather now from every part;
Let your voices glorify
In His temple God on high.
It was Franck who began the long series of so-called “Jesus hymns,” which reached their fullest development in the later Pietistic school of hymnists. Franck held that poetry should be “the nurse of piety, the herald of immortality, the promoter of cheerfulness, the conqueror of sadness, and a foretaste of heavenly glory.” His hymns reflect his beautiful spirit of Christian cheerfulness and hope.
The last name that we would mention is Heinrich Theobald Schenk, a pastor at Giessen. Not much is known of this man except that he was the writer of a single hymn, but it is a hymn that has gained for him the thanks of posterity. There is scarcely a hymn-book of any communion today that does not contain, “Who are these, like stars appearing?” Schenk died in 1727, at the age of 71 years.