" Salvation hath come down to us Of freest grace and love. Works cannot stand before God's law,
A broken reed they prove : Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone. He must for all our sins atone, He is our one Redeemer." This, in Luther's day, was as popular among the Ger- mans as one of his own hymns. Indeed, it is said that when Luther first heard it sung by a beggar on the roadside he gave him the last coin he had. Princes also became sacred poets, such as the margrave of Bran- denburg and Hesse, known as the author of " Grant me, eternal God, such grace That no distress May cause me e'er to flee from Thee," etc. The elector John of Saxony was also, at that time, count- ed among hymn-writers, but it now appears that he never wrote any hj'mns himself, although he was pas- sionately fond of them. Hans Sachs (1494-1.576), the celebrated and popular poet of this period, also wrote sacred verse, and tigiu-es not less prominently than the persons whose names we have already mentioned. The most famous of his hjinns he wrote during the siege of Nuremberg, his native city, in 1561: "Why art thou thus cast down, my heart?" (^Warum betriilisf du dich mein lierz '?). He wrote also a very beautiful hymn on the explicit confidence in the saving merits of Christ, entitled " The Mediator," which is translated by Sirs. Winkworth {Christ. Sing. p. 134). Among the Bohe- mian Brethren, who. as is well known, were on intimate terms with the Lutherans, Michael AVeiss is distin- guished both as the translator of Bohemian hymns into German, and as tiie author of a number of beautiful German hymns. Two of them, "Once he came iu
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blessing," and the well-known " Christ, the Lord, is risen again" {Christus ist erstanden von des Todes Banden), translated into English by Sirs. Winkworth, may be found in her Lyra Germanica, ii, 62, and in SchafT, Christ in Song, p. 15, 259. Not less worthy of notice, though perhaps not quite so prominent in their day, are Johann Matthesius (f 15G1) and Nicholas Hermann (t 1501). The former wrote, among others, the beauti- ful morning hymn, " JMy inmost heart now raises" (.4 us meiiies Ilerzen's Grunde), which was a favorite with king Gustavus Adolphus. Hermann's hymns are to be found in nearly all German hymn-books. Among his best hymns are Loht Gott ihr Christen allzuf/Uich, and Wenn mein Sliindlein vorkanden ist. Mrs. Winkworth gives Matthesius's " Miner's Song" (p. 144) and Her- maim's " Hymn for the Dying."
In the latter half of the 16th, and even at the opening of tlie 17th century, a gradual decline is manifest in the quality of the hymns, though the quantity continued. They were now no longer the spontaneous production of men of all classes, moved to worship God in songs of praise, but the work of professional hymnologists. '•Still this period, too, has some very good and fine hymns, but a marked change of tone is perceptible in most of them ; they are no longer filled with the joyful welcome of a new day : they more often lament the wick- edness of the age, and anticipate coming evil times, or the end of the world itself." Most prominent among the hymn-writers of this period are the following: (1.) Ambrose Lobwasser, who translated the French Psalter of Marot and Beza ; but the literary merit of the work was rather mediocre. " It does not rise above the level of a sort of rhymed prose, and it furnished an unfortunate model lor a fiood of very prosaic rhymed paraphrases of doctrinal statements or passages of Scriptiure, which became wonderfully numerous at this time." (2.) Bar- tholoma^us Ringwaldt (1530-98) is the author of the hymn, in England erroneously attributed to Luther, " Great God, what do I see and hear," which was writ- ten in imitation of the " Dies irce, dies ilia.'' He really deserves to be placed first among the hymnologists of this period. It is incorporated in the New Congi-ega- tional Hymn-hooh (London), No. 420. His hj^mns par- take of the penitential style, by which, as above remark- ed, this period is characterized. One of his best on "Penitence" Mrs. Winkworth has clothed in English dress (p. 149). (3.) Nicolaus Selnecker (1530-92), au- thor of GMch u:ie sein Haus der Vor/el hauf, based on the 84th Psalm. (4.) Louis Helmboldt, the poet laiureate of the emperor jNIaximilian, who wrote " The true Chris- tian's Ya(lc-]Mecum" {From God shall naught divide me, Mrs. Winkworth, p. 154), which is contained in all Ger- man hymn-books, "and has rooted itself among the peo- ple." To this period belong also IMartin Schalling (1532- 1608), among whose hymns Ilerzlich lieh huV ich JJich o Ilerr (" 0 Lord, I love thee," in Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 609) is best known ; Kaspar Melissander (" Herr, wie du willst, so Schick's mit mir"). Mart. Moller, Mart. Behemb, Mart. Kutilius ("Ach, Herr u. Gott, wie gross u. schwer!"), .Joh. Pappus ("Ich hab mein Sach' Gott heimgestcUt"), and more especially Philip Nicolai (1556- 1608), Avho was the first to reintroduce, after the Refor- mation, the mystical union of Christ with the soid in his hymns, whence they have often been called the "Hymns of the Love of Jesus." His two best hymns have gained a remarkable popularity, "and are indeed admirable for their fervor of emotion and mastery over difficult but musical rhythms." They are, Wachet aiij] ruft mis die Stimme (" Wake, awake, for night is fly- ing," in Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 382; in the New Con- gregational Jlymn-hool; No. 749), and Wie schOn leuchtet der Morgenstern ("How lovely shines the Star," Christ in Song, p. 551), which latter especially " became so popular that its tunes were often chimed by city bells, lines and verses were printed from it by way of orna- ment on the common earthenware of the countrj', and it was invariably used at weddings and certain festivals."