§ 82. BEGINNINGS OF EVANGELICAL HYMNODY. 509
in 1522, who at first favored them before they showed their preference for the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments. One of the best known of these Bohemian hymns is the Easter song (15381) : —
“ἐ Christus ist erstanden.”’ (Christ the Lord is risen.)
We cannot follow in detail the progress of German hymn-
ody. It flows from the sixteenth century down to our days in an unbroken stream, and reflects German piety in the sabbath dress of poetry. It is by far the richest of all hymnodies.!
The number of German hymns cannot fall short of one hundred thousand. Dean Georg Ludwig von Hardenberg of Halberstadt, in the year 1786, prepared a hymnological catalogue of the first lines of 72,733 hymns (in five volumes preserved in the library of Halberstadt). This number was not complete at that time, and has considerably increased since. About ten thousand have become more or less popular, and passed into different hymn-books. Fischer? gives the first lines of about five thousand of the best, many of which were overlooked by Von Hardenberg.
We may safely say that nearly one thousand of these hymns are classical and immortal. This is a larger number than can be found in any other language.
To this treasury of German song, several hundred men and women, of all ranks and conditions, — theologians and pastors, princes and princesses, generals and statesmen, physicians and jurists, merchants and travelers, laborers and private persons, — have made contributions, laying them on the common altar of devotion. The majority of German hymnists are Lutherans, the rest German Reformed «as Neander and
1 It is characteristic of the voluminous Ultramontane work of Janssen, that it has not a word to say about the hymnological enrichment of public
worship and Christian piety by Luther and his followers. 2 In his Kirchenlieder-Lexicon, 1878.
510 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
Tersteegen ), or Moravians (Zinzendorf and Gregor), or belong to the United Evangelical Church. Many of these hymns, and just those possessed of the greatest vigor and unction, full of the most exulting faith and the richest comfort, had their origin amid the conflicts and storms of the Reformation, or the fearful devastations and nameless miseries of the Thirty Years’ War; others belong to the revival period of the pietism of Spener, and the Moravian Brotherhood of Zinzendorf, and reflect the earnest struggle after holiness, the fire of the first love, and the sweet enjoyment of the soul’s intercourse with her heavenly Bridegroom ; not a few of them sprang up even in the cold and prosy age of “illumination ” and rationalism, like flowers from dry ground, or Alpine roses on fields of snow; others, again, proclaim, in fresh and joy-. ous tones, the dawn of reviving faith in the land where the Reformation had its birth. Thus these hymns constitute a book of devotion and poetic confession of faith for German Protestantism, a sacred band which encircles its various periods, an abiding memorial of its struggles and victories, its sorrows and joys, a mirror of its deepest experiences, and an eloquent witness for the all-conquering and invincible lifepower of the evangelical Christian faith.
The treasures of German hymnody have enriched the churches of other tongues, and passed into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, French, Dutch, and modern English and American hymn-books.
John Wesley was the first of English divines who appreciated its value; and while his brother Charles produced an immense number of original hymns, John freely reproduced several hymns of Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen, and Zinzendortf. The English Moravian hymn-book as revised by Montgomery contains about a thousand abridged (but mostly indifferent) _ translations from the German. In more recent times several accomplished writers, male and female, have vied with each other in translations and transfusions of German hymns.
§ 82. BEGINNINGS OF EVANGELICAL HYMNODY. 511
Among the chief English translators are Miss Frances Elizabeth Cox;! Arthur Tozer Russell;? Richard Massie ;? Miss Catherine Winkworth;‘* Mrs. Eric Findlater and her sister, Miss Jane Borthwick, of the Free Church of Scotland, who modestly conceal their names under the letters “H. L. L.” (Hymns from the Land of Luther);° James W. Alexander,®
1 Sacred Hymns from the German, London, 1841, new ed. with German text, 1865.
2 Psalns and Hymns, partly original, partly selected, for the use of the Church of England, Cambridge, 1851. Many of the pieces are from the German. He contributed most of the translations to Ernest Bunsen’s Hymns for Public Worship and Private Devotion, London, 1848.
ὃ Luther’s Spiritual Songs, London, 1854; and Lyra Domestica, translations from Spitta’s Psaltery and Harp, London, 1860; second series, 1864.
4 Lyra Germanica, first and second series, Lond. and N. Y., 1855 and 1858, in several editions. Also the beautiful Chorale Book for England, London, 1863, which contains many hymns from the Lyra Germanica, partly remodelled, with seventy-two others translated by the same lady, together with the old tunes edited by Bennet and Goldschmidt. Several translations of Miss C. W., especially from Paul Gerhardt, have passed into hymn-books. Comp. Theo. Kiibler, Historical Notices to the Lyra Germanica (dedicated to Miss C. W.), London, 1865.
5 Hymns from the Land of Luther, translated from the German by H. L. L., Edinburgh and New York, in 4 parts, 1854; fifth ed., Edinb. 1884 (15th thousand), enlarged by the Alpine Lyrics of Mrs. Meta Heusser. The translations of Miss Borthwick reproduce the spirit rather than the letter of the original. Several of them have become more widely known through hymnbooks and private collections: as Franck’s eucharistic hymn, ‘‘ Schmticke dich, o liebe Seele,”’ ‘‘Soul, arise, dispel thy sadness;’’? Gerhardt’s “‘ Ich bin ein Gast auf Erden,”’ ‘‘ A pilgrim and a stranger, I journey here below;”’ Tersteegen’s “‘ Gott rufet noch,” “God calling yéet;’? Schmolck’s ‘‘ Mein Jesu, wie Du willst, So lass mich allzeit wollen,’’ ‘‘ My Jesus, as Thou wilt;”’ Zinzendorf’s ‘‘ Jesu, geh voran,’’ ‘‘ Jesus, still lead on;’’ Spitta’s “* Was macht ihr, dass ihr weinet,’”’ ‘“ What mean ye by this wailing,’ and his “ Angel of Patience”’ (Es zieht ein stiller Engel,” “‘ A gentle angel walketh throughout this world of woe’’); Lange’s ‘‘ Was kein Auge hat gesehen,’’ “‘ What no human eye hath seen;’’ Mrs. Heusser’s “" Noch ein wenig Schweiss und Thrdnen,”’ ‘‘A few more conflicts, toils and tears;’’ “0 Jesu Christ, mein Leben,” “Ὁ Christ, my Life, my Saviour;” besides other religious lyrics which are not intended for hymns. Miss Borthwick has since published Lyra Christiana, a Treasury of Sacred Poetry, edited by H. L. L., Edinb. 1888, which contains a few German poems, but is mostly selected from English sources.
6 Presbyterian minister in New York City, died 1859. He is the best translator of Gerhardt’s “‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (‘‘O sacred Head, now wounded’’), and several other famous hymns, German and Latin.