German Hymnology [pp. 574-602]

German Hymnology.
and founded an orphanhouse at Bunzlau, in imitation of that
at Halle. "I hope," he once wrote," that by means of the
children, we shall drive the devil out of Bunzlau: God grant
it!" He died early, in 1761. According to his own saying, his
verses flowed out of his heart. "Often," said he, "nothing
was further from my thoughts than making verse; but something dropped suddenly into my mind, and set me on a train,
so that I had to seize the pen. It was frequently like a
burning in my heart, urging me to sing to the Lord and his
people, on some weighty matter. If I undertook to write
two or three verses, I sometimes ended with twelve, fifteen, or
even thirty. There were times when the pen could not keep
pace with the thought." The result was, that many of his
hymns are too long for public use. They are censured as
sometimes unfinished in point of art; and many of them fall
far below the elevation and fire of Gerhardt and Schmolck;
yet Woltersdorf has produced many noble hymns.* He deplored the substitution of secular elegance for devotion, in
such writers as Guinther; and used to say, " The day will come,
when many an old village parson, many an old schoolmaster,
or peasant, or shoemaker, who has made two or three halting
stanzas from his heart, shall have the crown on Mount Zion,
as a true poet, before those masters of verse." But he modestly
added: "I should rejoice at heart, if as a moaning dove I could
give occasion to many a nightingale, to utter so penetrating a
voice, that the sacred groves might resound, and I might creep
into my covert."
Both Woltersdorf and Bogatzky belong to the authors of
what were called the Kbthen Hymns, so named from the place
of publication. Most of the other writers degenerated still
more into prosaic reflection. According to Rambach, these
authors produced only a feeble imitation of the old pietistic
verse. Among them were ALLENDORF, LAU, and LEHR.t
At this point we are prepared to turn aside for a little to
consider one of the most marked portions of German hymnol
* For instance:' Der flitir mich am Kreuz gehangen,'' Abermals ein;Jahr verflossen.'
t To whom respectively we owe'Nun, Kindlein bleibt am Jesu kleben'-Aech
Herr, du wollst die Wehmuth stillen-and' Der schmale Pfad fiihrt doch gerad
ins Leben.'
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1850.]
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