The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 10

The varieties of music set to the "Hymn of Judgment" in the different sections and languages of Christendom during seven hundred years are probably as numerous as the pictures of the Holy Family in Christian art. It is enough to say that one of the best at hand, or, at least, accessible, is the solemn minor melody of Dr. d.y.k.es in William Henry Monk's _Hymns Ancient and Modern_. It was composed about the middle of the last century. Both the _Evangelical_ and _Methodist Hymnals_ have Dean Stanley's translation of the hymn, the former with thirteen stanzas (six-line) to a D minor of John Stainer, and the latter to a C major of Timothy Matthews. The _Plymouth Hymnal_ has seventeen of the trilineal stanzas, by an unknown translator, to Ferdinand Hiller's tune in F minor, besides one verse to another F minor--hymn and tune both nameless.

All the composers above named are musicians of fame. John Stainer, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral, was a Doctor of Music and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and celebrated for his works in sacred music, to which he mainly devoted his time. He was born June 6, 1840. He died March 31, 1901.

Rev. Timothy Richard Matthews, born at Colmworth, Eng., Nov. 20, 1826, is a clergyman of the Church of England, inc.u.mbent of a Lancaster charge to which he was appointed by Queen Alexandra.

Ferdinand Hiller, born 1811 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, of Hebrew parentage, was one of Germany's most eminent musicians. For many years he was Chapel Master at Cologne, and organized the Cologne Conservatory.

His compositions are mostly for instrumental performance, but he wrote cantatas, motets, male choruses, and two oratorios, one on the "Destruction of Jerusalem." Died May 10, 1855.

The Very Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, was an author and scholar whom all sects of Christians delighted to honor. His writings on the New Testament and his published researches in Palestine, made him an authority in Biblical study, and his contributions to sacred literature were looked for and welcomed as eagerly as a new hymn by Bonar or a new poem by Tennyson. Dean Stanley was born in 1815, and died July 18th, 1881.

THOMAS a KEMPIS.

Thomas a Kempis, sub-prior of the Convent of St. Agnes, was born at Hamerkin, Holland, about the year 1380, and died at Zwoll, 1471. This pious monk belonged to an order called the "Brethren of the Common Life"

founded by Gerard de Groote, and his fame rests entirely upon his one book, the _Imitation of Christ_, which continues to be printed as a religious cla.s.sic, and is unsurpa.s.sed as a manual of private devotion.

His monastic life--as was true generally of the monastic life of the middle ages--was not one of useless idleness. The Brethren taught school and did mechanical work. Besides, before the invention of printing had been perfected and brought into common service, the multiplication of books was princ.i.p.ally the work of monkish pens. Kempis spent his days copying the Bible and good books--as well as in exercises of devotion that promoted religious calm.

His idea of heaven, and the idea of his order, was expressed in that clause of John's description of the City of G.o.d, Rev. 22:3, "_and His servants shall serve Him_." Above all other heavenly joys that was his favorite thought. We can well understand that the pious quietude wrought in his mind and manners by his habit of life made him a saint in the eyes of the people. The frontispiece of one edition of his _Imitatio Christi_ pictures him as being addressed before the door of a convent by a troubled pilgrim,--

"O where is peace?--for thou its paths hast trod,"

--and his answer completes the couplet,--

"In poverty, retirement, and with G.o.d."

Of all that is best in inward spiritual life, much can be learned from this inspired Dutchman. He wrote no hymns, but in his old age he composed a poem on "Heaven's Joys," which is sometimes called "Thomas a Kempis' Hymn":

High the angel choirs are raising Heart and voice in harmony; The Creator King still praising Whom in beauty there they see.

Sweetest strains from soft harps stealing, Trumpets' notes of triumph pealing, Radiant wings and white stoles gleaming Up the steps of glory streaming; Where the heavenly bells are ringing; "Holy! holy! holy!" singing To the mighty Trinity!

"Holy! holy! holy!" crying, For all earthly care and sighing In that city cease to be!

These lines are not in the hymnals of today--and whether they ever found their way into choral use in ancient times we are not told. Worse poetry has been sung--and more un-hymnlike. Some future composer will make a tune to the words of a Christian who stood almost in sight of his hundredth year--and of the eternal home he writes about.

MARTIN LUTHER.

"_Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott._"

Of Martin Luther Coleridge said, "He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as he did by his translation of the Bible." The remark is so true that it has become a commonplace.

The above line--which may be seen inscribed on Luther's tomb at Wittenberg--is the opening sentence and key-note of the Reformer's grandest hymn. The forty-sixth Psalm inspired it, and it is in harmony with sublime historical periods from its very nature, boldness, and sublimity. It was written, according to Welles, in the memorable year when the evangelical princes delivered their protest at the Diet of Spires, from which the word and the meaning of the word "Protestant" is derived. "Luther used often to sing it in 1530, while the Diet of Augsburg was sitting. It soon became the favorite psalm with the people.

It was one of the watchwords of the Reformation, cheering armies to conflict, and sustaining believers in the hours of fiery trial."

"After Luther's death, Melancthon, his affectionate coadjutor, being one day at Weimar with his banished friends, Jonas and Creuziger, heard a little maid singing this psalm in the street, and said, 'Sing on, my little girl, you little know whom you comfort:'"

A mighty fortress is our G.o.d, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

The Prince of Darkness grim-- We tremble not for him: His rage we can endure, For lo! his doom is sure, One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers-- No thanks to them--abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours, Through Him who with us sideth.

Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; The body they may kill, G.o.d's truth abideth still, His kingdom is for ever.

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, in Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483. He was educated at the University of Erfurth, and became an Augustinian monk and Professor of Philosophy and Divinity in the University of Wittenberg. In 1517 he composed and placarded his ninety-five Theses condemning certain practices of the Romish Church and three years later the Pope published a bull excommunicating him, which he burnt openly before a sympathetic mult.i.tude in Wittenberg. His life was a stormy one, and he was more than once in mortal danger by reason of his antagonism to the papal authority, but he found powerful patrons, and lived to see the Reformation an organized fact. He died in his birthplace, Eisleben, Feb. 18th, 1546.

The translation of the "Ein feste burg," given above, in part, is by Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge, D.D., born in Cambridge, March 1805, a graduate of Harvard, and formerly minister of the Unitarian Church in Bangor, Me. Died, 1890.

Luther wrote thirty-six hymns, to some of which he fitted his own music, for he was a musician and singer as well as an eloquent preacher. The tune in which "Ein feste Burg" is sung in the hymnals, was composed by himself. The hymn has also a n.o.ble rendering in the music of Sebastian Bach, 8-4 time, found in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_.

BARTHOLOMEW RINGWALDT.

"Great G.o.d, What Do I See and Hear?"

The history of this hymn is somewhat indefinite, though common consent now attributes to Ringwaldt the stanza beginning with the above line.

The imitation of the "Dies Irae" in German which was first in use was printed in Jacob Klug's "_Gesangbuch_" in 1535. Ringwaldt's hymn of the Last Day, also inspired from the ancient Latin original, appears in his _Handbuchlin_ of 1586, but does not contain this stanza. The first line is, "The awful Day will surely come," (Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit).

Nevertheless through the more than two hundred years that the hymn has been translated and re-translated, and gone through inevitable revisions, some vital ident.i.ty in the spirit and tone of the one seven-line stanza has steadily connected it with Ringwaldt's name.

Apparently it is the single survivor of a great lost hymn--edited and altered out of recognition. But its power evidently inspired the added verses, as we have them. Dr. Collyer found it, and, regretting that it was too short to sing in public service, composed stanzas 2d, 3d and 4th. It is likely that Collyer first met with it in _Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Devotion_, Sheffield 1802, where it appeared anonymously. So far as known this was its first publication in English.

Ringwaldt's stanza and two of Collyer's are here given:

Great G.o.d, what do I see and hear!

The end of things created!

The Judge of mankind doth appear On clouds of glory seated.

The trumpet sounds, the graves restore The dead which they contained before; Prepare, my soul, to meet Him.

The dead in Christ shall first arise At the last trumpet sounding, Caught up to meet Him in the skies, With joy their Lord surrounding.

No gloomy fears their souls dismay His presence sheds eternal day On those prepared to meet Him.

Far over s.p.a.ce to distant spheres The lightnings are prevailing Th' unG.o.dly rise, and all their tears And sighs are unavailing.

The day of grace is past and gone; They shake before the Judge's Throne All unprepared to meet Him.

Bartholomew Ringwaldt, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Longfeld, Prussia, was born in 1531, and died in 1599. His hymns appear in a collection ent.i.tled _Hymns for the Sundays and Festivals of the Whole Year_.

Rev. William Bengo Collyer D.D., was born at Blackheath near London, April 14, 1782, educated at Homerton College and settled over a Congregational Church in Peckham. In 1812 he published a book of hymns, and in 1837 a _Service Book_ to which he contributed eighty-nine hymns.

He died Jan, 9, 1854.

_THE TUNE._

Probably it was the customary singing of Ringwaldt's hymn (in Germany) to Luther's tune that gave it for some time the designation of "Luther's Hymn," the t.i.tle by which the music is still known--an air either composed or adapted by Luther, and rendered perhaps unisonously or with extempore chords. It was not until early in the last century that Vincent Novello wrote to it the n.o.ble arrangement now in use. It is a strong, even-time harmony with lofty tenor range, and very impressive with full choir and organ or the vocal volume of a congregation. In _Cheetham's Psalmody_ is it written with a trumpet obligato.

Vincent Novello, born in London, Sept. 6, 1781, the intimate friend of Lamb, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, Hunt and Hazlitt, was a professor of music who attained great eminence as an organist and composer of hymn-tunes and sacred pieces. He was the founder of the publis.h.i.+ng house of Novello and Ewer, and father of a famous musical family. Died at Nice, Aug. 9, 1861.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.