"Bedenk, o Mensch, die grosse Gnad."
(Remember, man, the wondrous grace.)
Markgraf Albrecht of Brandenburg (d. 1557), is the author of: —
"Was mein Gott will, gescheh allzeit."
(Thy will, my God, be always done.)
Paul Speratus, his court-chaplain at Königsberg (d. 1551), contributed three hymns to the
first German hymn-book (1524), of which —
"Es ist das Heil uns kommen her"
(To us salvation now has come)
is the best, though more didactic than lyric, and gives rhymed expression to the doctrine of
justification by faith.
Schneesing’s
"Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ"
(To Thee alone, Lord Jesus Christ)
appeared first in 1545, and is used to this day.
Mathesius, the pupil and biographer of Luther, and pastor at Joachimsthal in Bohemia
(1504–65), wrote a few hymns. Nicolaus Hermann, his cantor and friend (d. 1561), is the author
of a hundred and seventy-six hymns, especially for children, and composed popular tunes. Nicolaus
Decius, first a monk, then an evangelical pastor at Stettin (d. 1541), reproduced the Gloria in Excelsis
in his well-known
"Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr" (1526),
and the eucharistic Agnus Dei in his
"O Lamm Gottes unschuldig" (1531).
He also composed the tunes.
The German hymnody of the Reformation period was enriched by hymns of the Bohemian
Brethren. Two of them, Michael Weisse (d. 1542) and Johann Horn, prepared free translations.
Weisse was a native German, but joined the Brethren, and was sent by them as a delegate to Luther
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 (1531): —
"Christus ist erstanden."
(Christ the Lord is risen.)
We cannot follow in detail the progress of German hymnody. 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.^658
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
(^658) 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.