The Story of Our Hymns Part 10

How oft in grief Hath not He brought thee relief, Spreading His wings to o'ershade thee!

Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore Him!

All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him!

Let the Amen Sound from His people again; Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Joachim Neander, 1680.

JOACHIM NEANDER, THE PAUL GERHARDT OF THE CALVINISTS

While all Germany during the latter half of the seventeenth century was singing the sublime lyrics of Paul Gerhardt, prince of Lutheran hymnists, the spirit of hymnody was beginning to stir in the soul of another German poet--Joachim Neander. This man, whose name will always be remembered as the author of one of the most glorious hymns of praise of the Christian Church, was the first hymn-writer produced by the Reformed, or Calvinistic, branch of the Protestant Church.

Hymnody in the Reformed Church had been seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded by the iconoclastic views of Calvin and Zwingli. These Reformers at first frowned on church choirs, organs, and every form of ecclesiastical art.

Even hymns, such as those used by the Lutherans, were prohibited because they were the production of men. G.o.d could be wors.h.i.+ped in a worthy manner, according to Calvin's principles, only by hymns which were divinely inspired, namely, the Psalms of the Old Testament Psaltery.

This gave rise to the practice of versifying the Psalms. Calvin's insistence that there should be the strictest adherence to the original text often resulted in crude paraphrases. The exclusive use of the Psalms explains the development of so-called "psalmody" in the Reformed Church as over against "hymnody" in the Lutheran Church.

Psalmody had its inception in France, where Clement Marot, court poet to King Francis I, rendered a number of the Psalms into metrical form. Marot was a gifted and versatile genius, but not inclined to piety or serious-mindedness. However, his versified Psalms became immensely popular with the French Huguenots and exerted a great influence in the struggle between the Protestants and the papal party. When Marot was compelled to flee to Geneva because of Roman persecution, he collaborated with Calvin in publis.h.i.+ng the famous Genevan Psalter, which appeared in 1543.

Following the death of Marot in 1544, Calvin engaged Theodore de Beza to continue the work, and in 1562 the Genevan Psalter was published in completed form, containing all the Psalms in versified dress. The musical editor during the greater part of this period was Louis Bourgeois, to whom is generally ascribed the undying honor of being the composer of probably the most famous of all Christian hymn tunes, "Old Hundredth."

The Genevan Psalter was translated into many languages, and became the accepted hymn-book of the Reformed Church in Germany, England, Scotland, and Holland, as well as in France. In Germany the most popular version was a translation by Ambrosius Lobwa.s.ser, a professor of law at Konigsberg, who, oddly enough, was a Lutheran.

For more than 150 years Lutheran hymn-writers had been pouring out a mighty stream of inspired song, but the voice of hymnody was stifled in the Reformed Church. Then came Joachim Neander. His life was short--he died at the age of thirty--and many of his hymns seem to have been written in the last few months before his death; but the influence he exerted on the subsequent hymnody of his Church earned for him the t.i.tle, "the Gerhardt of the Reformed Church."

Neander's hymns are preeminently hymns of praise. Their jubilant tone and smooth rhythmical flow are at once an invitation to sing them. They speedily found their way into Lutheran hymn-books in Germany, and from thence to the entire Protestant world. Neander's most famous hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty," with its splendid chorale melody, grows in popularity with the pa.s.sing of years, and promises to live on as one of the greatest _Te Deums_ of the Christian Church.

Joachim Neander was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1650. He came from a distinguished line of clergymen, his father, grandfather, great grandfather and great great grandfather having been pastors, and all of them bearing the name Joachim Neander.

Young Joachim entered the Academic Gymnasium of Bremen at the age of sixteen years. It seems that he led a careless and profligate life, joining in the sins and follies that characterized student life in his age.

In the year 1670, when Neander was twenty years old, he chanced to attend services in St. Martin's church, Bremen, where Theodore Under-Eyck had recently come as pastor. Two other students accompanied Neander, their main purpose being to criticize and scoff at the sermon. However, they had not reckoned with the Spirit of G.o.d. The burning words of Under-Eyck made a powerful impression on the mind and heart of the youthful Neander, and he who went to scoff came away to pray.

It proved the turning point in the spiritual life of the young student.

Under the guidance of Under-Eyck he was led to embrace Christ as his Saviour, and from that time he and Under-Eyck were life-long friends.

The following year Neander became tutor to five young students, accompanying them to the University of Heidelberg. Three years later he became rector of the Latin school at Dusseldorf. This inst.i.tution was under the supervision of a Reformed pastor, Sylvester Lursen, an able man, but of contentious spirit. At first the two men worked together harmoniously, Neander a.s.sisting with pastoral duties, and preaching occasionally, although he was not ordained as a clergyman. Later, however, he fell under the influence of a group of separatists, and began to imitate their practices. He refused to receive the Lord's Supper on the grounds that he could not partake of it with the unconverted. He induced others to follow his example. He also became less regular in his attendance at regular wors.h.i.+p, and began to conduct prayer meetings and services of his own.

In 1676 the church council of Dusseldorf investigated his conduct and dismissed him from his office. Fourteen days after this action was taken, however, Neander signed a declaration in which he promised to abide by the rules of the church and school, whereupon he was reinstated.

There is a legend to the effect that, during the period of his suspension from service, he spent most of his time living in a cave in the beautiful Neanderthal, near Mettmann, on the Rhine, and that he wrote some of his hymns at this place. It is a well-established fact that Neander's great love for nature frequently led him to this place, and a cavern in the picturesque glen still bears the name of "Neander's Cave." One of the hymns which tradition declares was written in this cave bears the t.i.tle "Unbegreiflich Gut, Wahrer Gott alleine." It is a hymn of transcendent beauty. One of the stanzas reads:

Thee all the mountains praise; The rocks and glens are full of songs of Thee!

They bid me join my lays, And laud the mighty Rock, who, safe from every shock, Beneath Thy shadow here doth shelter me.

Many of Neander's hymns are odes to nature, but there is always a note of praise to nature's G.o.d. Witness, for instance:

Heaven and earth, and sea and air, All their Maker's praise declare; Wake, my soul, awake and sing, Now thy grateful praises bring!

"Here behold me, as I cast me," a penitential hymn by Neander, has found favor throughout all Christendom.

In 1679 Neander's spiritual friend, Pastor Under-Eyck, invited him to come to Bremen and become his a.s.sistant in St. Martin's church. Although his salary was only 40 thalers a year and a free house, Neander joyfully accepted the appointment. The following year, however, he became sick, and after a lingering illness pa.s.sed away May 31, 1680, at the age of only thirty years.

During his illness he experienced severe spiritual struggles, but he found comfort in the words, "It is better to hope unto death than to die in unbelief." On the day of his death he requested that Hebrews 7:9 be read to him. When asked how he felt, he replied: "The Lord has settled my account. Lord Jesus, make also me ready." A little later he said in a whisper: "It is well with me. The mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble, yet the grace of G.o.d shall not depart from me, and His covenant of peace shall not be moved."

A Hymn Cla.s.sic by Scheffler

Thee will I love, my Strength, my Tower, Thee will I love, my Joy, my Crown; Thee will I love with all my power, In all Thy works, and Thee alone; Thee will I love, till Thy pure fire Fill all my soul with chaste desire.

I thank Thee, uncreated Sun, That Thy bright beams on me have s.h.i.+ned; I thank Thee, who hast overthrown My foes, and healed my wounded mind; I thank Thee, whose enlivening voice Bids my freed heart in Thee rejoice.

Uphold me in the doubtful race, Nor suffer me again to stray; Strengthen my feet with steady pace Still to press forward in Thy way; That all my powers, with all their might, In Thy sole glory may unite.

Thee will I love, my Joy, my Crown; Thee will I love, my Lord, my G.o.d; Thee love beneath Thy smile or frown, Beneath Thy scepter or Thy rod.

What though my flesh and heart decay?

Thee shall I love in endless day.

Johann Scheffler, 1657.

A ROMAN MYSTIC AND HYMN-WRITER

In Johann Scheffler we have the singular example of a man who forsook the Lutheran Church to become a Romanist, but whose hymns have been adopted and sung by the very Church he sought to oppose and confound.

Scheffler was a contemporary of Gerhardt and Neander. He was born in Breslau, Silesia, in 1624. His father, Stanislaus Scheffler, was a Polish n.o.bleman who had been compelled to leave his native land because of his Lutheran convictions. Young Scheffler became a medical student at Stra.s.sburg, Leyden, and Padua, returning to Oels, Silesia, in 1649 to become the private physician to Duke Sylvius Nimrod of Wurttemberg-Oels.

During his sojourn in foreign lands he had come in contact with the writings of various mystics and he began to lean strongly toward their teachings. At Oels he began to flaunt his separatist views by absenting himself from public wors.h.i.+p and the Lord's Supper. When the Lutheran authorities refused to permit the publication of some poems he had written, because of their strong mystical tendencies, Scheffler resigned his office and betook himself to Breslau, where he joined himself to a group of Jesuits. Here he pursued the study of the medieval mystics of the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1653 was confirmed as a member of that communion. At this time he took the name of Angelus Silesius, probably after a Spanish mystic named John ab Angelis.

In 1661 he was ordained a priest of the Roman Church. He became a prolific writer and took special delight in directing bitter polemics against the Church of his childhood. Of these writings, it has been well said: "He certainly became more Roman than the Romans; and in his more than fifty controversial tractates, shows little of the sweetness and repose for which some have thought he left the Lutheran Church."

Scheffler, however, was a poet of the first rank. His poems, always tinged by the spirit of mysticism, sometimes attain to sublime heights, and again they descend to a coa.r.s.e realism, particularly when he describes the terrors of judgment and h.e.l.l.

His hymns, on the other hand, are almost uniformly of a high order. They are marked by a fervent love for Christ the heavenly Bridegroom, although the imagery, largely based on the Song of Solomon, is sometimes overdrawn, almost approaching the sensual. Few of his hymns reveal his Catholic tendencies, and therefore they were gladly received by the Protestants. Indeed, they came into more general use among the Lutherans than among the Catholics. They were greatly admired by Count von Zinzendorf, who included no less than 79 of them in his Moravian collection.

The mysticism of Scheffler often brought him dangerously near the border-line of pantheism. Vaughn, in his "Hours with the Mystics,"

compares Scheffler with Emerson, and declares that both resemble the Persian Sufis. Something of Scheffler's pantheistic ideas may be seen in the following lines:

G.o.d in my nature is involved, As I in the divine; I help to make His being up, As much as He does mine.