[4]Matthew Arnold described it as “the utterance of all that is exquisite in the spirit of its century.” (Quoted by Gillman, in his Evolution of the English Hymn.)
CHAPTER XI
[1]As an indication of how prevalent this singing of religious hymns was, we note the fact that in 1512, twelve years before Luther’s first hymnbook appeared, a collection of Roman Catholic hymns, set to profane tunes, was issued in Venice, Italy.
[2]“To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue the Bible, the Catechism, and the Hymnbook, so that God might speak directly to them in his Word, and that they might directly answer him in their songs.” Dr. Philip Schaff adds elsewhere that Luther “is the father of the modern High German language and literature,” and that these are the common possession of the Germanic tribes with their diversified dialects from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea. Erasmus Alber, a contemporary who wrote twenty excellent hymns, calls Luther “the German Cicero, who not only reformed religion, but also the German language.” Hans Sachs, the poet cobbler of Nuremberg, who, besides a great deal of general poetry, also wrote a number of hymns, styled Luther “the nightingale of Wittenberg.”
CHAPTER XII
[1]Dr. Schaff.
CHAPTER XIII
[1]Dr. Louis F. Benson has well characterized this Psalter in its influence on French character: “The metrical Psalter made the Huguenot character. No doubt a character nourished on Old Testament ideals will lack the full symmetry of the Gospel. But the Huguenot was a warrior, first called to fight and suffer for his faith. And in singing psalms he found his confidence and strength.... In the wars of religion, the Psalms in meter were the songs of camp and march, the war cry on the field, the swan song at the martyr’s stake.”
[2]“Of course, psalms in the ballad form were easily learned and kept in memory. And in the days when the ability to read was less general than now, these rhymes, scattered so freely broadcast, took root in many a mind and contributed powerfully to the righteousness and stability of the nation.” (J. Balcom Reeves, in The Hymn in History and Literature.)