In the latter decades of the seventeenth century, Philipp Jacob Spener, August Hermann Francke, and Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen led a strong movement of protest, called Pietism, against the arid scholasticism and cold formalism of the Lutheran church. It was a second Reformation, emphasizing piety and sincere emotionalism. It postponed the blight of Rationalism for a few decades and led a generation into a devouter, more genuine, religious life.
Spener was a great leader and a good man, but no hymn writer; Francke wrote but few hymns, and so this phase of their work devolved on Freylinghausen. He was full of spirit, with attractive rhythms and florid music. His songs were very popular, but lacked permanent merit. Other writers of this school were Schade, Schutz, and Rodigast.
Less immediately connected with the Pietistic movement, but under its influence, are Hiller of South Germany, Arnold, a professor at the University of Giessen, and Tersteegen of Westphalia, a mystic, all of whom wrote very acceptable hymns. Tersteegen was highly appreciated by John Wesley, who translated his “Gott rufet noch; sollt’ ich nicht endlich hoeren?” (“God calling yet! shall I not hear?”). “Gott ist gegenwaertig! lasset uns anbeten” (“Lo! God is here; let us adore”) and “Jedes Herz will etwas lieben” (“Something every heart is loving”) are others found translated in current hymnals. Lord Selborne speaks of him as “of all the more copious German hymn writers after Luther, perhaps the most remarkable man, pietist, mystic, and missionary, he was also a great religious poet.” That he was a layman makes his religious life all the more remarkable.
A more widely known and striking personality was Count von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), a very devout but somewhat erratic man. He became the patron saint of the Moravian Church and shared—perhaps created—its zeal for foreign missions. He spent some time in the United States, in eastern Pennsylvania, and in the West Indies, doing evangelistic work. He wrote two thousand religious lyrics, disfigured to a large extent by extravagances and by repulsive materialistic similes and phrases. His associate and successor, Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg, long resident in America, and Bishop Christian Gregor also wrote very useful hymns. The Moravian hymnody is all the more noteworthy in that it had a great influence over the hymnic work of the Wesleys.
IV. GERMAN REFORMED HYMNODY
The Reformed Church in Germany long followed Calvin in exclusively using the Psalms of David, but finally felt the impulse of the Lutheran hymnody. Tersteegen, mentioned above, leaned to this branch of the German church, although not officially connected with it. Joachim Neander (1650-1680), a Reformed minister at Bremen, wrote some extremely valuable and popular hymns of praise and was called the Psalmist of the New Covenant. Among his best are “Sieh, hier bin ich, Ehren-Koenig” (“Behold me here in grief draw near”), “Lobe den Herren, den maechtigen Koenig der Ehren” (“Praise to the Lord! He is King over all the creation”), “Unser Herrscher, unser Koenig” (“Sovereign Ruler, King victorious”), still sung in every pious home in Germany.
V. TRANSITION TO RATIONALISTIC HYMNS
The transitional personality between this Pietistic and the succeeding Rationalistic era, was Christian F. Gellert (1715-1769), a professor in Leipzig University. He was a man of sincere piety; he was a teacher, not only in the classroom, but in all his literary efforts. He wrote moral Tales and Fables, Moral Poems, Didactic Poems, as well as Sacred Odes and Hymns. There were fifty-four of these, all in the same didactic style. They lacked the rugged strength of Luther, the poetical element of Gerhardt, and the mystic insight of Tersteegen; but this very matter-of-factness made his writings immensely popular. Of all his hymns, but one survives in our modern hymnals, his Easter hymn, “Jesus lebt, mit ihm auch ich” (“Jesus lives, no longer now”).
VI. RATIONALISM IN HYMNODY
German hymnody suddenly fell from its exalted Pietistic rhapsodies into a crass materialism. Dr. Philip Schaff gives a vivid glimpse into the situation: “He (Klopstock) was followed by a swarm of hymnological tinkers and poetasters who had no sympathy with the theology and poetry of the grand old hymns of faith; weakened, diluted, mutilated, and watered them, and introduced these misimprovements into the churches.... Conversion and sanctification were changed into self-improvement, piety into virtue, heaven into the better world, Christ into Christianity, God into Providence, Providence into fate. The people were compelled to sing rhymed sermons on the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the delights of reunion, the dignity of man, the duty of self-improvement, the nurture of the body, and the care of animals and flowers.”