O bliss ’twill be when Thee we see,
Homeward Thy people bringing,
With ecstasy and singing!
Philipp Friedrich Hiller, 1767.
THE WÜRTTEMBERG HYMN-WRITERS
The Pietistic movement quickly made its influence felt in all parts of Germany. In some quarters, especially in the latter stages of the movement, it assumed more radical forms. Sometimes it developed into emotionalism and mysticism. The hymns were often of a subjective type, which led the worshiper to think more about his own inner processes and feelings than to direct his thoughts to Him alone who can redeem and sanctify.
Some of the Pietistic hymnists, notably Woltersdorf, were given to the use of inordinate language and even sensuous descriptions for the purpose of arousing intense emotion. In one of Woltersdorf’s passion hymns, he dwells morbidly on every detail of the physical sufferings of Christ, and in another hymn he borrows Scheffler’s figure which likens the soul to a bee deriving sustenance from the crimson wounds of Christ.
On the other hand, the Pietistic hymn is exemplified in its highest and noblest form in the writings of the so-called Württemberg school of hymnists, the chief exponent of which was Philipp Friedrich Hiller. Württemberg was blessed with the famous scholar and theologian, Johann Albrecht Bengel, whose sound doctrinal views and profound understanding of human nature not only led to a healthy development of Pietism in southern Germany, but also left a lasting impression on all the theological students who came under his influence at the training schools at Denkendorf, near Esslingen. Hiller was one of these.
Hiller’s hymns and those of the other Württemberg hymnists never indulge in the weak emotional effusions of which the later Halle hymn-writers were often guilty.
Hiller was a man sorely tried in the school of adversity. Shortly after he began his pastorate at Steinheim, in 1748, he lost his voice and was unable to continue his pulpit duties. However, he believed implicitly in the Pauline teaching that “to them that love God all things work together for good,” and, when his voice became silent, his spirit began to sing hymns richer and sweeter than ever. Witness, for example, the note of tenderness in the last stanza of his baptismal hymn, “God, in human flesh appearing”: