Another representative of the Württemberg school was Baron Christoph Carl Ludwig von Pfeil, a diplomat of high attainments and noble, Christian character. In September, 1763, he was appointed by Frederick the Great as Prussian ambassador to the Diets of Swabia and Franconia. He was created a baron by Emperor Joseph II shortly afterwards.
Pfeil began writing hymns at the age of eighteen years and continued it as his chief diversion throughout life. He was a prolific writer, his published hymns numbering about 850. He was a warm friend of Bengel, who wrote the introduction to one of Pfeil’s hymn collections. Pfeil wrote hymns on various phases of civil life. His hymn on the Christian home is typical:
O blest the house, whate’er befall,
Where Jesus Christ is All in all;
Yea, if He were not dwelling there,
How poor and dark and void it were!
The Silesian pastors, Johann Andreas Rothe and Johann Mentzer, also may be regarded as belonging to the more conservative Pietistic hymn-writers. Rothe was pastor at Berthelsdorf, having been brought there through the influence of Count von Zinzendorf, who had heard him preach in Silesia. The Moravian community of Herrnhut formed a part of Rothe’s parish, and he took a keen interest in the activities of Zinzendorf and his followers. However, when Rothe, in 1737, found it necessary to report to the ecclesiastical authorities that the Moravians were deviating from sound Lutheran doctrine, the friendship between him and Zinzendorf ceased, and Rothe found it advisable to remove to Thommendorf, where he died in 1758.
Rothe wrote approximately forty hymns, the most famous of which is “Now I have found the ground wherein.” This hymn was greatly admired by John Wesley and was translated by him in 1740. Because it first appeared in the Moravian hymn-book, the Lutherans suspected that Zinzendorf was the author. Upon discovering that it was by Rothe, they quickly adopted it. The first stanza reads:
Now I have found the ground wherein
My soul’s sure anchor may remain: