The chief representatives of this more typical Lutheran school were Benjamin Schmolck, a beloved pastor and a poet of rare ability, and Erdmann Neumeister, creator of the Church Cantata. It was the age in which John Sebastian Bach lived and wrought, and this prince of Lutheran organists, whose title of “high priest of church music” has never been disputed, gave of his musical genius to help make the hymns of Schmolck and Neumeister immortal.
Next to Gerhardt, there is no German hymnist whose name is so frequently found in hymn-books today as that of Schmolck. Born at Brauchitzdorf, Silesia, where his father was pastor, he was sent to school at Lauban at the age of sixteen. After an absence of five years the young man returned home and was invited to fill his father’s pulpit. The sermon he preached so pleased the father that he determined to send him to the University of Leipzig to study for the ministry. In 1697 he returned to Brauchitzdorf to be ordained as his father’s assistant.
In 1702 Schmolck became pastor of Friedenskirche at Schweidnitz, in Silesia. According to the terms of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, all of the churches in this district had been turned over to the Catholics, and only a “meeting-house,” built of timber and clay and without tower or bells, was allowed to the Lutherans. Here Schmolck labored patiently for thirty-five years under the most trying circumstances, not even being permitted to administer communion to the dying except by consent of the Catholic authorities.
Schmolck’s hymns and spiritual songs, numbering 1,183 in all, brought him fame all over Germany. Many have been translated into English. His fervent love for the Saviour is beautifully reflected in the hymn:
My Jesus, as Thou wilt!
O may Thy will be mine!
Into Thy hand of love
I would my all resign;
Through sorrow or through joy,
Conduct me as Thine own,