For all my sins He carried.
Matthias Claudius, the author of the splendid hymn, “We plow the fields and scatter,” like Gellert, had intended to prepare himself for the Lutheran ministry. While attending the University of Jena, however, the Rationalistic teachings with which he came in contact caused him to lose interest in religion, and he decided to take up journalism instead. In 1777 he became editor of a newspaper at Darmstadt, at which place he became acquainted with Goethe and a group of freethinking philosophers.
Stricken by a serious illness, Claudius began to realize something of the spiritual emptiness of the life he had been living, and in his hour of need he turned again to his childhood faith. When he had recovered, he gave up his position and removed to Wandsbeck, where he edited the “Wandsbecker Bote” in a true Christian spirit.
In the life-story of Claudius we may discern something of the reaction that was already taking place in many quarters against the deadening influence of Rationalism. Men were hungering for the old evangel of salvation, and there were evidences everywhere of the dawn of a happier day. Although Claudius’ poems were not essentially Church hymns, they were lyrics that seemed to strike anew some of the strings of Gerhardt’s harp. This is seen especially in his surpassingly beautiful ode to evening, “The silent moon is risen,” written in the same spirit and meter as Gerhardt’s famous evening hymn. The first stanza has been translated:
The silent moon is risen,
The golden star-fires glisten
In heaven serene and bright;
The forest sleeps in shadow,
And slowly off the meadow
A mist is curling, silver-white.