Will send a happy summer.”
The opening words of the hymn are also significant, “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.” Although the poem must be regarded as more of a ballad than a church hymn, Luther’s lyre was tuned, the springtime of evangelical hymnody was indeed come, and before another year had passed a little hymn-book called “The Achtliederbuch” appeared as the first-fruits.
It was in 1524 that this first Protestant hymnal was published. It contained only eight hymns, four by Luther, three by Speratus, and one probably by Justus Jonas. The little hymn-books flew all over Europe, to the consternation of the Romanists. Luther’s enemies lamented that “the whole people are singing themselves into his doctrines.” So great was the demand for hymns that a second volume known as the “Erfurt Enchiridion” was published in the same year. This contained twenty-five hymns, eighteen of which were Luther’s. “The nightingale of Wittenberg” had begun to sing.
This was the beginning of evangelical hymnody, which was to play so large a part in the spread of Luther’s teachings. The number of hymn-books by other compilers increased rapidly and so many unauthorized changes were made in his hymns by critical editors that Luther was moved to complain of their practice. In a preface to a hymn-book printed by Joseph Klug of Wittenberg, in 1543, Luther writes: “I am fearful that it will fare with this little book as it has ever fared with good books, namely, that through tampering by incompetent hands it may get to be so overlaid and spoiled that the good will be lost out of it, and nothing kept in use but the worthless.” Then he adds, naively: “Every man may make a hymn-book for himself and let ours alone and not add thereto, as we here beg, wish and assert. For we desire to keep our own coin up to our own standard, preventing no one from making better hymns for himself. Now let God’s name alone be praised and our name not sought. Amen.”
Of the thirty-six hymns attributed to Luther none has achieved such fame as “A mighty fortress is our God.” It has been translated into practically every language and is regarded as one of the noblest and most classical examples of Christian hymnody. Not only did it become the battle hymn of the Reformation, but it may be regarded as the true national hymn of Germany. Heine called it “the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” Frederick the Great referred to it as “God Almighty’s grenadier march.”
The date of the hymn cannot be fixed with any certainty. Much has been written on the subject, but none of the arguments appear conclusive. D’Aubigné’s unqualified statement that Luther composed it and sang it to revive the spirits of his friends at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 can scarcely be accepted, since it appeared at least a year earlier in a hymn-book published by Joseph Klug.
The magnificent chorale to which the hymn is sung is also Luther’s work. Never have words and music been combined to make so tremendous an appeal. Great musical composers have turned to its stirring theme again and again when they have sought to produce a mighty effect. Mendelssohn has used it in the last movement of his Reformation symphony; Meyerbeer uses it to good advantage in his masterpiece, “Les Huguenots”; and Wagner’s “Kaisermarsch,” written to celebrate the triumphal return of the German troops in 1870, reaches a great climax with the whole orchestra thundering forth the sublime chorale. Bach has woven it into a beautiful cantata, while Raff and Nicolai make use of it in overtures.
After Luther’s death, when Melanchthon and his friends were compelled to flee from Wittenberg by the approach of the Spanish army, they came to Weimar. As they were entering the city, they heard a little girl singing Luther’s great hymn. “Sing on, my child,” exclaimed Melanchthon, “thou little knowest how thy song cheers our hearts.”
When Gustavus Adolphus, the hero king of Sweden, faced Tilly’s hosts at the battlefield of Leipzig, Sept. 7, 1631, he led his army in singing “Ein feste Burg.” Then shouting, “God is with us,” he went into battle. It was a bloody fray. Tilly fell and his army was beaten. When the battle was over, Gustavus Adolphus knelt upon the ground among his soldiers and thanked the Lord of Hosts for victory, saying, “He holds the field forever.”
At another time during the Thirty Years’ War a Swedish trumpeter captured the ensign of the Imperial army. Pursued by the enemy he found himself trapped with a swollen river before him. He paused for a moment and prayed, “Help me, O my God,” and then thrust spurs into his horse and plunged into the midst of the current. The Imperialists were afraid to follow him, whereupon he raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded the defiant notes: “A mighty fortress is our God!”