Opitz was somewhat of a diplomat and courtier, as well as a poet. He was a man of vacillating character, and did not hesitate to lend his support to the Romanists whenever it served his personal interests. However, he has left to posterity an imperishable hymn in “Light of Light, O Sun of heaven.” He is credited with having reformed the art of verse-writing in Germany. He died of the pestilence in Danzig in 1639.
Homburg and Held were lawyers. Homburg was born near Eisenach in 1605, and later we find him practising law in Naumburg, Saxony. He was a man of great poetic talent, but at first he devoted his gifts to writing love ballads and drinking songs. During the days of the dread pestilence he turned to God, and now he began to write hymns. In 1659 he published a collection of 150 spiritual songs. In a preface he speaks of them as his “Sunday labor,” and he tells how he had been led to write them “by the anxious and sore domestic afflictions by which God ... has for some time laid me aside.” The Lenten hymn, “Christ, the Life of all the living,” is found in this collection.
Held, who practiced law in his native town of Guhrau, Silesia, also was a man chastened in the school of sorrow and affliction. He is the author of two hymns that have found their way into the English language—“Let the earth now praise the Lord” and “Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit.”
Weissel, a Lutheran pastor at Konigsberg, has given us one of the finest Advent hymns in the German language, “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”
Olearius, who wrote a commentary on the Bible and compiled one of the most important hymn-books of the 17th century, has also bequeathed to the Church a splendid Advent hymn, “Comfort, comfort ye My people.”
Stegmann, a theological professor at Rinteln who suffered much persecution at the hands of Benedictine monks during the Thirty Years’ War, was the author of the beautiful evening hymn, “Abide with us, our Saviour.”
Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who wrote the inspiring hymn, “O Christ, Thy grace unto us lend,” was not only a poet and musician, but also a man of war. He was twice wounded in battle with the Imperial forces, and was once left for dead. He was taken prisoner by Tilly, but was released by the emperor. When Gustavus Adolphus came to Germany to save the Protestant cause, Wilhelm after some hesitation joined him. However, when the Duke in 1635 made a separate peace with the emperor, the Swedish army ravaged his territory.
Johann Meyfart also belongs to this period. He was a theological professor at the University of Erfürt, and died at that place in 1642. One of his hymns, “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high,” has found its way into English hymn books.
The beautiful hymn, “O how blest are ye,” which was translated into English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, comes to us from the pen of Simon Dach, another Lutheran theologian who lived during these stirring days. Dach, who was professor of poetry and dean of the philosophical faculty of the University of Königsberg, wrote some 165 hymns. They are marked by fulness of faith and a quiet confidence in God in the midst of a world of turmoil and uncertainty. Dach died in 1659 after a lingering illness. The first stanza of his funeral hymn reads
O how blest are ye, whose toils are ended!