The Story of Our Hymns

by Ernest Edwin Ryden

The Genevan Psalter was translated into many languages, and became the accepted hymn-book of the Reformed Church in Germany, England, Scotland, and Holland, as well as in France. In Germany the most popular version was a translation by Ambrosius Lobwasser, a professor of law at Königsberg, who, oddly enough, was a Lutheran.

For more than 150 years Lutheran hymn-writers had been pouring out a mighty stream of inspired song, but the voice of hymnody was stifled in the Reformed Church. Then came Joachim Neander. His life was short—he died at the age of thirty—and many of his hymns seem to have been written in the last few months before his death; but the influence he exerted on the subsequent hymnody of his Church earned for him the title, “the Gerhardt of the Reformed Church.”

Neander’s hymns are preeminently hymns of praise. Their jubilant tone and smooth rhythmical flow are at once an invitation to sing them. They speedily found their way into Lutheran hymn-books in Germany, and from thence to the entire Protestant world. Neander’s most famous hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” with its splendid chorale melody, grows in popularity with the passing of years, and promises to live on as one of the greatest Te Deums of the Christian Church.

Joachim Neander was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1650. He came from a distinguished line of clergymen, his father, grandfather, great grandfather and great great grandfather having been pastors, and all of them bearing the name Joachim Neander.

Young Joachim entered the Academic Gymnasium of Bremen at the age of sixteen years. It seems that he led a careless and profligate life, joining in the sins and follies that characterized student life in his age.

In the year 1670, when Neander was twenty years old, he chanced to attend services in St. Martin’s church, Bremen, where Theodore Under-Eyck had recently come as pastor. Two other students accompanied Neander, their main purpose being to criticize and scoff at the sermon. However, they had not reckoned with the Spirit of God. The burning words of Under-Eyck made a powerful impression on the mind and heart of the youthful Neander, and he who went to scoff came away to pray.

It proved the turning point in the spiritual life of the young student. Under the guidance of Under-Eyck he was led to embrace Christ as his Saviour, and from that time he and Under-Eyck were life-long friends.

The following year Neander became tutor to five young students, accompanying them to the University of Heidelberg. Three years later he became rector of the Latin school at Düsseldorf. This institution was under the supervision of a Reformed pastor, Sylvester Lürsen, an able man, but of contentious spirit. At first the two men worked together harmoniously, Neander assisting with pastoral duties, and preaching occasionally, although he was not ordained as a clergyman. Later, however, he fell under the influence of a group of separatists, and began to imitate their practices. He refused to receive the Lord’s Supper on the grounds that he could not partake of it with the unconverted. He induced others to follow his example. He also became less regular in his attendance at regular worship, and began to conduct prayer meetings and services of his own.

In 1676 the church council of Düsseldorf investigated his conduct and dismissed him from his office. Fourteen days after this action was taken, however, Neander signed a declaration in which he promised to abide by the rules of the church and school, whereupon he was reinstated.

There is a legend to the effect that, during the period of his suspension from service, he spent most of his time living in a cave in the beautiful Neanderthal, near Mettmann, on the Rhine, and that he wrote some of his hymns at this place. It is a well-established fact that Neander’s great love for nature frequently led him to this place, and a cavern in the picturesque glen still bears the name of “Neander’s Cave.” One of the hymns which tradition declares was written in this cave bears the title “Unbegreiflich Gut, Wahrer Gott alleine.” It is a hymn of transcendent beauty. One of the stanzas reads: