None is like Thee, none above Thee,
Thou art altogether lovely;
None on earth have we,
None in heaven like Thee.
It is not strange that from Halle, from whence such mighty missionary influences flowed, should also go forth the first Protestant missionary hymn. It was in 1750 that Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky, while working among the orphans of the Franckean institutions, wrote his famous hymn, “Awake, thou Spirit, who didst fire.”
Bogatzky, who came from a noble Hungarian family, was disowned by his father when he chose to enroll as a theological student at Halle rather than to prepare for a career as an army officer. His health failed him, however, and he was unable to enter the ministry. For many years he devoted himself to hymn-writing and devotional literature. He also traveled as a lay preacher. Because of his noble birth he was able to exert a considerable influence in the higher circles of German society. From 1746 to his death in 1774, he lived at the Halle orphanage. He was the author of some 411 hymns, but few of them possess the poetic and spiritual fire of his missionary hymn. Two of its glorious stanzas read:
Awake, Thou Spirit, who didst fire
The watchmen of the Church’s youth,
Who faced the foe’s envenomed ire,
Who day and night declared Thy truth,