Paul Gerhardt was one of those minstrels of experience who are—
“Cradled into poetry by wrong,
And learn in suffering what they teach in song.”
He was a graduate of that school when he wrote his “Hymn of Trust:”
Commit thou all thy griefs
And ways into His hands;
To His sure trust and tender care
Who earth and heaven commands.
Thou on the Lord rely,
So, safe, shalt thou go on;