The translation of the “Ein feste burg,” given above, in part, is by Rev. Frederick Henry Hedge, D.D., born in Cambridge, March 1805, a graduate of Harvard, and formerly minister of the Unitarian Church in Bangor, Me. Died, 1890.
Luther wrote thirty-six hymns, to some of which he fitted his own music, for he was a musician and singer as well as an eloquent preacher. The tune in which “Ein feste Burg” is sung in the hymnals, was composed by himself. The hymn has also a noble rendering in the music of Sebastian Bach, 8-4 time, found in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
BARTHOLOMEW RINGWALDT.
“Great God, What Do I See and Hear?”
The history of this hymn is somewhat indefinite, though common consent now attributes to Ringwaldt the stanza beginning with the above line. The imitation of the “Dies Irae” in German which was first in use was printed in Jacob Klug's “Gesangbuch” in 1535. Ringwaldt's hymn of the Last Day, also inspired from the ancient Latin original, appears in his Handbuchlin of 1586, but does not contain this stanza. The first line is, “The awful Day will surely come,” (Es ist 100 / 72 gewisslich an der Zeit). Nevertheless through the more than two hundred years that the hymn has been translated and re-translated, and gone through inevitable revisions, some vital identity in the spirit and tone of the one seven-line stanza has steadily connected it with Ringwaldt's name. Apparently it is the single survivor of a great lost hymn—edited and altered out of recognition. But its power evidently inspired the added verses, as we have them. Dr. Collyer found it, and, regretting that it was too short to sing in public service, composed stanzas 2d, 3d and 4th. It is likely that Collyer first met with it in Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, Sheffield 1802, where it appeared anonymously. So far as known this was its first publication in English. Ringwaldt's stanza and two of Collyer's are here given:
Great God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created!
The Judge of mankind doth appear
On clouds of glory seated.
The trumpet sounds, the graves restore