Wirst die Auserwählten weiden.
The first translation was made by John Christian Jacobi, 1670-1750, for his Psalmodia Germanica. His rendering began
“O Thou sweetest source of gladness”
which Augustus Montague Toplady recast into the familiar
“Holy Ghost, dispel our sadness.”
For comments on Toplady see [Hymn 148].
Paul Gerhardt, next to Martin Luther, is the most noteworthy hymn writer of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Even the hymns of Luther are not as widely used today in the English speaking world as those of Gerhardt. He was born March 12, 1607, in Gräfenhynichen, a village near the celebrated Wittenberg. At 21 he began the study of theology in Wittenberg, but he received no church position until 45, when he was ordained and appointed provost at Mittenwalde, a small village. During his six years there, his hymns were published and he became widely known. In 1657, he was appointed third assistant pastor of the famous Church of St. Nicholas in Berlin. From this position he was deposed because he refused to sign a document promising that all clergymen would abstain from any references in their sermons to doctrinal differences between the Lutherans and Calvinists. Though he felt the blow keenly, he met it with Christian patience and fortitude. “This,” he said, “is only a small Berlin affliction; but I am also willing and ready to seal with my blood the evangelical truth, and, like my namesake, St. Paul, to offer my neck to the sword.” Additional sorrows came into his life with the death of his wife and four of his children. He was left with a single child, a boy of six, when he was called to the church at Lübden, where he labored faithfully and successfully until his death on June 7, 1676. Most of his life being spent in the distractions and disasters of the Thirty Years War, which left Germany in misery and ruins, Gerhardt knew the depths of human sorrow. Out of the depths came his hymns of comfort and hope which have been a source of strength to a multitude of believers.
MUSIC. INVOCATION was composed by Uzziah C. Burnap, 1834-1900, organist at the Church of the Heights, Brooklyn, and co-editor with John K. Paine, Professor of Music at Harvard, of Hymns and Songs of Praise.
135. Breathe on me, breath of God
Edwin Hatch, 1835-89