Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76
Tr. John Wesley
A hymn of the love of Christ, suited especially well for the Communion Service. This great hymn by Paul Gerhardt first appeared in Crüger’s Praxis Pietatis Melica, Berlin, 1653, in sixteen stanzas. John Wesley, great revivalist and eminent translator of German hymns, rendered the entire hymn into English, in a different meter, and published it in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739. Our hymn consists of the first three stanzas, the original of which are as follows:
O Jesu Christ, mein schönstes Licht,
Der du in deiner Seelen
So hoch mich liebst, dass ich es nicht
Aussprechen kann noch zählen:
Gib, dass mein Herz dich wiederum
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