One of the causes for the Reformation period being the most strongly marked of all periods of modern history, was the total subversion of all previous thought, brought about by Protestantism. From the hour that men learned to think for themselves in religion, arts and sciences awoke into new life. It has been said that the genius of Protestantism is essentially productive of individualism. Its fundamental doctrine that in the soul of every man an immediate and personal relation not only may, but ought to, exist between him and his Maker, must pervade his ideas on other subjects and influence the minutiae of his every-day life. It is no religion if this be not the case. Rembrandt was the most individual painter of his age. No man enslaved by priestcraft, or with a mind imbued with a spurious theology, could have originated a school as Rembrandt did. Michael Angelo is another instance. It has never been pretended -even by those who were unable fully to enter into the breadth of his conceptions-that he has ever been equalled. The boldness, the vigour, the originality of thought which freedom and fearlessness of human condemnation alone can give, were part of Michael Angelo's religion, as his religion was part of himself. It was the same with Luther, when his mind revolted from the sale of indulgences. It was the first lesson he taught, that, "none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." "Though these three, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." To break down a barrier which the Church of Rome had been silently, century after century, raising higher and higher between God and man-the priest usurping the place of the one great Mediator-was the great practical business of Luther's life. To teach men individual responsibility; to encourage them in throwing off the trammels which a false standard of religion had imposed; to substitute for imposed penances a surrender, from the highest of all motives, of the will to God, and to substitute a living and joyful faith for the deadly fear of His wrath, in which many souls lived trembling lives and died terrified deaths, were Luther's aims. To teach people to worship as well as to read the Scriptures in their own tongue was one means to an end. To accomplish this, Luther brought to his aid scientific thought. To throw the teaching of the Scriptures into a portable form-to adapt the teaching he had given to the wants of the age, to the tastes and habits of his countrymen-he introduced hymnology into the Reformed Church, or, as it is known now in Germany, the Evangelical Church; the Reformed Church is Calvinistic. Brought up as a chorister, he was well acquainted, not only with all the best church music, but with all the popular tunes of the day. Not that these German popular tunes bore the slightest resemblance to what is known in our streets now as popular music. Comic songs were unknown, and nigger melodies yet unborn. The popular tunes of Germany were grave, broad, solid measures, particularly adapted for a number of voices, and therefore most suitable for what the exigency of the times demanded. In 1526 Luther had brought out a German liturgy; and then the want was felt of German psalms and hymns, to supply the place of the Latin hymns and sequences. This want Luther determined to supply. He was intensely fond of music and poetry, and, having been educated as a chorister, was no mean musician. He became, from this time forward, a vigorous reformer of church music and hymns, and enlisted in the same work a large circle of friends whom he gathered round him. So important a work did he consider this, that in 1524 he invited. Conrad Rupf, choirmaster to the Elector of Saxony, and Johann Walther, then choirmaster to Frederick the Wise at Jorgan, to live with him until the work of reforming and re-adapting the liturgy for popular use should be completed. With this "house-choir," as he calls it, he studied the old stores of church music, with which he had already a considerable acquaintance from his own education as a chorister, and selected those tunes which lent themselves best to the new purpose. A large number of chorales belonging to the old Latin hymns, others of German origin-whether sacred or, in some cases, secular-were thus appropriated; a still larger number of new tunes were composed. About fifteen chorales which have been adopted as hymn tunes are ascribed to Luther himself, but only three have actually been identified as his, these three being especially marked by Luther's own character-vigorous individuality. One of these ("Congregational Psalmist," 101, 102) is the best known. It appears in different books, under different names. The Rev. Henry Allon has called one setting by the generally-adopted name of "Luther;" the other he calls "Eisleben." In the "Bristol Tune-Book" it is also called "Luther's Hymn.” In "Hymns, Ancient and Modern," it is given as "Altorf." In "Kluge's Hymn-Book," published in 1535, from which our compilers have taken it, it is called "Nun freut Euch," from having been set by Luther to a hymn written by himself— "Dear Christian people, now rejoice." Those who have read "The Schönberg Cotta Family" can scarcely have forgotten the happy translation which Mrs. Charles has made of Luther's words to this tune. A tradition, however, exists that this tune was not altogether Luther's own composition, but that he noted it down from a travelling artisan. To give the Reformer the benefit of the doubt can be no great error. The Rev. Henry Allon has done the same with respect to nine other noble tunes which he has included in the "Psalmist." For these tunes Luther wrote about thirty-seven hymns. Of these, twelve were translations from the Latin, and four were renderings of the old Leisen-the popular songs of Germany. Even with the aid of his friends, all this was the work of four or five years, and four printers were kept constantly at work at Erfurt printing and publishing them. Can it, then, be denied that these hymn tunes were scientific? "The whole people," writes a Roman Catholic of that day, "is singing itself into this Lutheran doctrine"-inexplicable to authorities who took especial pains to exclude the printed teachings from finding entrance into their territory, all unknowing that they were being carried over the country by wandering students and pedlars, and becoming so popular that both hymns and the doctrines they embodied were taking deep root in the hearts of the people. Of the suitability of these tunes for congregational use the best proof is to be found in their universal introduction into all our best collections for use in the churches of Christians of all persuasions. The "Congregational Psalmist " contains between thirty and forty German tunes, the product of the sixteenth century only. The part in the Reformation which the singing of the metrical psalms had in England has been noticed. The German Lutheran hymn-singing answered in part to this; but, while the metrical psalms have fallen almost into disuse, the German hymns are better known and more appreciated every day. And it cannot be wondered at that such should be the case. Deep spiritual life is the inheritance of the Church in all ages. The truths which Luther taught were old as the foundation of the world, and will last while Christianity itself lasts. The metrical psalms were totally devoid of spirituality, except such as a far-fetched construction could place upon them. With the necessity of a protesting age which produced them, the reality of them passed away. Men of faith doubtless used them, and felt their value; but the very language of them is obsolete to us, and we turn far more readily to the voice of song of other periods, in which the wants, and hopes, and fears of our own souls are represented. Thus, as hymn-singing has had its place in all great religious movements-Luther in Germany, the metrical psalms in England, Whitfield and Wesley in the last century, the Revival hymns in America, and the Ritualistic in England-the consideration of the tunes to which the words were set opens up a most interesting field of study, and one which will richly repay the student. After giving a little attention to the history and construction of any tune, it will ever after become a source of greater interest, have a deeper meaning, and become more closely identified with the inner life of the student who has observed it. 43 A FAREWELL AND A WELCOME. FAREWELL, Old Year! farewell for evermore! Thy moments, weeks, and months, all-all are gone. And thou art buried with the years of old! Farewell, Old Year! thy flowers have shed their bloom, With thee both brave and good have sunk to rest; Farewell, Old Year! thy past of ill, farewell! And, with the records of the dead, be cast Welcome, New Year! welcome, with all that's new- Send forth o'er every land thy peaceful dove! O happy Year! that dawns upon the world, Telling the nations of a heavenly birth; Welcome, such Year! and may the New Year be By kings and councillors in amity Giving to earth the justice of the sky!— Hailing each help to do the good and true, Burying the past by bringing in the New! Cheltenham. A. MORTON BROWN. 44 PECULIARITIES OF AUTHORSHIP IN GERMANY. BY J. F. HURST, D.D. To commence with a hard Gradgrind fact, the annual issue of books in Germany reaches now beyond ten thousand separate works, including maps. The publishers' journals from the Fatherland tell us that the total number published there during 1871 was 10,669, being an increase of 611 upon the preceding year. Theology comes in for the greatest share of attention, being represented by 1,362 publications; jurisprudence and politics by 1,052; education by 1,059; belles lettres by 950; and history, including biography, by 891. These departments fall into some twenty subdivisions, so that it may be safely said there is no important field of thought or labour that is unrepresented in German authorship. Menzel said, many a year ago, that "in Germany alone, according to a moderate calculation, ten millions of volumes are annually printed. As the catalogue of every Leipzig half-yearly book contains the names of more than a thousand German authors, we may compute that at the present moment there are living in Germany about fifty thousand men who have written one or more books. Should that number increase at the same rate that it has hitherto done, the time will soon come when a catalogue of ancient and modern German authors will contain more names than there are living readers." A wonderful combination of qualities is needed for this great annual supply of literature from the German press. Patience! I have never seen such patience as that of the real German author. While his volume is in hand it becomes to him his planet, his home. Nothing that can enrich it escapes him. Despite his large familyand even Tacitus tells us that, among the barbarian Germans, to set limits to population by rearing up only a certain number of children and destroying the rest was accounted a flagitious crimehe regards his book with all the fondness of paternal attachment. It is always as the youngest member of his household, and must be treated with great consideration by every one. The German author never lets his pen get hasty. Hence it is found, as a rule, that the last page betrays all the provoking coolness and deliberation of the first. There is more directness and real point; but of impetuosity bis Pegasus is never guilty. The way in which he consults large collections of books is a marvel to us unresting Anglo-Saxons. I have seen him go into a library immediately after sipping his morning cup of coffee, and spend the entire day in examining authorities with as much ease and quiet as if the shadow of the sun never |