HYMNS OF WORSHIP; Designed for use especially in the Lecture-room, the Prayermeeting and the Family. Selected and arranged by a pastor. Philadelphia: Wm. S. & Alfred Martien. 1859.

HYMNS AND DEVOTIONAL POETRY. Collected and arranged by C. W. ANDREWS. New-York: Prot. Episc. Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge, 11 Bible House, Astor Place. 1858.

SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY HYMNS, PRIVATE, FAMILY AND SOCIAL; collected from various authors, for the use of Christians in their different relations, circumstances, and states of mind. By JOSIAH PRATT, B.D., Vicar of St. Stephen's, Coleman street, London. London: L. & G. Seeley.

HYMNS OF FAITH AND HOPE, By HORATIUS BONAR, D.D., Kelso, author of the "Night of Weeping," "The Morning of Joy," etc. New-York: Robert Carter & Brothers.

1857.

HYMNS OF THE CHURCH MILITANT. New-York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1858. THE VOICE OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN SONG; or, Hymns and Hymn-Writers of many Lands and Ages. New-York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1859.

HYMNS OF THE AGES. Being Selections from Lyra Catholica, Germanica, Apostolica, and other sources. With an introduction by Rev. F. D. HUNTINGDON, D.D. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1859.

GERMAN hymnology has at least one distinctive feature which separates it from that of England. The literature of the Reformation in Germany was in great part lyrical: that in England dialectic. Luther's hymns were the battle-cries of the German reformers-they sang them in the camp and in the fight, as well as in the popular religious assemblies. The great national hymn of Germany was: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," in which with the skillful and firm touch of true courage, the great reformer himself bound forever together in the same instrument the chords of German nationality and of the Protestant faith. With us, however, the case was far different. We have no hymns coëval with our vernacular Bible. Quarles comes nearest to this, for his "Divine Emblems" were published almost contemporaneously with the first edition of the Bible under King James. But notwithstanding the merit of Quarles, his hymns have been dropped from all our modern collections, with the honorable exception of that lately issued by the Evangelical Knowledge Society, which gives in full those noble lines, beginning: "O mother dear, Jerusalem!" And after Quarles we have a blank in the

list of hymn authors in present use which does not stop until we reach the name of Isaac Watts.

In Germany the reformation not only began with hymns, but continued to rely on them as a main part of its machinery. It did wisely. "Give me the songs of a people," said Talleyrand, "and I will give you their laws." The Anglican Communion suffered greatly in passing over this great weapon to those who receded from her fold. She is now acting more wisely, and with an effect which shows how many a sad schism would have been prevented had she consented at the outset to speak to the people with a mother's tongue as well as with a mother's care. Luther, with his instinctive sagacity, and with his broad and manly responsiveness to human want and feeling, saw at the outset that poetry and music, viewing them even in their homeliest sense, were to be the two great agents by which the popular depths were to be stirred. So energetic and copious was he in the work, that we have even now no less than fifty of his hymns in use in the congregational collections of Germany and America. Melanchthon's refined tastes and classical pen were drawn in to aid his more robust leader: and though Melanchthon's hymns were written in Latin, (for example, Dicimus grates tibi, and Nil sum nulla miser,) they were translated into German, and at once took their place in the vernacular collections.

Viewed chronologically, German hymn-writing falls into three main eras. Of Luther, as a hymnist, we may hereafter speak more fully, but before doing so, we may be permitted to glance for one moment at his immediate lyrical coädjutors. Of these the most prominent, so far as the composition of hymns was concerned, were Paul Eber, Spengler, and Speratus.

Paul Eber, or Paulus Eberus, as according to the fashion of those days he was called, was born on the 8th of November, 1511, at Kitzingen, and died in Wittemberg in 1569 as Professor of Theology and General Superintendent. Luther's charge to him, reported, as we think, in his Table-Talk, is not a little characteristic of both. "Tu vocaris Paulus. Moneo igitur te, ut exemplo Pauli studeas constanter conservare et tueri doctrinam, quam Paulus tradidit." Of Eber's hymns, which,

while instinct with the same evangelical spirit with those of Luther, and while superior in rhythm and literary elegance to those of the great reformer, are yet deficient in that extraordinary fire and energy of diction which made the words of the latter "battles," we have some twenty which continue to make their appearance in the German collections. There was a tenderness about Eber which displays itself not only in his devotional poetry, but in the incidental allusions to his own family. Thus the hymn, "Helft mir Gott's Güte preisen, ihr lieben Kinderlein," ("Help me praise our Father's goodness, dearest child of mine,") was addressed by him to his little daughter Helena, and was afterwards caught up and introduced into the popular psalmody not only of that but of our own day. Prominent, also, among the German songs "for the little ones at home," is a hymn dedicated by him to his son and namesake. When we look at these little hymns we forget PAULUS EBERUS, the Reformer and General Superintendent, in Paul Eber, the father, and the home Christian. It is such glimpses as these in the old German history, that bring the reformation in all its robustness as well as its tenderness, to our hearts and hearths.

Of Eber's hymns, the following, which has kept its place in all collections, from that of Hamburg in 1565, to those of our own day, is the only one which we can here give. The translation now before us is that of Miss Winkworth, (Lyra Germ. 239,) and will be familiar to many of our readers, from the fact that three of its verses are introduced in the collection of the Evangelical Knowledge Society. Under the title, "Herr Jesu Christ, wahr'r Mensch und Gott," it was published in the Hamburg collection of 1565, and derived an early celebrity from the fact that it was sung by the bedside of the dying Grotius at his request. Perhaps we may discover in this the germ of our "Rock of Ages."

Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God,
Who borest anguish, scorn, the rod,
And diedst at last upon the tree,
To bring Thy Father's grace to me:
I pray Thee, through that bitter woe,
Let me, a sinner, mercy know.

When comes the hour of failing breath,
And I must wrestle, Lord, with death,
When from my sight all fades away,
And when my tongue no more can say,
And when mine ears no more can hear,
And when my heart is racked with fear;

When all my mind is darkened o'er,
And human help can do no more,
Then come, Lord Jesus, come with speed,

And help me in my hour of need.
Lead me from this dark vale beneath,
And shorten then the pangs of death.

All evil spirits drive away,
But let Thy Spirit with me stay

Until my soul the body leave:

Then in Thy hands my soul receive,

And let the earth my body keep,

Till the Last Day shall break its sleep.

Joyful my resurrection be,

Thou in the Judgment plead for me,
And hide my sins, Lord from Thy face,
And give me Life of Thy dear grace!
I trust Thee utterly, my Lord,
For Thou hast promised in Thy Word.

Dear Lord, forgive us all our guilt,
Help us to wait until Thou wilt
That we depart; and let our faith
Be brave and conquer e'en in death,
Firm resting on Thy sacred word,

Until we sleep in Thee, our Lord.

LAZARUS SPENGLER was born in March, 1479, at Nuremberg, and died in that town in 1534, holding a prominent civil office. Of him Carnerarius speaks: Nomine quidem scriba senatorius, sed revera consiliorum omnium fere auctor et gubernator. And Luther, who after the death of Spengler, published the latter's Declaration of Faith, said in the preface: "I have published this confession (Bekenntniss) of that truly worthy man, Lazarus Spengler, as showing how a true Christian can faithfully receive God's word, can heartily believe it, can effectively execute it, and at last, when he comes to die, can firmly and bravely confess it, to the comfort and strengthening

of all weak Christians." Of Spengler's hymns, the only one which has present currency in the German churches is that beginning "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt," etc. That neither Miss Winkworth, nor the translator of "Hymns of the Land of Luther," should have attempted a translation of this very rugged and prosaic, though doctrinally faithful hymn, we are not surprised. We give as a specimen, an accurate translation of the first verse:

Through Adam's fall,
Destroyed is all,

Of life in man's condition;
The poison then

Which came on men

With men has no physician!
Naught but God's grace

Can save our race

From this the desolated.

For which the snake

Did Eve beguile

To brave God's condemnation.

This, we confess, is very awkward, but the original is almost as much so. Let us keep in mind, however, the difficulties of the metre and the necessity of a severe and precise rendering of the doctrinal truths to be versified, and we can see a great deal to admire in the homely energy with which the fundamental dogmas of the reformation were thus wrought into language so vigorous and set to music so animating that it has never since lost its hold.

PAUL SPERATUS, whose bugle, less sonorous than Luther's, though less harsh than Spengler's, rose clear and loud with that of his great chief over the tumults of the early battles, was of a Swabian family, and was born in December, 1484. He rose to a high ecclesiastical dignity, holding, when he died, the important offices of Chaplain to the then Duchy of Prussia, and Bishop of Parneza. In early life he was conspicuous for his bold onslaughts on Popery in Augsburg, Salzburg, and Vienna, and was at one time thrown into prison on this account in Olmütz. After his discharge, he became acquainted with Luther, who procured for him the Prussian preferments we