larly to conduct the public services and catechise the children, by reason of his capability, which was divinely bestowed. And this he did, until on account of old age he was no longer able. * * *
"In 1774, December twenty-first, he was attacked with vertigo, which left him quite weak. Repeated attacks followed at intervals of about two weeks leaving him every time in greater weakness. * * * On the eleventh of July 1775, we observed that he was even weaker than usual and that his feebleness was increasing. This continued until he lost his speech, and a few hours before his departure consciousness left him. On the above mentioned day, in the afternoon at 5 o'clock, calmly and but slightly disturbed, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, he fell asleep. The Lord be praised for having thus summoned him, and grant that we may be saved and follow him. Amen. Written in the year 1777. Christoph Hoffmann."
Rev. Christopher Hoffmann's earliest and most important contribution to Schwenkf elder hymnology was the manuscript hymn-book of 1760. A general characterization of this volume is contained in our Descriptive Bibliography. The pre-eminent feature of this hymn-book is the incorporation of the textual revision or "correction" of numerous hymns, made by Caspar Weiss and George Weiss. A detailed account of the nature and design of this textual study is included in the introduction. The hymns involved are principally those of the Bohemian Brethren. It appears that Caspar Weiss compared the hymns common to the various editions of the Bohemian hymn-book, ascertained the variant readings and then, whenever possible, restored the text of the earliest print of the hymn. If, in his opinion, the text was sectarian or otherwise open to criticism, he supplied his own revision. In the same way, George Weiss revised the non- Schwenkf elder hymns which he added to his father's collection. In the volume under discussion Christopher Hoffmann has indicated and recorded about five hundred of these "corrections," by writing in the margin in each instance either the unrevised variant, or the initial of the corrector. The results of this work were applied in large measure in the editing of the printed hymn-
