sought to make good use of Sundays and holydays, and also for the training, he enlarged the first collection, making a fourfold division of the hymns for each Sunday, as it still exists. At that time the hymns on the Epistle lessons also were added; and this augmentation receives further mention in the preface. He also wrote at this time the prayer strophes intended as addenda to the hymns of Daniel Sudermann. But with regard to the arrangement of this collection, it should be noted, that he had no thought that it would be imitated (as has been the case), although it was transcribed in his life-time, and I too have transcribed it; but he prepared it for his own private use. And for the divisions "Vor-Mittage" and "Nach-Alittage" he chose the more familiar, for the other two divisions however the less familiar hymns. And furthermore he arranged it in such a way that, as far as might be practicable, there would be a uniform metre for the singing of the hymns. Accordingly he counted the syllables, and placed one hymn here and another there, with the result that the hymns in the matter of theme have no sequence. For I well know, that if he had known that it was destined to be a permanent work, he would have arranged it differently. Indeed he said to me at one time: 'If I were to arrange it now, it might be that a number of the hymns would not be included.' This I submit, not to censure or to condemn the work of George Weiss, but for the sake of exact knowledge."
Summarizing, now, with respect to constituency and size, the collection of George Weiss was composed of: (1) The entire collection of 1709, numbering 874 hymns; (2) the Sudermann hymns as revised by Weiss—230 in number; (3) the "Epistel-lieder," by Hoffmann, 106 hymns; (4) the "Meditationes" by the compiler himself, 178 hymns; and (5) 171 hymns of a miscellaneous character. Total, 1559 hymns.[1]Such was the Schwenkfelder hymn collection as it came from the hands of Rev. George Weiss. It was completed on the eve of the departure of the Schwenkfelders from Saxony. In September of the year 1734, with its author it reached the genial land of Perm; and for upwards of thirty years it served as the hymnary of the
- ↑ Compare with this, The Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania, p. 107.
