112 OUR HYMNS :
the same year "A Collection of Hymns for the parish of Berthels- dorf;" and, in 1727, for the spiritual benefit of the German Catholics, he published " A Selection of Prayers and Hymns from AngelusSilesius, an eminent German mystic poet." All his life he was writing hymns as a child, and in old age amid the excite ment of Paris, and when in the quietude of Berthelsdorf. Some of his best were written on his voyage to America, in 1741. There was a period in the history of his hymn-writing between 1740 and 1750 when they gave expression to compassion and gratitude for Christ s physical sufferings rather than to the Scripture view of the meaning and value of the Atonement. These he after wards suppressed. He wrote in all about two thousand hymns 128 are in the "English Hymn Book" used by the United Brethren. Many of the hymns were produced extemporaneously. The Brethren took them down and preserved them. Zinzendorf says of them, in speaking of his services at Berlin : " After the discourse, I generally announce another hymn appropriate to the subject. When I cannot find one, I compose one ; I say, in the Saviour s name, what comes into my heart. I am, as ever, a poor sinner, a captive of eternal love, running by the side of His triumphal chariot, and have no desire to be anything else as long as I live."
The two hymns by Zinzendorf in the " New Congregational" represent, the one, No. 662, his simplicity and life-trust; and the other, No. 325, his hearty acceptance of the great doctrine of justification by Jesus. They were written during what is re garded as his best time of hymn-writing.
" Jesus, still lead on." (No. C62), " Jesu geh voran,"
was written in 1741, when as a young man he was preferring suffering with Christ to state honours and worldly rewards. The translation in the " New Congregational " is that given in " Hymns from the Land of Luther," 1853.
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