18 OUR HYMNS :
panied with learned annotations. Nor should we omit his " Treatise on Good Works," published in 1520, in which he affirms the doctrine of "justification by faith only."
Luther was exceedingly fond of music and poetry. He ranked music next in place to theology. In the " concord of sweet sounds," he found solace in trouble and stimulus in his exhaus ting enterprises. He regarded it as a moral power for good, and an important element in good education. No teacher, he said, was worthy of the name who could not teach music; and he was most particular that his own son should be properly educated in it ; and he took care to enlist this auxiliary in the service of the [Reformation. At his own house he gathered a band of men skilled in music, with whose assistance he arranged to his own heart- stirring words the old and favorite melodies of Germany, taking care to adapt them to congregational worship, so that the people might resume that place in public praise of which their Komish guides had deprived them.
To provide the people with suitable psalms and hymns in their own tongue to be sung to these tunes, he translated some of the noblest of David s psalms. In writing to thank Eobanus Hesse for a copy of his translation of the psalms into Latin verse, Luther says, "I confess myself to be one of those who are more influenced and delighted by poetry, than by the most eloquent oration even of Cicero or Demosthenes. If I am thus affected by other subjects, you will believe how much more I am influenced by the Psalms. From my youth I have constantly studied them with much delight, and, blessed be God, not without considerable fruit. I will not speak of my gifts as preferable to those of others, but I glory in this, that, for all the thrones and kingdoms of the world, I would not relinquish what I have gained by meditating upon the psalms, through the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Nor would I be guilty of such foolish humility as to dissemble the gifts of God implanted in me. For of myself there is enough, and more than enough, which humbles me and teaches me I am nothing ; but in God I may glory, and rejoice and triumph in
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