CHAPTER IV.
Hymns Used by the Schwenkfelders Before 1762.
In our account of the hymns sung by the Schwenkfelders prior to the appearance of the Saur edition, we are concerned chiefly with the American period. Among the followers of Schwenkfeld there have always been hymn-lovers, who have sought to preserve the hymns written by Schwenkfelders. Thus, in 1537, Valentin Ickelsamer[1] published at his own expense a letter of consolation received from Schwenkfeld during a serious illness, and with the letter Reissner's hymn: "In dich hab ich gehoffet, Herr." Thus about the middle of the century, Reissner wrote his Teglichs Gesangbuch, in which he preserved hundreds of the hymns of the earliest Schwenkfelder writers. Thus half a century later, Sudermann set forward the same work. Thus in the Seventeenth Century the hymns of Sudermann, Oelsner, Anna Hoyer, Heydrich and Martin John, Jr., were saved; and in the next century, despite the menace of persecution in Europe and the hardship of pioneer-life in America, Caspar Weiss, George Weiss, Balthaser Hoffmann, Christopher Kriebel, Hans Christoph Hiibner, Christopher Hoffmann, and Christopher Schultz all produced large transcripts of Schwenkfelder hymns.
These hymns, excepting such as were not suitably arranged to be sung, were preserved for use. To be sure, the early Schwenkfelders could not. like those who settled in America, as a sect establish churches, adopt an order of worship and prepare a hymn-book for general use. In these matters each community of Schwenkfelders was usually independent of all others, because of the state measures decreed to prevent religious conferences and public worship among them. In the Sixteenth Century, followers of Schwenkfeld were found, not only in Silesia, but in many parts of Germany and in Moravia, Switzerland and Holland. Strassburg, Augsburg and Ulm were leading centres.
- ↑ Cf. Schneider, loco citato, p. 7.
