THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 149
adapted some of the old Latin hymns which he greatly loved, then he wrote German hymns which went direct to the heart of the people. His skill as a musician greatly increased the impression He said, Music is one of the most beautiful and noble gifts of God. It is the best solace to a man in sorrow ; it quiets, quickens, and refreshes the heart. Luther eagerly sought helpers in the work of providing hymns. He wrote to Spalatin, We seek everywhere for poets. Now as you are such a master of the German tongue and are so mighty and eloquent therein, I entreat you to join hands with us in this work, and to turn one of the Psalms into a hymn. I desire that the words may be all quite plain and common, that the meaning should be given clearly and graciously, according to the sense of the Psalm itself. He says in the preface to his hymn-book of 1545 that he hoped that music, this beautiful ornament, might in a right manner serve the great Creator and His Christian people. The students at Wittenberg caught up his hymns, and spread them over Germany. Joachim I, of Bran- denberg, issued a stern decree against the use of them in 1526, but that only promoted their circulation. The monks said, Luther has done us more harm by his songs than his sermons. Coleridge goes further : Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by his translation of the Bible. Luther died at Eisleben, where he was born, in 1546.
Hymn 174. Christ the Lord is risen again. MICHAEL WEISSE ; translated by Miss WINKWORTH (19).
Christus ist erstanden, Von des Todes Banden appeared in 1531, suggested by Christ ist erstanden, one of the first German hymns, traced as early as the twelfth century.
Miss Winksvorth s translation is in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Scries, 1858.
Weisse was born at Neisse, in Silesia, in 1480. He was a monk in Breslau, but Luther s early writings led him and two other monks to leave the convent for the Bohemian Brethren s House at Leutomischl, Bohemia. He became a preacher among them at Landskron in Bohemia, and Fulneck in Moravia. He went with a companion in 1522 to explain the views of the Bohemian Brethren to Luther, and edited their first German hymn-book in 1531. It seems to have contained 155 hymns,
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