WESLEY'S HYMN ON THE ASCENSION Hail the day that sees Him rise, There for Him high triumph waits; Lo! the heaven its Lord receives, See, He lifts His hands above! See, He shows the prints of love! Hark, His gracious lips bestow Blessings on His Church below! Still for us His death He pleads; Lord, though parted from our sight, There we shall with Thee remain, There Thy face unclouded see, Find our heaven of heavens in Thee. HYMNS TO THE HOLY SPIRIT YMNS which lift the soul to God in worship, at the same time by the power of their devotional approach to God most effectively teach the things which pertain to God. Many good Christians have found truth, indelibly stamped it on their minds, and have been gripped by spiritual impulses through some verse of a beautiful hymn-a hymn which carries the gospel theme beyond the theory, and, so to speak, grafts it into the soul itself. It is this fact which renders vital to a unified and effective service the complete harmonization of the Scripture lessons and the hymn selections with the theme of the day. Herein lies one of the chief beauties and benefits which follow the arrangement of the church year. By the systematic and logically arranged unfolding of the gospel with the life of Christ and His works and teachings as the guiding principle, unity and harmony, as well as fulness of the presentation of truth are almost compelled. Thus when the Pentecostal festival approaches, naturally the work of the Holy Spirit is emphasized. Otherwise the very nature of the Third Person of the Trinity and the type of work which is done for man by the Holy Spirit would result in an under-emphasis of that which is so important that Christ Himself told His disciples that it was expedient for them that He should go away in order that the Holy Spirit might come unto them. The constant and necessary presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, a presence promised by the Saviour Him self, which promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, is often most effectively impressed upon the minds of Christian people through the use of the hymns of invocation of the Holy Spirit. An orderly service is most properly opened with such a hymn. One of Luther's great hymns is his "Komm Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott." It is an amplification of an old German version of a still older Latin hymn, the "Veni Sancte Spiritus." This hymn as Luther wrote it, with its old tune, was first published in German in 1524. LUTHER'S HYMN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord! To strengthen, save, and make us whole. Lord, by the brightness of Thy light, Thou strong Defence, Thou holy Light, That we may love not doctrines strange, But Jesus for our Master own, And put our trust in Him alone. Thou sacred Ardor, Comfort sweet, Lord, make us ready with Thy powers; Through life and death to Thee our course! This hymn, so rich in devotion and instruction, has an abundant history of its own. We are told that it rapidly came into great favor among the common people. An evidence of this is the fact which the historian narrates, namely, that in 1526, at the battle of Frankenhausen, in the Peasants' War, a whole host of them stood immovable singing this hymn. According to the story, the Landgrave of Hesse gave the order to attack, but the peasants remained unmoved, neither retreating nor defending themselves, but singing and waiting for the miraculous help of God, which their leader, Thomas Münzer, had predicted. As they sang about 50,000 of them were slain and the rest were finally dispersed. Another instance which illustrates the power which this hymn soon secured over the minds and hearts of the people occurred in August, 1527. It was August 16th that Leonard Kayser was burned at the stake because of his evangelical preaching, which fact stresses the heroism of the men of the times of Luther, who preached and defended the Reformation doctrines. As the preparations for Kayser's martyrdom were completed he asked the people to sing "Komm Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott." With deep emotion they sang, and while the flames leaped up his own voice was heard as he cried out, "Jesus, I am Thine; save me." Repeating these words several times, he died. It is told of a family in Silesia that in the midst of a terrible storm in 1535 they sat singing this hymn and were uninjured, while the roof of their home was blown from over their heads. The wife of the celebrated Frederic Perthes, of Hamburg, sent several stanzas of this hymn to her son, who was a student at the university, as a birthday greeting. Most appropriate it was, especially in those times. The third and fourth stanzas were those which she sent. They would not be amiss as a message to the university student of today. This hymn of Luther's is most appropriate as the opening hymn of invocation at public worship. It found place in this position in the official jubilee celebration service, which inaugurated the great quadricentennial jubilee of the Protestant Reformation. With many ministers it is a favorite, not only for use in public worship, but also in private devotion. Not a few instances are told of the use of this hymn or portions of it as the thought to sustain the soul at the moment of its departure from the flesh. There are a number of translations of this hymn, which fact is an evidence of the wide appreciation of its value as a devotional hymn and medium of instruction concerning the person and work of the Holy Ghost. The translation which we have given is that of Miss Winkworth, made in 1855. Luther wrote another hymn of invocation of the Holy Ghost, which was first published in Walther's hymn book in 1524. The first verse of this hymn is credited to a priest and poet of the twelfth century. Luther's hymn, which was translated into Latin in 1550 and into Tamil for use by that pioneer of Christian missions in India, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, in 1723, was once used under very peculiar circumstances. The story is told in "The Stories of Evangelical Hymns," by Karl Heinrich. It was not long after Luther had written and published it that about eighty fishermen were fishing on the ice between. |