HYMNS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

YMNS have helped many Christians over the hard places in life. As music spurs the soldier to battle, so also it inspires the Christian to spiritual heroism. The trials and temptations of life have tuned many a Christian poet's lyre. Thus out of the personal experience of the poets of the Church have come hymns which are most helpful in lifting us up and carrying us over the rough and hard places in the Christian pathway.

Of hymns of this type, one which is at once a guide and an inspiration is that widely known and loved hymn of Count Zinzendorf, which in English begins, "Jesus, still lead on."

"JESU, GEH VORAN"

Jesus, still lead on,

Till our Rest be won!

And although the way be cheerless,
We will follow, calm and fearless.
Guide us by Thy hand

To our Fatherland!

If the way be drear,

If the foe be near,

Let not faithless fears o'ertake us,

Let not faith and hope forsake us;

For through many a foe

To our home we go!

When we seek relief
From a long-felt grief;

When temptations come alluring,
Make us patient and enduring:
Show us that bright shore
Where we weep no more!

Jesus, still lead on,

Till our Rest be won;
Heavenly Leader, still direct us,
Still support, console, protect us,
Till we safely stand

In our Fatherland!

This hymn, written in 1721 by Nikolas Ludwig, Count Zinzendorf, is in extensive use both in German and in English. It has become a great favorite and is especially popular as a hymn for children.

The author, Count Zinzendorf, was born at Dresden, May 26, 1700. He secured his education at Halle and Wittenberg. As a young man he was very serious and deeply religious. Possessed of large estates, he by force of his nature, sympathized with the persecuted Moravians and shielded and domiciled many of them on his estate. He later united with the Brethren's Church, founded the settlement of Herrnhut as a refuge, and ultimately became a Moravian minister and bishop.

It is said of Zinzendorf that his consecration to the religious life was simultaneous with his study of the "Ecce Homo" in the Dusseldorf Gallery. This, as our readers know, is a wonderful painting of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns. It is said that as Zinzendorf looked at this picture, noting the sad face and blood-red drops and read the superscription, "This have I done for thee; what hast thou done for me?" he instantly took as the motto

of his life, "I have but one passion, and that is He and only He." It is only another way of saying as Paul the apostle said, "For me to live is Christ."

Zinzendorf wrote his first hymn when he was only twelve years old. He wrote his last one in 1760. Between these dates he wrote more than two thousand hymns. Few, however, have lived. His best hymns were among his earlier productions. In Europe, perhaps, his most widely used hymn is "Jesu, geh voran," a hymn which is well and favorably known in English in Miss Borthwick's translation as given above.

John Wesley has translated for us another well known and widely used hymn by Zinzendorf, which, being a hymn of faith and justification, the foundation principles of the true Christian life, is a most valuable contribution to evangelical hymnody. This hymn was written in 1739.

WESLEY'S TRANSLATION OF ZINZENDORF'S HYMN

Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully through these absolved I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

This spotless robe the same appears,
When ruined nature sinks in years;
No age can change its constant hue;
Thy Blood preserves it ever new.

Oh, let the dead now hear Thy voice;
Now bid Thy banished ones rejoice!
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness!

When from the dust of death I rise,
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Even then this shall be all my plea,
"Jesus hath lived and died for me."

A hymn which is a prayer for guidance in the Christian life which claims two men by the name of Williams as its author comes to us from the musical Welsh people. We refer to the hymn, "Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah." The hymn was originally written in Welsh by the Rev. William Williams in 1745. His fellow-countryman, the Rev. Peter Williams, translated the hymn into English, making many alterations and substitutions in the second and third verses. Thus only the first stanza belongs indisputably to the original Williams; but as the Rev. William Williams is said to have been consulted and to have approved the alterations made by the Rev. Peter Williams, the authorship is rightly considered as a mutual work of the two Welsh clergymen.

A WELSH HYMN WITH TWO AUTHORS

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven,

Feed me till I want no more!