dedicated,
so greatly appreciated the gift that, only three years later, he called
their otherwise obscure author to become bishop of Fyn, one of the
largest and most important dioceses of the country.

Kingo was only forty-two years old when he assumed his new position. His
quick elevation from an obscure parish to one of the highest offices
within the church might well have strained the abilities of an older and
more experienced man. But there can be no doubt that he filled his high
position with signal ability. He was both able and earnest, both
practical and spiritual. His diocese prospered under his care and his
work as a bishop, aside from his renown as a poet, was outstanding enough
to give him an enviable reputation in his own generation.

But since his permanent fame and importance rest upon his achievement as
a hymnwriter, his appointment as bishop probably must be counted as a
loss, both to himself and to the church. His new responsibilities and the
multifarious duties of his high office naturally left him less time for
other pursuits. He traveled, visited and preached almost continuously
throughout his large charge, and it appears like a miracle that under
these circumstances, he still found time to write hymns. But in 1684,
only two years after his consecration as bishop, he published the second
part of _Spiritual Song-Choir_.

This book bears a dedication to the queen, Charlotte Amalia. She was
German by birth and a pious, able and distinguished woman in her own
right. Kingo praises her especially for her effort to learn and speak the
Danish language. In this respect, he declares, "Her Majesty put many to
shame who have eaten the king's bread for thirty years without learning
to speak thirty words of Danish, because they hold it to be a homespun
language, too coarse for their silky tongues".

_Spiritual Song-Choir, Part II_ contains twenty hymns and seventeen
"sighs", thus outwardly following the arrangement of Part I. But the
content is very different. The hymns are songs of penitence, repentance
and faith. They show mastery of form, a wealth of imagery, a facility for
concentrated expression and a range of sentiment from stark despair to
the most confident trust that is, perhaps, unequalled in Danish poetry.
It is an embattled soul that speaks through these hymns, a soul that has
faced the abyss and clung heroically, but not always successfully, to the
pinnacle of faith. One feels that the man who pe