voice and was
unable to continue his pulpit duties. However, he believed implicitly in
the Pauline teaching that "to them that love God all things work together
for good," and, when his voice became silent, his spirit began to sing
hymns richer and sweeter than ever. Witness, for example, the note of
tenderness in the last stanza of his baptismal hymn, "God, in human flesh
appearing":

Feeble is the love of mother,
Father's blessings are as naught,
When compared, my King and Brother,
With the wonders Thou hast wrought;
Thus it pleased Thy heavenly meekness;
Pleasing also be my praise,
Till my songs of earthly weakness
Burst into celestial lays.

Hiller was a prolific writer, his hymns numbering no less than 1,075 in
all. Most of these were written for his devotional book, "Geistliches
Liederkaestlein," a work that holds an honored place beside the Bible in
many pious homes in southern Germany. Indeed, it has been carried by
German emigrants to all parts of the world. It is related that when a
Germany colony in the Caucasus was attacked by a fierce Circassian tribe
about a hundred years ago, the parents cut up their copies of the
"Liederkaestlein" and distributed its leaves among their children who were
being carried off into slavery. Hiller's hymns, though simple in form and
artless in expression, have retained a strong hold on the people of
Wuerttemberg and are extensively used to this day. Among the more popular
are "O boundless joy, there is salvation," "Jesus Christ as King is
reigning," and "O Son of God, we wait for Thee."

Hiller's rule for hymn-writing, as set forth in one of his prefaces,
could be followed with profit by many modern writers of sentimental
tendencies. He says: "I have always striven for simplicity. Bombastic
expressions of a soaring imagination, a commonplace and too familiar
manner of speaking of Christ as a brother, of kisses and embraces, of
individual souls as the particular Bride of Christ, of naive and pet
images for the Christ-child,--all these I have scrupulously avoided, and
serious-minded men will not blame me if, in this respect, I have revered
the majesty of our Lord."

Another representative of the Wuerttemberg school was Baron Christoph Carl
Ludwig von Pfeil, a diplomat of high attainments and noble, Christian
character. In September, 1763, he was appointed by Frederick the Great as
Prussian ambassador to the Diets of Swabia and Franco