virtue. What remained of Christianity was a mere shadow: a
hypothesis concerning God and immortality, and a teaching of external
morality, the attainment of which was largely a matter of man's own
efforts.

Rationalism cast its blight over the hymnody of all Europe, but
particularly in Germany. It was the golden age of German literature, but
such geniuses as Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Wieland were not filled
with the Christian zeal of earlier poets, and they wrote no hymns. Most
of the hymns that were produced were so tinged with the spirit of the
"new theology" that they contained no elements of vitality to give them
permanent value.

The Rationalists were not satisfied with criticizing the Bible; they also
sought to "purge" the hymn-books. The old hymns of Luther, Heermann,
Selnecker, and Gerhardt were so completely altered that a noted German
hymnologist, Albert Knapp, was moved to observe ironically: "The old
hymns were subjected to a kind of transmigration of soul by which their
spirits, after having lost their own personality, entered into other
bodies."

Only a few writers, such as Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Balthasar
Muenter, Christian Gellert and Matthias Claudius, wrote hymns of any
abiding worth.

Klopstock, the German Milton, whose epic, "Messiah," thrilled Germany as
had no other poetic work in centuries, essayed to write a few hymns, but
he soared too high. His hymns lacked simplicity of style and were too
emotional and subjective to be used for public worship. Only two English
translations are familiar--"Blessed are the heirs of heaven," a funeral
hymn, and "Grant us, Lord, due preparation," a communion hymn.

Klopstock spent nearly twenty years of his life at the Danish court,
having been invited there by King Fredrik V through the influence of
Count von Bernstorff, who had become greatly interested in the epic,
"Messiah." The Danish monarch gave the poet an annual pension in order to
assist him in completing his famous poem without being oppressed by
financial worries. In 1770 Klopstock returned to Hamburg, where he died
in 1803.

Gellert, who was born in Hainichen, Saxony, July 4, 1715, intended to
become a Lutheran pastor. After completing his theological course at the
University of Leipzig, however, he found it difficult to deliver sermons
without the use of a manuscript, and therefore decided to take up
teaching. In 1745 he became a member of the faculty of the University of
Leipzig, w