through his influence
that the Lutheran teachings were approved by the Diet af Vesteras in
1527. The younger of the Petri brothers, Laurentius, was named Archbishop
of Upsala, Primate of Sweden, in 1531.

The Swedish reformers were apt pupils of Luther and quickly made use of
the same spiritual weapons in their own country that he had found so
effective in Germany. It is significant that the Word of God and a
hymn-book in the vernacular were given to the Swedish people in the same
year. It was in 1526 that Laurentius Andreae published his translation of
the New Testament in Swedish, and simultaneously Olavus Petri issued a
little hymn-book entitled, "Swedish Hymns or Songs."

This marked the beginning of evangelical hymnody in Sweden. The little
book contained only ten hymns, five of which are believed to have been
original productions of Olavus Petri himself, and the other five
translations from Luther's first hymn-book of 1524. Although no copy of
the first Swedish hymn-book is now known to exist, it is believed that
Petri's beautiful hymn, "Our Father, merciful and good," appeared in this
historic collection. It occurs in a second edition, called "A Few Godly
Songs Derived from Holy Writ," published by the Swedish reformer in 1530.
A few fragmentary pages of this hymn-book were discovered in 1871.

How far Olavus Petri had imbibed the spirit of Luther is reflected not
only by the fiery zeal with which he proclaimed the doctrines of the
Reformation in Sweden, but also in the character of his hymns. "Our
Father, merciful and good" is so strongly suggestive of Luther's style
that it was regarded for a long time as a translation of one of Luther's
hymns. It is now known that there is no such hymn of German origin.

Most of Petri's hymns, however, are translations of German or Latin
originals. One of these is the beautiful Advent hymn:

Now hail we our Redeemer,
Eternal Son of God,
Born in the flesh to save us,
And cleanse us in His blood.
The Morning Star ascendeth,
Light to the world He lendeth,
Our Guide in grief and gloom.

Although this hymn was translated by Petri from the German, it is
believed that it dates back to a Latin hymn by Ambrose in the fourth
century. Another of Latin origin is the glad Easter hymn:

Blest Easter day, what joy is thine!
We praise, dear Lord, Thy Name divine,
For Thou hast triumphed o'er the tomb;
No more we need to dread its gl