it of the old church hymns."

Two of the hymns of Nicolai that Landstad attempted to translate were
"Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" and "Wie schoen leuchtet der
Morgenstern," noble classics that have never been excelled. The young
student was so successful in his rendering of the former hymn that it
subsequently found a place in the Norwegian church hymnary.

Landstad was born October 7, 1802, in Maaso, Finnmarken, Norway, where
his father was pastor of the Lutheran church. This parish is at the
extreme northern point of Norway, and so Landstad himself wrote, "I was
baptized in the northernmost church in the world." Later the family moved
to Oksnes, another parish among the frozen fjords of the Norse seacoast.

"The waves of the icy Arctic," he writes poetically, "sang my cradle
lullaby; but the bosom of a loving mother warmed my body and soul."

The stern character of the relentless North, with its solitude, its
frozen wastes, its stormy waters and its long months of winter darkness,
no doubt left a profound and lasting impression upon the lad whose early
years were spent in such environments. The Napoleonic wars were also
raging, and it was a time of much sorrow and suffering among the common
people. When the boy was nine years old the family removed to Vinje.
Although they continued to suffer many hardships, the natural
surroundings at this place were more congenial, and in summer the
landscape was transformed into a magic beauty that must have warmed the
heart and fired the childish imagination of the future hymnist.

Magnus was the third in a family of ten children. Although sorely pressed
by poverty, the father recognized unusual talent in the boy, and at the
age of twenty years he was sent to the university in Christiania. During
his first year at the institution two of his brothers died. Young
Landstad was greatly cast down in spirit, but out of the bitterness of
this early bereavement came two memorial poems that are believed to
represent his first attempt at verse-writing.

In 1827 he completed his theological studies at the university and the
following year he was appointed resident vicar of the Lutheran church at
Gausdal. During his pastorate at this place he wrote his first hymn. In
1834 he became pastor at Kviteseid, where he continued the writing of
hymns and other poems. Five years later he became his father's successor
as pastor of the parish at Seljord. It was here, in 1841, that he
published hi