German
by the greatest of all Lutheran hymnists, Paul Gerhardt. Lauxmann has
well said: "Bernard's original is powerful and searching, but Gerhardt's
hymn is still more powerful and profound, as re-drawn from the deeper
spring of evangelical Lutheran, Scriptural knowledge and fervency of
faith."

Gerhardt's version in turn was translated into English by James W.
Alexander of Princeton, a Presbyterian. Thus, as Dr. Philip Schaff puts
it: "This classic hymn has shown in three tongues--Latin, German and
English--and in three confessions--Roman, Lutheran and Reformed--with
equal effect the dying love of our Saviour and our boundless indebtedness
to Him."

Yet another Lutheran, none other than John Sebastian Bach, "high priest
of church music," has contributed to the fame of the hymn by giving the
gripping tune to which it is sung its present form. Strangely enough,
this remarkable minor melody was originally a rather frivolous German
folksong, and was adapted by Hans Leo Hassler in 1601 to the hymn,
"Herzlich thut mich verlangen." It was Bach, however, who moulded the
tune into the "Passion Chorale," one of the world's masterpieces of
sacred music.

Many touching stories have been recorded concerning this famous hymn. In
1798, when Christian Schwartz, the great Lutheran missionary to India,
lay dying, his Indian pupils gathered around his bed and sang in their
own Malabar tongue the last verses of the hymn, Schwartz himself joining
in the singing till his voice was silenced in death.

Of Bernard of Clairvaux, the writer of the hymn, volumes might be
written. Luther paid him an eloquent tribute, when he said: "If there has
ever been a pious monk who feared God it was St. Bernard, whom alone I
hold in much higher esteem than all other monks and priests throughout
the globe."

Probably no preacher ever exerted a more profound influence over the age
in which he lived than did this Cistercian monk. It was the death of his
mother, when he was twenty years old, that seemed to have been the
turning point in his life. The son of a Burgundian knight, he had planned
to become a priest, but now he determined to enter a monastery. He did
not go alone, however, but took with him twelve companions, including an
uncle and four of his five brothers!

When he was only twenty-four years old, in the year 1115, he founded a
monastery of his own, which was destined to become one of the most famous
in history. It was situated in a valley