Most of the hymns under the last two
divisions of this series are popular in Protestant
Germany in the truest sense of the word, to
be found in the well-worn hymn-books of
every cottage home, or heard as the village
funeral passes on to the "court of peace." It
will be observed that one of the hymns for
the burial of the dead bears the name of
Michael Weiss,
and that some others are designated as belonging to the
Bohemian Brethren.
These are productions of that ancient Church which
vii
existed in Bohemia from the first introduction
of Christianity into that country by two Greek
monks of the eighth century. In the eleventh
century it formed itself into a separate community,
distinguished from the Roman Church in
Bohemia, among other things, by the celebration
of public worship, according to the native ritual
and in the vulgar tongue. After suffering
bitter persecutions under various Popes, in one
of which John Huss was burnt in 1415, in
1453 its remaining members, including men of
all classes, withdrew to a district assigned to them
on the borders of Silesia and Moravia, where
we find them, fifty years later, numbering about
two hundred congregations, under the name of
Brethren or United Brethren. But here too
fierce persecutions followed them; their countrymen
were incited from the pulpits to hunt them
down like wild beasts; and in 1508, despairing
of peace at home, they sent out four messengers
to search whether anywhere a Christian people
might be found, serving Christ truly, into whose
communion they might ask admission. One of
these brethren went to Russia, one to Greece,
one to Bulgaria, and one to Palestine and Egypt;
but they all returned unsuccessful, no such
Christian people had they found. Two more
viii
were then sent to the Waldenses in France and
Italy, but they too brought back nothing but
admonitions to patience and steadfastness. The
Brethren therefore remained in their own
country, and occupied themselves in printing
the Bible, no fewer than three editions having
been publishied in Bohemian before the Reformation.
The dawn of that great event filled them
with joy, and in 1522 they sent two messengers to
Luther
to greet him and ask his advice, one of whom was
Michael Weiss.
In 1531 Michael Weiss published the hymns of the Bohemian
Brethren translated into German, with the addition
of several of his own. They passed
through many editions, and some of them were
introduced into Luther's hymn-book. They
have great warmth of feeling, and directness of
expression, (often with intricate metres,) and are
marked by frequent pathetic reference to the
troubles of this Church, and by a strong sense of
the living union of Christians with each other
and their Head. The subsequent settlement of
the small remnant of this Church on
Count Zinzendorf's
estates in Saxony, and its rapid
growth and spread into other countries are well
known. That the spirit of Christian poetry
still lives among them in modern times is proved
ix
by the names of
Zinzendorf,
Christian Gregor,
L. von Hayn,
Spangenberg, and
Albertini.11See
Bunsen's larger Gesangbuch, and Sketch of the History of the
Church of the United Brethren by James Montgomery.
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