Even those which seem to us least adapted
for such a purpose, the doctrinal ones, were more
truly popular in those days, when this especial aspect
of religion was the thing men were thinking about
and fighting for, than we can well understand now. So a hymn by
Paul Speratus,
the chaplain of the Duke of Prussia, which begins--
goes on through several verses with a statement of
the doctrine of justification by faith that sounds to
us like a bit out of the Augsburg Confession done
124
into rhyme. But in his own day it was as popular
as Luther's hymns, and Luther himself is said to
have given his last coin to a Prussian beggar from
whom he heard it for the first time. Equally characteristic
of the other class of hymns is such an
one as that long attributed to the Elector John of
Saxony, because he frequently used it during his
imprisonment, but really written by
Ambrosius Blaurer,
a monk from the Black Forest who joined the Reformed Church.
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