Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark by Jens Christian Aaberg (books successful people read TXT) 📕

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blacken his name and secure his removal, instigated a suit against him for having mismanaged an inheritance left to his children by his first wife. The children themselves appeared in his defence, however, and expressed their complete satisfaction with his administration of their property; and the trumped up charge was wholly disproved. But his enemies still wanted to have him removed and, choosing a new method of attack, forwarded a petition to the king in which they claimed that "Master Hans Chrestensen Sthen because of weakness and old age was incompetent to discharge his duties as a pastor", and asked for his removal to the parishes of Tygelse and Klagstrup. Though the king is reported to have granted the petition, other things seem to have intervened to prevent its execution, and the ill-used pastor appears to have remained at Malmø until his death, the date of which is unknown.

Sthen's fame as a poet and hymnwriter rests mainly on two thin volumes of poetry. A Small Handbook, Containi

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on the themes of our Lord’s ascension and His return to judge the quick and the dead. Of the latter, the hymn given below is perhaps the most favored of those now available in English.

Lift up thy head, O Christendom!

Behold above the blessed home

For which thy heart is yearning.

There dwells the Lord, thy soul’s delight,

Who soon with power and glory bright

Is for His bride returning.

And when in every land and clime,

All shall behold His signs sublime,

The guilty world appalling,

Then shalt with joy thou lift thine eyes

And see Him coming in the skies,

While suns and stars are falling.

While for His coming thou dost yearn,

Forget not why His last return

The Savior is delaying,

And ask Him not before His hour

To shake the heavens with His power,

Nor judge the lost and straying.

O saints of God, for Sodom pray

Until your prayers no more can stay

The judgment day impending.

Then cries the Lord: “Behold, I come!”

And ye shall answer: “To Thy home

We are with joy ascending!”

Then loud and clear the trumpet calls,

The dead awake, death’s kingdom falls,

And God’s elect assemble.

The Lord ascends the judgment throne,

And calls His ransomed for His own,

While hearts in gladness tremble.

Grundtvig is often called the Singer of Pentecost. And his hymns on the nature and work of the Spirit do rank with his very best. He believed in the reality of the Spirit as the living, active agent of Christ in His church. As the church came into being by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, so our Lord still builds and sanctifies it by the Spirit, working through His words and sacraments. His numerous hymns on the Spirit are drawn from many sources, both ancient and modern. His treatment of the originals is so free, however, that it is difficult in most cases to know whether his versions should be accepted as adaptations or originals. Of mere translations there are none. The following version of the widely known hymn, “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” may serve to illustrate his work as a transplanter of hymns.

Holy Spirit, come with light,

Break the dark and gloomy night

With Thy day unending.

Help us with a joyful lay

Greet the Lord’s triumphant day

Now with might ascending.

Comforter so wondrous kind,

Noble guest of heart and mind

Fix in us Thy dwelling.

Give us peace in storm and strife,

Fill each troubled heart and life

With Thy joy excelling.

Make salvation clear to us,

Who despite our sin and dross

Would exalt the Spirit.

For without Thine aid and love

All our life and work must prove

Vain and without merit.

Raise or bow us with Thine arm,

Break temptation’s evil charm,

Clear our clouded vision.

Fill our hearts with longing new,

Cleanse us with Thy morning dew,

Tears of deep contrition.

Blessed Fount of life and breath,

Let our hope in view of death

Blossom bright and vernal;

And above the silent tomb

Let the Easter lilies bloom,

Signs of life eternal.

Many of Grundtvig’s original hymns evince a strong Danish coloring, a fact which is especially evident in a number of his Pentecost hymns. Pentecost comes in Denmark at the first breath of summer when nature, prompted by balmy breezes, begins to unfold her latent life and beauty. This similarity between the life of nature and the work of the Spirit is strikingly expressed in a number of his Pentecost hymns.

The following hymn, together with its beautiful tune, is rated as one of the most beautiful and, lyrically, most perfect hymns in Danish. Because of its strong Danish flavor, however, it may not make an equal appeal to American readers. The main thought of the hymn is that, as in nature, so also in the realm of the Spirit, summer is now at hand. The coming of the Spirit completes God’s plan of salvation and opens the door for the unfolding of a new life. The translation is by Prof. S. D. Rodholm.

The sun now shines in all its splendor,

The fount of life and mercy tender;

Now bright Whitsunday lilies grow

And summer sparkles high and low;

Sweet songsters sing of harvest gold

In Jesus’ name a thousand fold.

The peaceful nightingales are filling

The quiet night with music thrilling.

Thus all that to the Lord belong

May rest in peace and wake with song,

May dream of life beyond the skies,

And with God’s praise at daylight rise.

It breathes from heaven on the flowers,

It whispers home-like in the bowers,

A balmy breeze comes to our coast

From Paradise, no longer closed,

And gently purls a brooklet sweet

Of life’s clear water at our feet.

This works the Spirit, still descending,

And tongues of fire to mortals lending,

That broken hearts may now be healed,

And life with grace and love revealed

In Him, who came from yonder land

And has returned to God’s right hand.

Awaken then all tongues to honor

Lord Jesus Christ, our blest Atoner;

Let every voice in anthems rise

To praise the Savior’s sacrifice.

And thou, His Church, with one accord

Arise and glorify the Lord.

Of his other numerous hymns on the Spirit, the one given below is, perhaps, one of the most characteristic.

Holy Ghost, our Interceder,

Blessed Comforter and Pleader

With the Lord for all we need,

Deign to hold with us communion

That with Thee in blessed union

We may in our life succeed.

Heavenly Counsellor and Teacher,

Make us through Thy guidance richer

In the grace our Lord hath won.

Blest Partaker of God’s fullness,

Make us all, despite our dullness,

Wiser e’en than Solomon.

Helper of the helpless, harken

To our pleas when shadows darken;

Shield us from the beasts of prey.

Rouse the careless, help the weary,

Bow the prideful, cheer the dreary,

Be our guest each passing day.

Comforter, whose comfort lightens

Every cross that scars and frightens,

Succor us from guilt and shame.

Warm our heart, inspire our vision,

Add Thy voice to our petition

As we pray in Jesus’ name.

Believing in the Spirit, Grundtvig also believed in the kingdom of God, not only as a promise of the future but as a reality of the present.

Right among us is God’s kingdom

With His Spirit and His word,

With His grace and love abundant

At His font and altar-board.

Among his numerous hymns on the nature and work of God’s kingdom, the following is one of the most favored.

Founded our Lord has upon earth a realm of the Spirit

Wherein He fosters a people restored by His merit.

It shall remain

People its glory attain,

They shall the kingdom inherit.

Forward like light of the morning its message is speeding,

Millions receive and proclaim it with gladness exceeding

For with His word

God doth His Spirit accord,

Raising all barriers impeding.

Jesus, our Savior, with God in the highest residing,

And by the Spirit the wants of Thy people providing,

Be Thou our life,

Shield and defender in strife,

Always among us abiding.

Then shall Thy people as Lord of the nations restore Thee,

Even by us shall a pathway be straightened before Thee

Till everywhere,

Bending in worship and prayer,

All shall as Savior adore Thee.

The kingdom of God is the most wonderful thing on earth.

Most wonderful of all things is

The kingdom Jesus founded.

Its glory, treasure, peace and bliss

No tongue has fully sounded.

Invisible as mind and soul,

And yet of light the fountain,

It sheds its light from pole to pole

Like beacons from a mountain.

Its secret is the word of God,

Which works what it proposes,

Which lowers mountains high and broad

And clothes the wastes with roses.

Though foes against the kingdom rage

With hatred and derision,

God spreads its reign from age to age,

And brings it to fruition.

Its glory rises like a morn

When waves at sunrise glitter,

Or as in June the golden corn

While birds above it twitter.

It is the glory of the King

Who bore affliction solely

That he the crown of life might bring

To sinners poor and lowly.

And when His advent comes to pass,

The Christian’s strife is ended,

What now we see as in a glass

Shall then be comprehended.

Then shall the kingdom bright appear

In glory true and vernal,

And usher in the golden year

Of peace and joy eternal.

But the kingdom of God here on earth is represented by the Christian church, wherein Christ works by the Spirit through His word and sacraments. Of Grundtvig’s many splendid hymns of the church, the following, in the translation of Pastor Carl Doving, has become widely known in all branches of the Lutheran church in America. Pastor Doving’s translation is not wholly satisfactory, however, to those who know the forceful and yet so appealing language of the original, a fate which, we are fully aware, may also befall the following new version.

Built on a rock the church of God

Stands though its towers be falling;

Many have crumbled beneath the sod,

Bells still are chiming and calling,

Calling the young and old to come,

But above all the souls that roam,

Weary for rest everlasting.

God, the most high, abides not in

Temples that hands have erected.

High above earthly strife and sin,

He hath his mansions perfected.

Yet He, whom heavens cannot contain,

Chose to abide on earth with man

Making their body His temple.

We are God’s house of living stones,

Built for the Spirit’s indwelling.

He at His font and table owns

Us for His glory excelling.

Should only two confess His name,

He would yet come and dwell with them,

Granting His mercy abounding.

Even the temples built on earth

Unto the praise of the Father,

Are like the homes of hallowed worth

Whence we as children did gather.

Glorious things in them are said,

God there with us His covenant made,

Making us heirs of His kingdom.

There we behold the font at which

God as His children received us;

There stands the altar where His rich

Mercy from hunger relieved us.

There His blest word to us proclaim:

Jesus is now and e’er the same,

So is His way of salvation.

Grant then, O Lord, where’er we roam,

That, when the church bells are ringing,

People in Jesus’ name may come,

Praising His glory with singing.

“Ye, not the world, my face shall see;

I will abide with you,” said He.

“My peace I leave with you ever.”

As a believer in objective Christianity, Grundtvig naturally exalts the God-given means of grace, the word and sacraments, through which the Spirit works. In one of the epigrammatic expressions often found in his writings, he says:

We are and remain,

We live and attain

In Jesus, God’s living word

When His word we embrace

And live by its grace,

Then dwells He within us, our Lord.

This firm belief in the actual presence of Christ in His word and sacraments lends an exceptional realism to many of his hymns on the means of grace. Through the translation by Pastor Doving the following brief hymn has gained wide renown in America.

God’s word is our great heritage,

And shall be ours forever.

To spread its light from age to age,

Shall be our chief endeavor.

Through life it guards our way,

In death it is our stay.

Lord, grant, while worlds endure,

We keep its teachings pure

Throughout all generations.

Of his numerous hymns on baptism, the following, which