CHAPTER XI. SWEDISH HYMNS. LONG after the southern regions of modern Europe emerge into the sober daylight of history, the twilight of legend lingers over the North. The gigantic forms of the old Sagas flit about in the gleam of the northern lights ages after the chronicles of the South are peopled with a race of solid and ordinary men and women. Four cen turies after the times when the people of Milan first sang the hymns of Ambrose, nearly three centuries after Gregory the Great sent Augustine to the English, a hundred years after the Venerable Bede passed his tranquil life in the monastery near Wearmouth, translating the New Testament into Anglo-Saxon, and chronicling his own times-in Sweden Christianity was carrying on its first conflict with the fierce old Scandinavian heathenism.— Anschar, "the Apostle of the North," died A.D. 835. Thus Christendom had journeyed eight hundred years from the apostolic age before the name of Christ penetrated into Sweden. After seven centuries more, Christianity, for the first time, streamed into those northern regions fresh from the lips of evangelists and apostles. The Swedish Reformation seems scarcely to have been so much a transplantation from Germany as a natural branch of Lutheran Protestantism. The inward work in Sweden appears to have followed the outward. The Bible was given to the people in their mother-tongue, and the Church ceremonies were reformed on the Lutheran model, and so the nation became Lutheran, and many among them truly evangelical. The Bible was translated from the German Bible; the hymn-book was a reflection of the German hymn-book, but by degrees native hymn-writers arose. The glad tidings could not fail to call forth the new song. The whole history of Sweden appears to blossom into its full and characteristic development in the biography of one man. It should never be forgotten that the royal hero of Protestantism was a Swede. Swedish chronicles, otherwise so isolated, are incorporated as a central portion of European history around the persons of two Swedish kings, Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. The self-sacrificing Christian hero, and the selfish military chief, might stand as among the most strikingly contrasted types of true and false heroism. If ever a man subordinated self to the cause he contended for, it was surely the Great Gustavus. And he had his reward in kind. The life he so unflinchingly offered to stem the returning flood of Romanism was accepted, and the flood was stayed. The hero died at Lützen, and the faith he had contended for held its ground in Germany. From that noble heart, in which northern strength and northern tenderness, the lofty heroism of an old Viking, and the lowly heroism of a Christian martyr, were so wonderfully blended, one psalm has come down to us. Its composition was characteristic. The brave king was no man of letters. The fire of faith which burned in his heart was more wont to fuse the iron of heroic deeds than the gold of beautiful words. But the thoughts were in his heart; had they not inspired him in march and battle-field? So he told his chaplain, Dr Jacob Fabricius, what his thoughts were, and the chaplain moulded them into three verses of a hymn, and the simple-hearted hero took them ever afterwards as his battle-song. On the morning of his last battle, when the armies of Gustavus and Wallenstein were drawn up, waiting till the morning mist dispersed to commence the attack, the king commanded Luther's grand psalm, "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott," to be sung, and then that hymn of his own, accompanied by the drums and trumpets of the whole army. Immediately afterwards the mist broke, and the sunshine burst on the two armies. For a moment Gustavus Adolphus knelt beside his horse, in face of his soldiers, and repeated his usual battle-prayer, "O Lord Jesus Christ! bless our arms, and this day's battle, for the glory of Thy holy name!" Then passing along the lines, with a few brief words of encouragement, he gave the battle-cry, "God with us!" the same with which he had conquered at Leipzig. Thus began the day which laid him low amidst the thickest of the fight, with those three sentences on his dying lips, noble and Christian as any that ever fell from the lips of dying man since the days of the first martyr:-" I seal with my blood the liberty and religion of the German nation!"- "My God, my God!"—and the last that were heard, "Alas! my poor queen * ין A hymn so consecrated has a value beyond that of any mere words. Whether the Swedish, (from which the fol *Hollings' "Life of Gustavus Adolphus." lowing translation is made,) or the German, was the original, the translator does not know. Probably both were original; but that in the mother-tongue of the hero himself has its peculiar interest. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS' BATTLE-SONG. (Förfäras ej du lilla hop.) Be not dismay'd, thou little flock, Thy cause is God's-go at His call, In God's own time, defending. Our hope is sure in Jesus' might; To us belongs His blessing. The orphaned army and nation had need, indeed, of such words to sustain them for the loss of such a man and such a captain-a loss inadequately compensated even by the utter destruction on that battle-field of the imperial army. But his cause was won, and Protestant Germany was saved, not by her armies or her princes, but by the heart of that one hero, given by God. Two other translations are here offered from Swedish hymns. The first is from one by Spegel, Archbishop of Upsala. He was born A.D. 1645, thirteen years after the death of the great Gustavus, and died A.D. 1714; he was thus a contemporary of Paul Gerhard. He is said by his countrymen to be their greatest hymn-writer, and to have accomplished much good for Sweden. The following verses are extracted from a hymn of his, which is a paraphrase of part of the sermon on the mount. (Oss Christna bör tro och besinna.) All nature a sermon may preach thee; The lilies, nor toiling nor spinning, Their clothing how gorgeous and fair! As the flowers have for everyday wear. |