The two great works of Martin Luther were those by which he gave to the common people a vernacular Bible and vernacular worship, that through the one, God might speak directly to the people; and in the other, the people might speak directly to God. Luther's Bible and Luther's Hymns gave life not only to the churches of the Reformation, but to German nationality and the German language.Concerning the hymns of Luther the words of several notable writers are on record, and are worthy to be prefixed to the volume of them. Says Spangenberg, yet in Luther's life-time, in his Preface to the _Cithara Lutheri_, 1545: "One must certainly let this be true, and remain true, that among all Mastersingers from the days of the Apostles until now, Luther is and always will be the best and most accomplished; in whose hymns and songs one does not find a vain or needless word. All flows and falls in the sweetest and neatest manner, full of spirit and doctrine, so that his every word gives outright a sermon of his own, or at least a singular reminiscence. There is nothing forced, nothing foisted in or patched up, nothing fragmentary. The rhymes are easy and good, the words choice and proper, the meaning clear and intelligible, the melodies lovely and hearty, and _in summa_ all is so rare and majestic, so full of pith and power, so cheering and comforting, that, in sooth, you will not find his equal, much less his master."1 The following words have often been quoted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Luther did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by his translation of the Bible. In Germany the hymns are known by heart by every peasant; they advise, they argue from the hymns, and every soul in the church praises God like a Christian, with words which are natural and yet sacred to his mind." A striking passage in an article by Heine in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for March, 1834, is transcribed by Michelet in his Life of Luther: "Not less remarkable, not less significant than his prose works, are Luther's poems, those stirring songs which, as it were, escaped from him in the very midst of his combats and his necessities like a flower making its way from between rough stones, or a moonbeam gleaming amid dark clouds. Luther loved music; indeed, he wrote treatises on the art. Accordingly his versification is highly harmonious, so that he may be called the Swan of Eisleben. Not that he is by any means gentle or swan-like in the songs which he composed for the purpose of exciting the courage of the people. In these he is fervent, fierce. The hymn which he composed on his way to Worms, and which he and his companion chanted as they entered that city, 2 is a regular war-song. The old cathedral trembled when it heard these novel sounds. The very rooks flew from their nests in the towers. That hymn, the Marseillaise of the Reformation, has preserved to this day its potent spell over German hearts."