trees might be to the smallest spark of electric fire." In a very different style of language, but in a like strain of eulogy, writes Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, in the third volume of his History of the Reformation: "The church was no longer composed of priests and monks; it was now the congregation of believers. All were to take part in worship, and the chanting of the clergy was to be succeeded by the psalmody of the people. Luther, accordingly, in translating the psalms, thought of adapting them to be sung by the church. Thus a taste for music was diffused throughout the nation. From Luther's time, the people sang; the Bible inspired their songs. Poetry received the same impulse. In celebrating the praises of God, the people could not confine themselves to mere translations of ancient anthems. The souls of Luther and of several of his contemporaries, elevated by their faith to thoughts the most sublime, excited to enthusiasm by the struggles and dangers by which the church at its birth was unceasingly threatened, inspired by the poetic genius of the Old Testament and by the faith of the New, ere long gave vent to their feelings in hymns, in which all that is most heavenly in poetry and music was combined and blended. Hence the revival, in the sixteenth century, of _hymns_ such as in the first century used to cheer the martyrs in their sufferings. We have seen Luther, in 1523, employing it to celebrate the martyrs at Brussels; other children of the Reformation followed his footsteps; hymns were multiplied; they spread rapidly among the people, and powerfully contributed to rouse it from sleep." It is not difficult to come approximately at the order of composition of Luther's hymns. The earliest hymn-book of the Reformation - if not the earliest of all printed hymn-books - was published at Wittenberg in 1524, and contained _eight_ hymns, four of them from the pen of Luther himself; of the other four not less than three were by Paul Speratus, and one of these three, the hymn _Es ist das Heil_, which caused Luther such delight when sung beneath his window by a wanderer from Prussia.4 Three of Luther's contributions to this little book were versions of Psalms - the xii, xiv, and cxxx - and the fourth was that touching utterance of personal religious experience, _Nun fruet euch, lieben Christen g'mein_. But the critics can hardly be mistaken in assigning as early a date to the ballad of the Martyrs of Brussels. Their martyrdom took place July 1, 1523, and the "_New Song_" must have been inspired by the story as it was first brought to Wittenberg, although it is not found in print until the _Enchiridion_, which followed the _Eight Hymns_, later in the same year, from the press of Erfurt, and contained fourteen of Luther's hymns beside the four already published.