Recently the new rationalism and sensual materialism have again submerged the religious life of Germany and the impulse to write hymns has lost its urgency. Whether the shattering of the illusion of world-wide power, and the sobering effect of its terrible losses of men and of wealth, will bring Germany back to her religious senses must be patiently awaited by those eager for her highest welfare. The recrudescence of paganism and its threat of renewed striving after world dominance need not blast this pious hope. God’s hand is still on the tiller of the German national bark, and the heart of the German people is not represented by the bulletins on the surface of its current events, caused by the pride of nationalism in the shallow vocal stratum that stridently claims the world’s attention. In this hurried review of the development of the German hymn from Luther to Spitta much that is interesting and profitable has been omitted. But it is manifest that this German hymnody holds the supreme place in the hymnody of the Christian Church in all ages and nations. The reasons for this lie on the surface: the German people are a singing people, and the instinct to sing their thoughts and feelings is stronger than in any other race. Again, they did not lose two centuries under the spell of Calvin’s devotion to the Hebrew Psalms, as did Great Britain and America. In contrast with the Latin and Greek hymnodies, it is the voice of the people, not the restrained liturgical voice of the clergy. The German hymnody is often ponderous and heavy, often tediously prolix and dull, but at the heart of it is a profound realization of the actualities of the Christian faith, and a responsiveness to its appeals to the hearts of men, that one cannot find elsewhere to the same extent. _Chapter XIII_ METRICAL PSALMODY I. CALVIN’S CONCEPTION OF CONGREGATIONAL SINGING While Luther recognized the value of hymns as pre-eminent in his work, he still left a large place for the Psalms, himself making some admirable versions and inciting others to do the same. But there were limits to his sympathy with an undue and merely formal emphasis of them. He canceled the obligation of repeating the whole Psalter once a week, instituted by Cardinal Quimonez, as “a donkey’s burden.” Luther was a reformer, changing only what needed changing in order to secure a deeper spirituality. Calvin and Zwingli were not reformers, but re-creators, setting wholly aside all the liturgy, the ecclesiastical organization, the clerical rules, and the distinctive doctrines of the Roman church, and building up an entirely new church with no other sanction than their interpretation of the Word of God.