Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands, Robed in flowers of blooming spring; Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer; He makes our sorrowing spirit sing. Fair is the sunshine, Fair is the moonlight, Bright the sparkling stars on high; Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer Than all the angels in the sky. Beautiful Saviour! Lord of the nations! Son of God and Son of Man! Glory and honor, Praise, adoration, Now and for evermore be Thine! Muenster Gesangbuch, 1677. TWO FAMOUS HYMNS AND SOME LEGENDS Every hymn has a story. Ofttimes, however, the origin is obscure, and it is difficult to trace its birth out of the misty past. Again there are so many legends that have gathered around the great lyrics of the ages, many of them generally accepted, that it becomes a painful process to get rid of these excrescences. Two beautiful German hymns, "Schoenster Herr Jesu" and "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" may serve to illustrate these difficulties. In innumerable hymn-books the former hymn, sometimes translated "Beautiful Saviour" and sometimes "Fairest Lord Jesus," is designated as "The Crusaders' Hymn." The hymn was first introduced to American worshipers by Richard Storrs Willis, who included it in his "Church Chorals and Choir Studies," published in 1850. It was accompanied with this explanation: "This hymn, to which the harmony has been added, was lately (1850) discovered in Westphalia. According to the traditionary text by which it is accompanied, it was wont to be sung by the German knights on their way to Jerusalem. The only hymn of the same century which in point of style resembles this is one quoted by Burney from the Chatelaine de Coucy, set about the year 1190, very far inferior, however, to this." In a London hymn-book, "Heart Melodies" by Morgan and Chase, the same error is repeated. There it is referred to as "Crusader's Hymn of the Twelfth Century. This air and hymn used to be sung by the German pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem." "For these statements," writes James Mearns, "there does not seem to be the shadow of foundation, for the air referred to has not been traced earlier than 1842, nor the words than 1677." The hymn appeared anonymously in the "Muenster Gesangbuch" of 1677, where it was published as the first of "Three beautiful selected new hymns." In a book of Silesian folk songs, published in Leipzig in 1842, the text is found in altered form and the beautiful melody to which it is now sung is given for the first time. Both text and melody, it is explained in this book, were taken down from oral recitation in the district of Glaz, in lower Silesia. From these facts we are compelled to draw the conclusion that this glorious hymn of adoration to the Saviour probably dates back to the seventeenth century, while the melody is undoubtedly a Silesian folk song of much later origin.