In the Royal Library, Berlin, is a manuscript containing hymns sung by the Schwenkf elders in Ulm, ca. 1560-1580. In 1583 this congregation was dispersed, some settling in Soeflingen and others in Justingen. In their affliction they had a hymn-book printed for their own use and consolation:[1] G. M. D.[2] Ein Christlich Psalter-Gebett der Betrengten Kirchen Gottes zn Trost gestellet und auss den CL. Psalmen Dauids susamengezogen. Ulm, Johann Anton Ulhart, MDLXXXV."
In America there was from the first a gradual increase in the practice of using hymns collected by Schwenkf elders. These collections, as noted, included the best hymns of Schwenkfelder authorship. In numbers XXV. and XXVI. of our Descriptive Bibliography, which were written in Saxony and brought to America in 1734, and which together comprise the earliest transcription of the collection of George Weiss, there are unmistakable evidences that this manuscript furnished many of the hymns sung in their public worship. Again, soon after the death of George Weiss (1740), and during the ministry of Balthaser Hoffmann, a number of smaller manuscript hymn-books arranged for church use and based on the Weiss hymn-book appeared. The largest of these is extant in two volumes, quarto. It was completed in 1747 and is the work of Christopher Kriebel, later the catechist of the Schwenkfelders. Indeed, this activity began in the first years following the landing of the Schwenkfelders. There is preserved a hymn-book of this kind inscribed: "Written for Rosina Yeakel. Anno 1735." It contains hymns for the Sundays and holy-days and for some of the Saints' Days, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent. A careful comparison has shown that the collection in question is an abridgment of the Weiss hymn-book. It is supplied with an index of first lines, and throughout bears manifest marks of having rendered service.[3] This is true of most of these hymn-books, which shed
