sung to some extent in order. You would have the required intelligence and information." And since Caspar was ready to serve his people, and had occasion to do something for practice in Christian doctrine and in confession, he considered the matter. Accordingly he had the Psalm-hymns copied, together with many other hymns which he collected, and the so-called 'Roman hymns.' At that very time, the hymns of Martin John came to light, being shortly after his death. In addition, George Weiss, his son (at the request of his father) composed hymns on the Gospel Lessons. And thus did Caspar Weiss compile a hymn book, in accordance with the church year (the collection which I[1] copied, 1709, and which still exists), and committed it, so to say, to the care of his children and in the preface dedicated it to them, desiring them to regard it as a bequest."
The statement here given of the sources from which Weiss drew, although both instructive and trustworthy, needs to be supplemented. According to the account of the compilation given by the author himself, the hymns of Aurelius Prudentius (in their German dress) were made the foundation of the collection. To these were added a number of hymns representing the Schwenkfelder muse—the following Schwenkfelder hymn-writers having been preferred: Adam Reissner (1496-1575 ca. ), Johann Raimund Weckher (wrote ca. 1540-1570), Daniel Sudermann (1550-1631), George Frell (wrote ca. 15751!.), Antonius Oelsner (wrote ca. 1590ff.), George Heydrich (died 1657 ca.), and Martin John, Jr. (1 624-1 707).
Another important source of the collection was the hymn-book of the "Bohemian Brethren" (Moravians). The originator of the German hymn-book of the Moravians was Michael Weiss (or Weisse), who translated about 150 hymns into German from the Bohemian, and issued the first edition of these hymns at Buntzel, 1531 . Of this hymnal there were three later editions, all published at Ulm. Johann Horn, a Moravian, who wrote many hymns, both in Bohemian and in German, issued at Nürnberg (1544) a revised edition of the hymns of Michael Weiss,
- ↑ Balthaser Hoffmann.
