Excerpt from German HymnologyAmong the various kinds of religious poetry, the hymn exerts by far the greatest in¿uence upon the Christian life in the church, the school and the family. Lyrical in its structure, it differs from other forms of lyrical poetry, as the ode, the elegy and the sonnet, in its religious contents and the ease with which it may be understood and sung. What the popular song (volks-lied) is to the nation that the hymn is to the Church. It embodies the profound and living ideas of Holy Writ in plain, pure, melodious lan guage, and, representing in its own subjective experience the experience of all Christendom, is equally at home in the house of God and in the exercises of private devotion. The most sacred kind of poetry and glorified by its use in worship, it rises as a sweet-smelling sacrifice from the earthly altar to the throne of God. It is the highest flower of the Christian life, arrayed in a festal garb of beauty.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.