Page:Schwenkfelder Hymnology.djvu/114



have seen that the Schwenkf elders were early aware of the importance attaching to the problem of a hymn-book ; and that their activity in the collecting of hymns dates from the sixteenth century. We have traced from its inception to its final form, the manuscript hymn collection which is entitled to the distinction of having been the first Schwenkfelder hymnary used in America. We have also observed in connection with our narrative of the manuscript collection, the presence of a well-defined continuity of development. In the present chapter, we shall endeavor to demonstrate that this continuity of development extended also into the first printed hymn collection issued in America—both the plan and the content of the printed hymnal exemplifying this progression. In a word, we are here concerned with the matter of the extent to which the Neu-Eingerichtetes Gesang-Buch (1762) is indebted to the manuscript volumes of 1758 and 1760, in point of arrangement, and to the second hymn collection as a whole, in point of content. At the close of the chapter, we print specimens of the Schwenkf elder hymns written in America.

The first hymn-book of the Schwenkfelders printed in America, with the title Neu-Eingerichtetes Gesang-Buch, left the press of Christoph Saur at the close of the year 1762. It was a much needed book. The Schwenkfelders had brought with them to America numerous copies of the Moravian hymn-book, but for years this had been used but little. Of their manuscript hymn collection, there were seemingly but three complete copies existing. Hence there was no want of occasion for the publishing of a hymn-book. The documentary information we possess, relative to the issuing of the Schwenkfelder hymn-book of 1762, is comparatively scanty. However, from certain fragmentary records and from extant correspondence, we learn that the project had for some years been under consideration; that previous to the (96)