Introduction

Words: At­trib­ut­ed to Jean-Fréd­ér­ic Ob­er­lin (1740–1826). Trans­lat­ed to Eng­lish by Lu­cy L. Wil­son, Mem­oirs of John Fred­er­ic Ob­er­lin (Lon­don: 1829), page 254.

Music: Ames (von Neu­komm) Sig­is­mund R. von Neu­komm, 1837 (🔊 pdf nwc).

[This hymn was] prin­ted…as part of the ac­count of a ser­vice in Wald­bach [Wal­ders­bach] church on June 11, 1820, the des­crip­tion be­ing giv­en from the jour­nal of Mrs. Stein­kopff, who, with her hus­band, Dr. Stein­kopff, Sec­re­tary of the Brit­ish and For­eign Bi­ble So­cie­ty, was then vis­it­ing the Ban de la Roche…

Fifty years lat­er, the Rev. Da­ni­el Wil­son, Vi­car of Is­ling­ton, in a let­ter of Sep­tem­ber 15, 1870, to the Rev. James Bo­nar, of Green­ock, re­gard­ing this hymn of his wife’s, re­marked—

It was writ­ten by Ober­lin in Ger­man. Mrs. Wil­son wrote Ob­er­lin’s Life. Mrs. Stein­kopff I think first trans­lat­ed it in­to Eng­lish, and then Mrs. Wil­son put it in­to verse.

In the Life, there is no­thing to show that the hymn was of Ob­er­lin’s own com­po­si­tion…Still Mrs. Stein­kopff’s ac­count…makes it be­yond doubt that Mrs. Wil­son’s Eng­lish hymn does in some way re­pro­duce (prob­ab­ly ve­ry free­ly) a hymn used at Wald­bach, and makes it al­most cer­tain that the hymn was in French, but gives no clue as to its au­thor­ship.

Julian, pp. 1537–38