They braved the world’s contempt and might,

But see them now in glory bright

With golden crowns,

In priestly gowns

Before the throne of light.

The world oft weighed them with dismay.

And tears would flow without allay,

But there above

The Saviour’s love

Has wiped their tears away.

Theirs is henceforth the Sabbath rest,

The Paschal banquet of the blest,

Where fountains play

And Christ for aye

Is host as well as guest.

All hail to you, blest heroes, then!

A thousand fold is now your gain

That ye stood fast

Unto the last

And did your goal attain.

Ye spurned all worldly joy and fame,

And harvest now in Jesus’ name

What ye have sown

With tears unknown

Mid angels’ glad acclaim.

Lift up your voice, wave high your palm,

Compass the heavens with your psalm:

All glory be

Eternally

To God and to the Lamb.

Brorson’s hymns were received with immediate favor. The Rare Clenod of Faith passed through six editions before the death of its author, and a new church hymnal published in 1740 contained ninety of his hymns. Pietism swept

the country and adopted Brorson as its poet. But its reign was surprisingly short.

King Christian VI died in 1746, and the new king, a luxury-loving worldling, showed little interest in religion and none at all in Pietism. Under his influence the movement quickly waned. During the latter part of the eighteenth century it

was overpowered by a wave of religious rationalism which engulfed the greater

part of the intellectual classes and the younger clergy. The intelligentsia adopted Voltaire and Rousseau as their prophets and talked endlessly of the new age of

enlightenment in which religion was to be shorn of its mysteries and people were to be delivered from the bonds of superstition.

In such an atmosphere the old hymns and, least of all, Brorson’s hymns with

their mystic contemplation of the Saviour’s blood and wounds could not survive.

The leading spirits in the movement demanded a new hymnal that expressed the

spirit of the new age. The preparation of such a book was undertaken by a committee of popular writers, many of whom openly mocked Evangelical

Christianity. Their work was published under the title The Evangelical Christian Hymnal, a peculiar name for a book which, as has been justly said, was neither Evangelical nor Christian. The compilers had eliminated many of the

finest hymns of Kingo and Brorson and ruthlessly altered others so that they were irrecognizable. To compensate for this loss, a great number of “poetically

perfect hymns” by newer writers—nearly all of whom have happily been

forgotten—were adopted.

But while would-be leaders discarded or mutilated the old hymns and, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, sought to force their new songs upon the congregations, many of these clung tenaciously to their old hymnal and stoutly

refused to accept the new. In places the controversy even developed into a singing contest, with the congregations singing the numbers from the old hymnal

and the deacons from the new. And these contests were, of course, expressive of

an even greater controversy than the choice of hymns. They represented the struggle between pastors, working for the spread of the new gospel, and congregations still clinging to the old. With the highest authorities actively supporting the new movement, the result of the contest was, however, a foregone

conclusion. The new enlightenment triumphed, and thousands of Evangelical Christians became homeless in their own church.

During the subsequent period of triumphant Rationalism, groups of Evangelical