While far over mountain, field and hill,
The bells are with gladness ringing.
God’s angels with joy to earth descend
When hymns to His praise are chanted;
His comfort and peace our Lord will lend
To all who for peace have panted;
The portals of heaven open stand;
The Kingdom to us is granted.
In 1826 Grundtvig, as already related, published his hymns for the thousand years’ festival of his church. But a few months later he again buried himself in his study, putting aside the lyre, which for a little while he had played so beautifully. Many had already noticed his hymns, however, and continued to plead with him for more. The new Evangelical revival, which he had largely inspired, intensified the general dissatisfaction with the rationalistic Evangelical Christian Hymnal, and called for hymns embodying the spirit of the new movement. And who could better furnish these than Grundtvig? Of those who pleaded with him for new hymns, none was more persistent than his friend, Pastor Gunni Busck. When Grundtvig wrote to him in 1832 that his Northern Mythology was nearing completion, Busck at once answered: “Do not forget your more important work; do not forget our old hymns! I know no one else with
your ability to brush the dust off our old songs.” But Grundtvig was still too busy with other things to comply with the wish of his most faithful and helpful
friend.
During the ensuing years, however, a few hymns occasionally appeared from his
pen. A theological student, L. C. Hagen, secured a few adapted and original hymns from him for a small collection of Historical Hymns and Rhymes for Children, which was published in 1832. But the adaptations were not successful. Despite the good opinion of Gunni Busck, Grundtvig was too independent a spirit to adjust himself to the style and mode of others. His originals were much more successful. Among these we find such gems as
“Mongst His Brothers Called the Little,” “Move the Signs of Grief and Mourning from the Garden of the Dead,” and “O Land of Our King,” hymns that
rank with the finest he has written.
In 1835 Grundtvig at last wrote to Gunni Busck that he was now ready to commence the long deferred attempt to renew the hymnody of his church. Busck
received the information joyfully and at once sent him a thousand dollars to support him during his work. Others contributed their mite, making Grundtvig richer financially than he had been for many years. He rented a small home on
the shores of the Sound and began to prepare himself for the work before him by
an extensive study of Christian hymnody, both ancient and modern.
“The old hymns sound beautiful to me out here under the sunny sky and with the
blue water of the Sound before me,” he wrote to Busck. He did not spend his days day-dreaming, however, but worked with such intensity that only a year later he was able to invite subscriptions on the first part of his work. The complete collection was published in 1837 under the title: Songs of the Danish Church. It contains in all 401 hymns and songs composed of originals, translations and adaptations from Greek, Latin, German, Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, English and Scandinavian sources. The material is of very unequal merit,
ranging from the superior to the commonplace. As originally composed, the collection could not be used as a hymnal. But many of the finest hymns now used in the Danish church have been selected or adapted from it.
Although Songs for the Danish Church is now counted among the great books in Danish, its appearance attracted little attention outside the circle of Grundtvig’s friends. It was not even reviewed in the press. The literati, both inside and outside the church, still publicly ignored Grundtvig. But privately a few of them expressed their opinion about the work. Thus a Pastor P. Hjort wrote to Bishop Mynster, “Have you read Grundtvig’s Songs of the Danish Church?
It is a typical Grundtvigian book, wordy, ingenious, mystical, poetical and full of half digested ideas. His language is rich and wonderfully expressive. But he is not humble enough to write hymns.”
Meanwhile the demand for a new hymnal or at least for a supplement to the old
had become so insistent that something had to be done. J. P. Mynster who, shortly before, had been appointed Bishop of Sjælland, favored a supplement and obtained an authorization from the king for the appointment of a committee
to prepare it. The only logical man to head such a committee was, of course, Grundtvig. But Mynster’s dislike of his volcanic relative was so deep-rooted that he was incapable of giving any recognition to him. And so in order to avoid a
too obvious slight to his country’s best known hymnwriter, he assigned the work to an already existing committee on liturgy, of which he himself was president.
Thus Grundtvig was forced to sit idly by while the work naturally belonging to
him was being executed by a man with no special ability for the task. The supplement appeared in 1843. It contained thirty-six hymns of which six were written by Kingo, seven by Brorson, and one by Grundtvig, the latter being, as
Grundtvig humorously remarked, set to the tune of the hymn, “Lord, I Have Done Wrong.”
Mynster’s influence was great enough to secure the supplement a wide
circulation. The collection, nevertheless, failed to satisfy the need of the church.
Dissatisfaction with it was so general that the pastors’ conference of Copenhagen appointed a committee consisting of Grundtvig, Prof. Martensen, Mynster’s own
son-in-law, Rev. Pauli, his successor as Provost of the Church of Our Lady, and
two other pastors to prepare and present a proposal for a new hymnal. It was an
able committee from which a meritorious work might reasonably be expected.
Grundtvig was assigned to the important work of selecting and revising the old
hymns to be included in the collection. He was an inspiring but at times difficult co-worker. Martensen recalls how Grundtvig at times aroused the committee to
enthusiasm by an impromptu talk on hymnody or a recitation of one of the old
