Warum sollt ich mich denn¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶"denn" is probably the authentic reading, although Goedeke prints "doch." Cf. p. 16. grämen?--(Goed. 122.)

[Cross and Consolation.]

Founded on Psalm LXXIII, 23. Appeared in Crü.--Runge, 1653, no. 240, in 12 stanzas of 8 lines; thence in Wackernagel: no. 64; Bachmann: no. 29; Crü. Praxis: 1656, no. 320; Unv. L. S.: 1851, no. 784. Cf. Koch IV, 525; VIII, 471-9.

This is a very beautiful hymn but difficult of translation. It was a source of comfort to the Salzburg emigrants on their way through Swabia in 1732 (cf. Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea), and to Frederick William I. of Prussia on his deathbed, May 31, 1740. The eighth stanza was the last utterance of Gerhardt on the day of his death, May 27, 1676. It has since cheered and comforted many Christians, both in the season of trial and in the hour of death. It was joyfully sung by the pious pastor Hosch of Gächingen in Württemberg, when on the 2d of July, 1800, French soldiers had plundered his house, leaving him almost nothing but his harp, with which he accompanied the cheering strains of this hymn. The words of the seventh stanza:

were spoken by the pious lawyer in Stuttgart, John Jacob Moser, when, in consequence of his fearless remonstrances against injustice, he was called before his sovereign, the Duke of Württemberg, to be sentenced to imprisonment. The Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony, Christiana Eberhardina, who died on the 5th of September, 1726, derived great consolation in her dying moments from the eighth stanza which was repeated to her by her chaplain.

English Versions:

1. Why, my soul, thus trembling ever.

A good translation of stanzas I, IV, VII, VIII, XI, XII, as no. 232 in the Anglican H. Bk., 1868. Translated by the Rev. Angelo A. Benson, 1862.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷[Cf. Lutheran Hymnary, #342]

2. Why should sorrow ever grieve me.

In full by J. Kelly, 1867, p. 214. His translation of stanzas I, V, X-XII, are repeated in the Ohio Luth. Hymnal, 1880, no. 420.¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸[Cf. The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941, p. 523.]

3. Why should I continue grieving.

In the Suppl. to Ger. Psalmody, ed. 1765, p. 58, in the Moravian H. Bk., 1754, and in the Supplement of 1808 to the Moravian H. Bk. of 1801, but with stanzas VIII, X, altered and beginning "With undaunted resolution."

4. Wherefore should I grieve and pine.

Miss Winkworth in her Lyra Ger., 1858, p. 198.

5. Wherefore, then, should I be gloomy.

N. L. Frothingham, 1870, p. 144.