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NITSCHMANN, Anna, b. 24 November 1715; d. 21 May 1760; Johann, b. 25 September 1712; d. 30 June 1783. Born at Kunewald, near Fulneck, Moravia; the family moved to Herrnhut when they were children in 1725. Anna was appointed Unity-Elder, with responsibility for the unmarried women of the Herrnhut community. With her friend Anna Dober*, she founded the 'Jungfrauenbund' for them. Johann studied theology at the University of Halle and became private secretary to Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf*. Anna...
DOBER, Anna (née Schindler). b. Kunewald, near Fulneck, Moravia, 9 April 1713; d. Marienborn, near Büdingen, Hesse, 12 December 1739. She joined the Moravian community at Herrnhut in 1725, where she assisted Anna Nitschmann* (also born at Kunewald) in founding a young women's movement, the 'Jungfrauenbund'. In 1737 she married Johann Leonhard Dober*, later to be a Moravian bishop. She helped him in his missionary work at Amsterdam; she died aged 26 at Marienborn.
According to JJ, stanzas 4 and...
SPANGENBERG, August Gottlieb. b. Klettenberg, near Nordhausen, 15 July 1704; d. Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, 18 September 1792. He was a student at the University of Jena, first of law and then of theology. He worked at the University of Halle, but was deprived of his posts in the Theology Faculty and as Superintendent of the Orphanage schools because of his association with separatist churches. He joined the Moravians in 1733, where his talents were soon put to good use: he was the leader of...
FRANCKE, August Hermann (I). b. Lübeck, 22 March 1663; d. Halle, 8 June 1727. He was educated at the Universities of Erfurt, Kiel, and Leipzig, graduating from Leipzig in 1685. Two years later, at Lüneberg, he had a religious experience which caused him to call Lüneberg his spiritual birthplace, and which turned him towards Pietism. He became a disciple of the founder of Pietism, P.J. Spener*, who had instituted meetings for prayer, Bible study and devotion. Francke was more combative than...
GARVE, Carl Bernhard. b. Jeinsen near Hannover, 24 January 1763; d. 21 June 1841. He was educated at a school of the Moravian Brotherhood, becoming a teacher in a secondary school at Niesky (1784) and a lecturer in the theological college of the Brotherhood (1789). There he was introduced to the idealist and romantic spirit, which saw the influence of the Enlightenment as pernicious. He was transferred to work in the archives of the Unitas Fratrum in 1797. He became a preacher in Amsterdam...
DAVID, Christian. b. Senftleben (Zenklava), Moravia, 17 February 1691; d. 3 February 1751. He was brought up as a Catholic, learning the trade of a carpenter (ca. 1713). He came to know the Bible well, and discussed its contents with the Jews. Intending to become a Protestant, he sought out the Lutherans in Hungary, in Leipzig and finally in Prussia. Working as a kitchen-boy, he took part in the operations to regain Stralsund. In Berlin he converted to the Protestant faith. In 1717 at Görlitz,...
GREGOR, Christian. b. Dirsdorf, Silesia, 1 January 1723; d. Berthelsdorf, Herrnhut, 6 November 1801. Born the son of a humble peasant farmer, he associated with the Brethren at Herrnhut from 1742, serving as organist. In 1748 he moved to Herrnhaag as director of music, and in 1749 to Zeist, returning to Herrnhut in 1753. From 1764 he was a member of the directing board of the Unitas Fratrum and was given the task of editing a hymnal which would collect and preserve what was valuable of the vast...
BATEMAN, Christian Henry. b. Wyke, Yorkshire, England, 9 August 1813; d. Carlisle, Cumberland, 27 July 1889. Bateman was the son of John Frederick Bateman (1772–1851), a mostly unsuccessful inventor, and Mary Agnes Bateman (née La Trobe) (1772–1848), and the fourth of six siblings (his older brother, the eminent civil engineer John Frederick La Trobe Bateman (1810–1889), was - unlike his father - one of the most successful innovators of his era, supervising reservoirs and waterworks in Ireland...
LATROBE, Christian Ignatius. b. Fulneck, near Leeds, 12 Feb 1758; d. Fairfield, near Manchester, 6 May 1836. Christian was the son of Benjamin Latrobe, one of the leaders of the Moravian Church in England. He was educated at the Moravian Church's schools in Niesky and Barby, Germany (1771-84), where he studied theology and also taught for five years. He was ordained a minister in the Moravian Church and became secretary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, the missionary branch...
Clare Taylor. b. probably early 18th century, date unknown; d. February 1778. Her hymns were published by Daniel Sedgwick* in a small volume containing the hymns of John Ryland*, Clare Taylor, and Samuel Crossman*. The title of the Taylor section was Hymns composed chiefly on The Atonement of Christ, and Redemption Through His Blood (1765). This was followed by two quotations: 'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 1 John 1. 7', and another from the first stanza of Hymn...
Come, let us sing the song of songs. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
This was written for the Sheffield Sunday School Whitsun Festival, May 1841. It was later published in Montgomery's Original Hymns (1853), where it was Hymn LXXXIX, entitled 'The Song of Songs'. The title comes from The Song of Solomon, which opens with the words 'The song of songs, which is Solomon's.' Montgomery daringly takes the phrase and uses it to mean 'the song that is the song of all songs' (cf. 'the Holy of Holies')....
FOSTER, Frederick William. b. Bradford, Yorkshire, 1 August 1760; d.Ockbrook, near Derby, 12 April 1835. Foster was a Moravian, educated at Fulneck, near Leeds at the Settlement there, and then at the Moravian Settlement at Barby, Germany. He became a minister in the Moravian Church, and was made a Bishop in 1818. He compiled a Supplement (1808) to A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1801), edited by John Swertner*, re-titled Liturgy and Hymns for...
HAYN, Henriette Luise von. b. 22 May 1724; d. 27 August 1782. Born at Idstein, Nassau, she became a member of the Moravian community at Herrnhaag. She taught in the girls' school there, and at Grosshennersdorf. From 1751 to 1766 she taught at Herrnhut; from 1766 until her death she cared for the invalid sisters of the community. JJ described her as 'a gifted hymn-writer' (p. 499), and noted that over 40 of her hymns were in the Moravian Brüder Gesang Buch (1778), but annotated one hymn only....
MONTGOMERY, James. b. Irvine, Ayrshire, 4 November 1771; d. Sheffield, 30 April 1854. His father was minister of the Moravian congregation at Irvine. He was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, Pudsey, near Leeds. In 1783, his parents went as Moravian missionaries to Barbados, where they both died of fever when he was about twenty years old. He was apprenticed to a baker in Mirfield, Yorkshire, but was more interested in writing poetry or playing and composing music. He ran away from the...
Jesus, my Saviour, full of grace. Benjamin Ingham* (1712-1772).
This hymn appeared in the Inghamite hymnal, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of Those that seek, and Those that have Redemption in the Blood of Christ (Kendal, 1757), known as the 'Kendal Hymn Book'. It had six stanzas:
Jesus, the Saviour of my soul, Be Thou my heart's delight;Remain the same to me always, My joy by day and night.
Hungry and thirsty after Thee, May I be found each hour; Humble in heart, and happy kept By...
ROTHE, Johann Andreas. b. Lissa, near Görlitz, 12 May 1688; d. Thommendorf, near Bunzlau, 6 July 1758. He was the son of a Protestant priest. He studied theology in Leipzig, and in 1711 he was admitted to the preachers' college of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Görlitz. From 1719 to 1722 he was private tutor to Count von Schweinitz at Leuba near Görlitz, before Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf* called him to be priest at Bethelsdorf (in which parish 'Herrnhut' was situated). As a rousing...
PETER, Johann Friedrich (John Frederick). b. Herrendijk, the Netherlands, 19 May 1746; d. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 13 July 1813. Born into a Moravian Church community where his father was minister, Peter was educated at the Moravian Boys' Schools in Haarlem and Zeist, with further study at the church's academy in Niesky, Germany. In 1765, he entered the seminary at Barby, Germany, for theological training, completing his studies in 1769. In 1770, he was sent by the church to Bethlehem,...
HORN, Johann. b. Domaschitz, Bohemia ca. 1490; d. 11 February 1547. His original name was Johann Roh, but he styled himself Cornu in Latin and Horn in German. He was ordained priest in 1518 and became a senior cleric in the Moravian church. He is known for two books: his Písnĕ chval božských (Prague, 1541), and his edition of the Bohemian hymnbook Ein Gesangbuch der Brüder in Behemen und Merherrn published in Nuremberg in 1544; he may have been the author or at least the translator of many of...
DOBER, Johann Leonhard. b. 7 March 1706; d. 1 April 1766. Like his father, he was a potter by trade, a descendant of Bohemian brethren who had emigrated to Mönksroth, Northern Bavaria. According to accounts of his life, in 1723 he was 'immediat vom Heyland ergriffen' ('suddenly moved by the Saviour'), and in 1725 he followed his elder brother Martin to Herrnhut, where he worked as a potter. In 1732 he went with David Nitschmann as the first missionary to St Thomas in the West Indies, from which...
HERBST, Johannes. b. Kempten, Swabia, 23 July 1735; d. Salem, North Carolina, USA, 15 January 1812. Herbst was educated at the Moravian Church school in Herrnhut, Saxony. He served the church in various non-ministerial capacities in the Moravian communities of Gnadenfrey, Gnadenberg, and Kleinwelke (in Germany) and Fulneck (in England). After his ordination as a minister in the Moravian Church in 1774, he was superintendent of the communities of Neudietendorf and Gnadenfrey. In 1786 Herbst and...
ANTES, John (Johann). b. Frederick, Pennsylvania, 24 March 1740; d. Bristol, England, 17 December 1811. Born near the Moravian Church community of Bethlehem, Antes was educated at the Moravian Boys' School in Bethlehem, where his talent in music was encouraged. During the early 1760s, he established an instrument-making atelier in Bethlehem where he crafted violins, violas, and violoncellos (he is known to have made at least seven instruments, of which two are still extant). Feeling the call of...
CENNICK, John. b. Reading, Berkshire, 12 December 1718; d. London, 4 July 1755. On one side of the family his grandparents had been Quakers, persecuted for their beliefs, but his parents were members of the Church of England. He was educated at Reading, and brought up strictly, 'kept constant to daily Prayers'. As a young man he subsequently went through a period of depression. He was trained as a shoemaker.
He had an experience of salvation in 7 September 1737, and sought out the Methodists in...
SWERTNER, John. b. Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1746; d. Bristol, 11 March 1813. As a young man he came to England, where he married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Cennick*. He was the minister of the Moravian church at Dublin, and for ten years minister of the Fairfield Moravian Settlement, Droylsden, Manchester (1790-1800).
He was the editor of the British Moravian hymnbook, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1789) and of its enlarged edition,...
The Moravian Church is an international Protestant Church tracing its roots to the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus* (1369-1415) who championed congregational singing at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. Following his martyrdom by the Council of Constance in 1415, groups of his followers arose in Bohemia to continue his reforming ideas. One such group formed the jednota bratrská in 1457, establishing their own ministry ten years later. Known officially as the Unitas Fratrum or Unity of the Brethren,...
ZINZENDORF, Nikolaus Ludwig von. b. Dresden, 26 May 1700; d. Herrnhut, 9 May 1760. He was raised in the home of his Pietist maternal grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf and educated at the Pietist School (Paedagogium) at Halle and the University of Wittenberg. Although forced to study law, his true vocation was theology, and his association with the Bohemian Brethren beginning in 1722 led him to ordination in the Lutheran Church and consecration as a Moravian bishop in 1737. He was of noble...
The cross, the cross, O that's my gain. Clare Taylor* (d. 1778).
This hymn is dated 1742 in Moravian books in Britain. In that year the original of the present hymn was published, with no author's name, in A Collection of Hymns, With several translations From the hymn-book of the Moravian Brethren. It was a long hymn of 15 stanzas, beginning:
The Cross, the Cross, O that's my Gain!Because on that, the Lamb was slain;'Twas there my Lord was crucify'd;'Twas there the Saviour for me...
The Lord is my shepherd, no want shall I know. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
This metrical version of Psalm 23 was first published in Montgomery's Songs of Zion: being imitations of psalms (1822, Second Edition, 1824). It was then included in his Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825). It was later printed in his Original Hymns (1853), with a change in the first line to '...nor want', and minor changes in spelling and punctuation. The 1825 text was as follows:
The Lord is my shepherd, no want...
The one thing needful, that good part. Benjamin Ingham* (1712-1772).
This unusual hymn was published in The Gospel Magazine (July 1768), and was included in A Collection of Hymns sung in the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapels, Bath (Bristol, ca. 1774). It is based on the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10: 38-42, in which Martha was 'cumbered about much serving', but 'one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' It had six stanzas:
The one...
What are these in bright array. James Montgomery* (1771-1854).
From Montgomery's collection entitled Greenland, and Other Poems (1819), headed 'Saints in Heaven'. In his Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825), it was entitled 'The song of the hundred and forty and four thousand', referring to Revelation 7: 4: 'And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.'
What are these in bright array,...
HAMMOND, William. b. Battle, Sussex, 6 January 1719; d. London, 19 August 1793. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He joined the Calvinistic Methodists in 1743, and became a Moravian in 1745: his career parallels that of John Cennick*. He wrote an autobiography in Greek, and translated Latin hymns. He published a book with the revealing title Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs. To which is prefix'd a Preface, giving some Account of a Weak Faith, and a Full Assurance of Faith;...