So nimm denn meine Hände

So nimm denn meine Hände. Julie Hausmann* (1826-1901). First published by Gustav Knak* in a collection devoted to ‘silence’ and ‘quietness’ (‘die Stille’), Maiblumen. Lieder der Stillen im Lande (Berlin, 1862). It is a very beautiful and simple hymn of trust in good times and bad (‘in Freud und Schmerz’, stanza 2) and asks to be led through the night (‘auch durch die Nacht’, verse 3) through life and into eternity. It became very popular and has rightly remained so; it is found in EG in the ‘Angst und Vertrauen’ section (EG 376). To an English-speaking reader it seems close to Richard Whately*’s stanza, ‘Guard us waking, guard us sleeping’, added to ‘God, that madest earth and heaven’* by...