Theodore Brown Hewitt · 135 of 194

Commentary

The earliest accessible English version is that of Jacobi, 1725, printed in the 1754 Moravian Hymn Book. The translations by this author are usually very crude and painfully laborious, but in the present case, with a few notable exceptions, he has very well caught the ring and spirit of Gerhardt. Later compilers and publishers of hymns would of course omit the lines:

and

Like many of the early translators of German hymns Jacobi is guilty of frequent imperfect rhymes:

If we overlook these defects the version is one of the best that has appeared so far in English or American hymnals and considerably above the standard of the Moravian hymns of the early eighteenth century. The following lines offer a very true counterpart of the German:

Bishop Ryle in taking over this version into his Hymns and Spiritual Songs has made a number of alterations, presenting a cento of four stanzas. His stanza 3, for example, is a combination of Jacobi's last quatrain of stanza 9 and first quatrain of stanza 10:

American congregations are familiar with the hymn:

It is often called "The Rest of Faith," and is a cento of Miss Winkworth's very excellent version. Although she has not preserved the metre of the poem Miss Winkworth has thoroughly caught its spirit even imitating in the widely known last stanza the sound sequence and alliteration:

For free adaptations from this hymn cf. pp. 139 and 136.