; and it is remarkable that an age which so dreaded enthusiasm
should have originated verse which gives utterance to the most emotional
form of spiritual aspiration. As hymn-writers, Englishmen were more
than a century behind the best sacred poets of Germany. Luther had
taught the German people the power of hymnody, but it was during the
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), and after its conclusion, that the spirit
of devotion found full expression in religious verse. Just before the
engagement at Leipzic, Gustavus Adolphus wrote his well-known battle
hymn, and the peace was celebrated in a noble hymn by Martin Rinkart. He
was followed by a succession of sacred singers whose devout utterances
influenced and in some degree inspired the Wesleys.

"A verse may find him whom a sermon flies,"

says George Herbert, and the enormous power wielded by Methodism owes a
large portion of its strength to song.

Amidst much in their writings that is questionable in taste and weak in
expression, both Watts and Charles Wesley have written hymns which prove
their incontestible right to a place among the poets, and the influence
they have exerted over the English-speaking race is beyond the power of
the literary historian to estimate. The external divisions of the
Christian Church are numerous; its unity is to be seen in the Hymn Book.
'Men whose theological views contrast most strongly,' says Mr. Abbey in
his essay on _The English Sacred Poetry of the Eighteenth Century_,
'meet on common ground when they express in verse the deeper aspirations
of the heart and the voice of Christian praise.'

In 1714, on the death of the Queen, Addison was once more in office, and
held his old position of Irish Secretary. In the following year he
defended the Whig Government and Whig principles in the _Freeholder_, a
paper published twice weekly. In it he gives no niggard praise to the
Government of George I., and to the King himself, for his 'civil
virtues,' and for his martial achievements. Addison's praise disagrees,
it need scarcely be said, with the more minute and veracious description
of the King given by Thackeray, but a party politician in those days
could scarcely be a faithful chronicler. He could see what he wished to
see, but found it necessary to shut his eyes when the prospect became
unpleasant. George was a heartless libertine, but Addison observes with
great satisfaction that the women most eminent for virtue and good sense
are in his