Lauxmann calls [this] ‘the most com­fort­ing of all the hymns that have re­sound­ed on Paul­us Ger­hardt’s gold­en lyre, sweet­er to ma­ny souls than hon­ey and the hon­ey-comb.’ It soon spread over Ger­ma­ny. It was sung in 1743, when the found­a­tion-stones were laid of the first Lu­ther­an church in Phil­a­del­phia [Penn­syl­van­ia], and again at the open­ing ser­vice. When Na­po­le­on was bent on crush­ing Ger­ma­ny, Queen Lou­ise of Pruss­ia wrote in her di­a­ry at Or­tels­burg, on De­cem­ber 5, 1806, Goethe’s lines from ‘Wil­helm Meis­ter,’ which Car­lyle ren­ders—

Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darkness hours,
Weeping and watching for the morrow,
He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.

To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go,
Then leave repentance fierce to wring us:
A moment’s guilt, an age of woe!

Then dry­ing her tears, she went to her harp­si­chord and played and sang this hymn. Laux­mann writes, ‘Tru­ly a hymn, as Lu­ther’s “Ein Feste Burg,” is sur­round­ed by a cloud of wit­ness­es.

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