Carl Julius Asschenfeldt

Aschenfeldt, Christoph Carl Julius, born March 5, 1792, at Kiel. After studyiug at Göttingen he became, in 1819, pastor at Windbergen in Holstein. In 1824 he was appointed dioconus, and in 1829 chief pastor of St. Nicholas's Church in Flensburg; as also, in 1850, Probst of the district of Flensburg, and in 1851 Superintendent of the German-speaking portion of the Duchy, when he resigned the last of these offices in 1854, being appointed oberconsistorialrath. He died at Flensburg, Sept. 1, 185S. His 150 hymns, elegant in form, but marked with some of the eighteenth century coldness, were contributed to various works and appeared in collected forms as:—
(1) Feierklänge. Geistliche Lieder und Gebete auf die Sonn-und Festtage, Lübeck, 1823, containing 203 pieces, of which 130 are by A. and the rest by his brother-in-law, Heinrich Schmidt, pastor in Eddelack, Holstein.
(2) Geistliches Saitenspiel, Schleswig, 1842, including 112 hymns, some of them altered versions of earlier pieces (Koch, vii. 156-159; Allgemeine Deutsche Biog., i. 618).
Of his hymns the only one translated into English is:—
Aus irdischem Getümmel. [Following Christ.] Founded on St. John xiv. 6, and contributed to Wehner's Christosophisches Gesang-Buch, Kiel, 1819, No. 40, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, entitled, "Jesus—the Way—the Truth—the Life," and being marked A—dt, has been erroneously ascribed to E. M. Arndt. Included in the Feierklänge, 1823, p. 269, and in various hymn-books, e.g. the Berlin Geistliche Lieder, ed. 1863, No. 623. The translations of this in common use are:—
1. Amid life's wild commotion. A full and good translation, included as No. 226 in Bp. Ryle's Hymns for the Church on Earth, 1860, as No. 313 in Kennedy, 1853, and also in Schaff’s Christ in Song, ed. 1869, p. 533, and Library of Mediaeval Poetry, ed. i883, p. 601. The translator is unknown.
2. Amid this world's commotion. A good and and full translation by Mrs. Findlater in the 4th Series, 1862, of the Hymns from the Land of Luther (ed. 1862, p. 298; 1884, p. 218). Unaltered as No. 132 in Jellicoe's Collection, 1867, and as No. 501 in Windle's Collection. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)