Author: Nicolaus Ludwig, Graf von Zinzendorf

Zinzendorf, Count Nicolaus Ludwig, the founder of the religious community of Herrnhut and the apostle of the United Brethren, was born at Dresden May 26, 1700. It is not often that noble blood and worldly wealth are allied with true piety and missionary zeal. Such, however, was the case with Count Zinzendorf. Spener, the father of Pietism, was his godfather; and Franke, the founder of the famous Orphan House, in Halle, was for several years his tutor. In 1731 Zinzendorf resigned all public duties and devoted himself to missionary work. He traveled extensively on the Continent, in Great Britain, and in America, preaching "Christ, and him crucified," and organizing societies of Moravian brethren. John Wesley is said to have been under obligat… Go to person page >

Author: Christian Gregor

Gregor, Christian, son of Georg Gregor, a peasant living in the Silesian village of Dirsdorf, near Peilau, was born at Dirsdorf, Jan. 1, 1723. In 1742 he went to Herrnhut, where he was at first employed in tuition. He became leader of the music in the [Moravian] Brethren's congregation at Herrnhaag, in 1748, and in 1749 at Zeist; but in 1753 he returned to Herrnhut as cashier of the Brethren's Board of Direction. He was, in 1756, ordained diaconus, in 1767 presbyter, and in 1789 bishop of the Brethren's Church. On Nov. 6,1801, he attended a meeting, held at Herrnhut, of the Board of Direction of which he had been a member from 1764. Just as he entered his house at Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, he was struck with paralysis, and died that same… Go to person page >

Translator: Catherine Winkworth

Catherine Winkworth is "the most gifted translator of any foreign sacred lyrics into our tongue, after Dr. Neale and John Wesley; and in practical services rendered, taking quality with quantity, the first of those who have laboured upon German hymns. Our knowledge of them is due to her more largely than to any or all other translators; and by her two series of Lyra Germanica, her Chorale Book, and her Christian Singers of Germany, she has laid all English-speaking Christians under lasting obligation." --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872… Go to person page >

Deiner Kinder Sammelplatz. N. L.von Zinzendorf. [Burial of the Dead.] First appeared as No. 242 in the "Zweyter Anhang bis 1754," to the Kleine Brüder Gesang-Buch, London, 1754… [in a] form quite unsuited for public use. Though Knapp, in his 1845 edition of Zinzendorf’s Geistliche Lieder, p. 174, has tried to recast it without much success. It was probably written between 1749 and 1755. Lauxmann, in Koch, viii., 651, however says that it was written 1746, on the death and funeral of an only brother. In the Brüder Gesang-Buch of 1778 it was included as No. 1720, with stanzas ii., iii. omitted, and otherwise greatly altered and much improved by Christian Gregor. This text, which begins, "Aller Gl'aubgen Sammelplatz," is No. 1565 in the Berlin Geistliche Leider edition 1863. It is the usual funeral hymn among the German-speaking Moravians, and through the Württemberg Gesang-Buch of 1842 (No. 630) has become a great favourite in South Germany. Thus Koch, vii. 207, relates of Dr. C. G. Barth of Calw:—

On the 15th of November [1862], according to his own desire he was buried in the grave of Machtolf [his predecessor] at Mottlingen, where also his mother, who had died there in 1828, was at rest, to the strains of the hymn, an especial favourite of his, ‘Aller Glaub'gen Sammelplatz.'"

An additional verse, translated by Miss Winkworth as stanza iii., is founded on Zinzendorf’s stanza iv., and is thus given in Knapp's Evangelischer Lieder-Schatz, edition 1850, No. 2895… It has been translated as:— Christ will gather in His own, a fine translation from the 1778 text... by Miss Winkworth, in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Series, 1858, p. 120, and in her Choral Book for England, 1863, No. 199. It was adopted unaltered as No. 191 in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1801, and has since been'included in Kennedy, 1863; Church Hymns, 1871; Baptist Hymnal, 1879, and others; and in America in the College Hymnal, 1870; Baptist Service of Song, 1871; Evangelical Hymnal 1880, and others. It is given, in a slightly altered form, in Putnam's Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, Boston, U. S., 1875, and marked as an original hymn by W. C. H. Dall. Another translation, from the text of 1778, is "All the saints will meet on high," in J. D. Burns's Memoir and Remains, 1869, p. 228. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.] --Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)