ous canoris), a victory of Jemappes, and conquered the Low Countries." From that moment the Marseillaise became the National Anthem of France. All through the Napoleonic wars her armies marched to the music of Rouget de Lille, which made the tour of Europe with the eagles of France. Afterwards it became a proscribed hymn, and was, in consequence, all the more cherished. Whenever revolution burst out, her first note was ever sounded by the Marseillaise. During the Second Empire it was proscribed until the march on Berlin, which was to end at Sedan, when the Emperor permitted the nation he had betrayed once again to hear the stirring strains in which, for nearly a hundred years, its patriotic passion had vibrated through Europe. Not even the Marseillaise could avert Sedan, but it was to the music of the Marseillaise that the Empire was overthrown, and it remains to this day - Russian alliance notwithstanding the National Hymn of the French Republic. A LLONS, enfants de la Patrie, Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons. Que veut cette horde d'esclaves, Quel transport il doit exciter! Quoi, ces cohortes étrangères Aux armes, citoyens (etc.). Nous entrerons dans la carrière, Quand nos aînés n'y seront plus; Nous y trouverons leur poussière Amour sacré de la patrie, Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs. Combats avec tes défenseurs. (bis) Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire ! The Marseillaise is often sung in England, but seldom beyond the first verse, excepting in French. The English free- very free-rendering, that is sometimes used, begins thus: Ye sons of France, awake to glory! Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death! Outside France the Marseillaise is, however, almost exclusively monopolised by Socialist or other exponents of popular discontent. In France, of course, it is the official anthem, which is played even in the presence of Tsars. But if ever there was a hymn that helped men, the Marseillaise is that hymn. It helped millions to conquer and to die; and so, although it can hardly be regarded as an ordinary hymn, it is such an extraordinary one as to well deserve a place in this collection. 15- LUTHER'S HYMN. A BATTLE hymn, indeed, is this famous hymn which Heinrich Heine rightly describes as "the Marseillaise Hymn of the Reformation." Luther composed it for the Diet of Spires, when, on April 20, 1529, the German princes made their formal protest against the revocation of their liberties, and so became known as Protestants. In the life-and-death struggle that followed, it was as a clarion summoning all faithful souls to do battle, without fear, against the insulting foe. Luther sang it to the lute every day. It was the spiritual and national tonic of Germany, administered in those dolorous times as doctors administer quinine to sojourners in fever-haunted marshes. Every one sang it, old and young, children in the street, soldiers on the battlefield. The more heavily hit they were, the more tenaciously did they cherish the song that assured them of ultimate victory. When Melancthon and his friends, after Luther's death, were sent into banishment, they were marvellously cheered as they entered Weimar on hearing a girl sing Luther's hymn in the street. "Sing on, dear daughter mine," said Melancthon; "thou knowest not what comfort thou bringest to our heart." Nearly a hundred years later, before the great victory which he gained over the Catholic forces at Leipsic, Gustavus Adolphus asked his warriors to sing Luther's hymn, and after the victory he thanked God that He had made good the promise, "The field He will maintain it." It was sung at the Battle of Lützen. It was sung also many a time and oft during the Franco-German war. In fact, whenever the depths of the German heart are really stirred, the sonorous strains of Luther's hymn instinctively burst forth. M. Vicomte de Vogue, one of the most brilliant of contemporary writers, in his criticism of M. Zola's "Débâcle," pays a splendid tribute to the element in the German character which finds its most articulate expression in Luther's noble psalm. M. de Vogue says that M. Zola, in his work, entirely fails to explain in what the superiority of the German army consisted. What was there in these men? Why did they conquer France? Only he who knows the answer, and dares to give it, will be able to write the book about the war. "He who is so well up in all the points of the battlefield of Sedan must surely know what was to be seen and heard there on the evening of Sept. 1, 1870. It was a picture to tempt his pen, those innumerable lines of fires starring all the valley of the Meuse, those grave and solemn chants sent out into the night by hundreds of thousands of voices. No orgy, no disorder, no relaxation of discipline; the men mounting guard under arms till the inexorable task was done; the hymns to the God of victory and the distant home, they seemed like an army of priests coming from the sacrifice. This one picture, painted as the novelist knows how to paint in his best days, would have shown us what virtues, wanting in our own camp, had kept fortune in the service of the other." Of English versions there have been many. That of Thomas Carlyle is generally regarded as the best. ASURE stronghold our God is He. A trusty shield and weapon; Our help He'll be, and set us free That old malicious foe Intends us deadly woe; Armed with might from Hell, |