It is not difficult to come approximately at the order of
composition of Luther's hymns. The earliest hymn-book of the
Reformation - if not the earliest of all printed hymn-books - was
published at Wittenberg in 1524, and contained _eight_ hymns,
four of them from the pen of Luther himself; of the other four
not less than three were by Paul Speratus, and one of these
three, the hymn _Es ist das Heil_, which caused Luther such
delight when sung beneath his window by a wanderer from
Prussia.4 Three of Luther's contributions to this little book
were versions of Psalms - the xii, xiv, and cxxx - and the fourth
was that touching utterance of personal religious experience,
_Nun fruet euch, lieben Christen g'mein_. But the critics can
hardly be mistaken in assigning as early a date to the ballad
of the Martyrs of Brussels. Their martyrdom took place July 1,
1523, and the "_New Song_" must have been inspired by the
story as it was first brought to Wittenberg, although it is
not found in print until the _Enchiridion_, which followed the
_Eight Hymns_, later in the same year, from the press of
Erfurt, and contained fourteen of Luther's hymns beside the
four already published.

In the hymn-book published in 1525 by the composer
Walter, Luther's friend, were six more of the Luther hymns.
And in 1526 appeared the "German Mass and Order of Divine
Service," containing "the German Sanctus," a versification of
Isaiah vi. Of the remaining eleven, six appeared first in the
successive editions of Joseph Klug's hymn-book, Wittenberg,
1535 and 1543.It is appropriate to the commemorative character of the
present edition that in it the hymns should be disposed in