Protestantism in Sweden and Denmark - James Aitken Wylie

finally, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was restricted
to ecclesiastical affairs.[4]
Another influence which tended powerfully to
promote the Reformation in Denmark was the
revival of church-song. The part which Rome
assigns to her people in her public worship is
silence: their voices raised in praise are never
heard. If hymns are ever sung under the gorgeous
roofs of her temples, it is by her clerical choirs
alone; and even these hymns are uttered in a dead
language, which fails, of course, to reach the
understandings or to awaken the hearts of the
people. The Reformation broke the long and deep
silence which had reigned in Christendom.
Wherever it advanced it was amid the sounds of
melody and praise. Nowhere was it more so than in
Denmark. The early ballad-poetry of that country is
among the noblest in Europe. But the poetic muse
had long slumbered there: the Reformation awoke
it to a new life. The assemblies of the Protestants
were far too deeply moved to be content as mere
spectators, like men at a pantomime, of the worship
celebrated in their sanctuaries; they demanded a
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