Claudius wrote no hymns to be sung in church, but several were taken from his poetical works. This one comes from a sketch titled “Paul in north Germany and there singing this so-called “Peasant’s Song.” The Erdmann’s Fest.” The neighbors are represented as coming to Paul’s house 17 stanzas were sung by soloists, and all joined in the chorus, which was a thanksgiving for the harvest. Jane Campbell’s translation, beginning with the third stanza, was published by C. S. Bere in Garland of Song, 1861.

Matthias Claudius, born at Reinfeld, Germany, on August 15, 1740, had an ancestor who latinized his name, Claus Paulsen, to Claudius Pauli, using Claudius as the surname. The son of a Lutheran pastor, Matthias studied for the ministry at University of Jena but changed to courses in law and language. For much of his life he edited a paper at Wandsbeck, near Hamburg, called Wandsbecker Bote (Wandsbeck Messenger); in 1788 he was appointed auditor of the Schleswig-Holstein Bank at Altona. He died at Hamburg on January 21, 1815.

Jane Montgomery Campbell was born in 1817 at Paddington, England, the daughter of a Church of England minister. She was a music teacher in the parish school and published some musical exercises titled A Handbook for Singers. She assisted in preparing the above-mentioned Garland of Song and contributed several translations of German hymns and poems to the Children’s Choral Book, 1869. She died at Bovey Tracey, Devonshire on November 15, 1878.de

WIR PFLÜGEN (We Plow) gets its name from the first German words of the third stanza of “Peasant’s Song.” It was first printed in Lieder für Volksschulen (Songs for Elementary Schools), 1800, and it became very popular in German school hymnals. Schulz was given credit for the music in Lindner’s Jugenfreud, 1818. Lowell Mason brought it to the United States in The Seraph, 1840. Even though the melody has a wide compass of an octave and a fifth, it has always been easily sung and appreciated by congregations. Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, the son of a baker, was born March 31, 1747, at Lüneburg, Germany. His father wanted him to be a minister, but he turned instead to music. He left home and studied in Berlin. From 1776 to 1780 he played in, and later directed the French Theater orchestra, Berlin. He moved then to be choir director at Rheinsberg, and then in 1787 to a similar position in Copenhagen, where he stayed for eight years. He was injured trying to save the music library in Copenhagen from a fire and later suffered in a shipwreck in 1796. He died at Schwedt, on the river Oder, northeast of Berlin, on June 10, 1800. He is now known only for this hymn tune, which had its beginning in a secular folk song.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.