Hulda Paul

Hulda Paul (born July 9, 1873 in Velbert ; † May 30, 1902 there ) was a German poet of sacred songs .

Life

childhood

Hulda Paul was the eldest daughter of the locksmith Konrad Paul and his wife Johanne Laura, née Geilhausen. Konrad Paul worked as a simple factory worker. He was often to be found in inns after work and was considered alcoholic and socially marginalized. Hulda Paul's mother and grandmother led a pious life and attended with Hulda and her younger sister Sophie the "hours" of the small community in Velbert, which was created and looked after by the Evangelical Brothers' Association .

The living conditions of 13-year-old Hulda Paul changed drastically when her mother died in 1886. Her father took his daughters to the inns, let them sing to entertain the guests and encouraged them to consume alcohol. Hulda Paul found increasing pleasure in this way of life. But she could not forget the pious upbringing of her mother and grandmother, so that she could not calm her conscience. She felt a longing for peace with God. Therefore, she occasionally attended the events of the community and joined the Christian choral society because she liked and sang well.

revival

In 1890, a revival in Velbert also caught Hulda Paul. In her diary she referred to May 7, 1890 as her “spiritual birthday”. After this conversion , she broke off many old relationships, and contact with her father also loosened when he moved to Cologne. She stayed with her sister with a friendly family who had opened their house to orphans, and she earned her living in a factory where she learned to weave silk.

Songwriter

Inspired by her new found faith, Hulda Paul turned to new interests. She began to paint, continued to sing in the choir, was also very skilled on the zither and discovered her poetic talent. While working on the machines in the factory, she composed rhyming verses and stanzas, which she then wrote down on greaseproof paper during the breaks. In the evening she transcribed these verses in a small book. Soon some of these stanzas became songs for the church. This made the Witten publisher Friedrich Fries (1856–1926), who had good contacts in Velbert, aware of Hulda Paul. He published various texts by her. In 1930 the first official hymn book of the Free Evangelical Congregations , the Congregational Psalter, appeared . It also contained three songs by Hulda Paul: Happy I draw my road (1894), We want to go through life with confidence and without hesitation (1898) and O God, you King of Israel, you eternally solid blessing rock ( n.d. ) .

Hulda Paul struggled with poor health and sad thoughts throughout her life. The song Happy I pull my street was created after a long phase of depression, at the bottom of which it experienced a wonderful turnaround. As a result, this song became a much sung song, especially by long-suffering people.

Sickness and death

Not long after this song was written, Hulda Paul became seriously ill with tuberculosis. In the fall of 1897 she had to give up her job for good. After that, she couldn't leave the house. At the turn of the year 1897/98 it seemed that her death was imminent. Doctors couldn't help anymore. On the advice of her pastor August Wessel (1870–1943) she let Wessel and the Swedish-American revival preacher and evangelist Fredrik Franson pray for themselves with the laying on of hands and anointing in mid-January 1898 . In fact, she recovered again. Although her lung disease was not completely cured, at least her voice came back and, contrary to all expectations, she was given more years of life.

The disease broke out again when Hulda Paul was badly shaken by the tragic death of her father and his family in Cologne. The disease caused her great pain in the end, so that Hulda Paul prayed more and more often to finally be allowed to die. This longing is also recorded in her last poem, which she wrote on the edge of a newspaper:

Death, you are not an enemy to me,

are servants of my God,

commissioned to anchor my ship of life

to clear and lead me home [...]

Why can't I die now?

Why not look who bought me with blood?

That my soul loves.

Why can't I strip off this wretched hut

to thank him with clean lips?

Hulda Paul died on May 30, 1902 at the age of 28. According to the death register of the Evangelical Church in Velbert, she was "quietly" buried. In the linguistic usage at the time, this meant that Hulda Paul, as a free church member, did not receive an official burial with a funeral service, sermon, song and blessing at the grave, but was merely carried to the grave in silence.

literature

• Hartmut Weyel: Hulda Paul - I'm happily pulling my street. In: Christianity today . 4/2009, pp. 50-53

Web links

• Text by Merry I draw my street in the Christian song database