William Morton Reynolds

William Morton Reynolds (1812–1876) was an American clergyman, educator, editor, historian, and translator whose work helped English-speaking Lutherans engage German hymnody and the history of Lutheranism in North America. Born in Pennsylvania, he studied at Jefferson College in Canonsburg and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. He taught Latin at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg for many years and later served as the first president of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and as president of Illinois State University at Springfield.

Reynolds combined academic work with church service and publishing. He edited Hymns, Original and Selected, for Public and Private Worship in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, issued in 1850–1851, and translated hymns and religious works from German and other European languages. His English rendering of Martin Luther's Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland became an important ancestor of later American versions of the Advent hymn. Modern hymnal texts, however, often represent composite editorial development rather than Reynolds's wording alone, so individual stanzas should be credited according to the edition in which they appear.

Reynolds also pursued historical scholarship, especially on early Swedish Lutheran activity in North America. He completed an English translation of Israel Acrelius's History of New Sweden, published in 1874. Later in life he entered the Episcopal ministry. His career therefore crossed denominational, academic, editorial, and historical fields, while his hymn translations gave nineteenth-century American congregations access to important continental Lutheran texts.