Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Hymn

Written in Feb­ru­ary, 1823, on the death of the Rev. John Ow­en, for some years a Sec­re­ta­ry of the Brit­ish and For­eign Bi­ble So­ci­ety, who died at the close of 1822.

In the is­sue of the Shef­field Ir­is for Dec. 21, 1824, it is giv­en with the fol­low­ing note: These lines were writ­ten near­ly two years ago, at the re­quest of a friend, and were not then de­signed for ge­ne­ral cir­cu­la­tion. This month, how­ev­er, they have ap­peared in a po­pu­lar pe­ri­od­ic­al work by con­sent of the au­thor. The cir­cum­stance is on­ly men­tioned to ac­count for their late and per­haps un­suit­able pub­li­ca­tion here.

The po­pu­lar pe­ri­od­ic­al work in which it ap­peared was the Chris­tian Ob­serv­er, Dec, 1824. In 1825 Mont­go­me­ry in­clud­ed it, with the al­te­ra­tion of glo­ri­ous pride to glo­ri­ous prime, in his Chris­tian Psalm­ist, No. 533, in 6 stan­zas of 4 lines, with the head­ing, On the death of a Min­is­ter cut off in his use­ful­ness.

It was re­peat­ed in his Orig­in­al Hymns, 1853. On May 11, 1854, stan­zas iii.-vi. (stan­zas i., ii. be­ing omit­ted as un­suit­able) were sung at Mont­go­me­ry’s fun­er­al, to the tune Brad­ing, by Dr. Cal­lcott, ar­ranged by W. H. Call­cott. One of the first to bring this hymn in­to com­mon use was Dr. Mar­tin­eau, in his Hymns, &c, 1840. Its use in Am­eri­ca is more ex­ten­sive than in Great Bri­tain.

Julian, p. 431