Introduction

Words: Har­ri­et Parr, in Wreck of the Gold­en Ma­ry, 1856.

Music: Spring­hill Will­iam F. Hurn­dall, 1878 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pic­ture of Parr (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),

[The story] was the Christ­mas num­ber of Charles Dick­ens’ House­hold Words, 1856. The way in which the hymn is in­tro­duced in­to the sto­ry has oft­en been told, and is worth re­peat­ing. The sto­ry sets forth how the ship Gold­en Ma­ry, on her voy­age to Ca­li­for­nia, struck on an ice­berg, and the pas­sen­gers, tak­ing to the boats, suf­fered pri­va­tions for sev­er­al days. To be­guile the time they re­peat­ed stor­ies. One of them, Dick Tar­rant, a wild youth, re­lates some of his ex­pe­ri­enc­es, in which he says:—

What can it be that brings all these old things over to my mind? There’s a child’s hymn I and Tom used to say at my moth­er’s knee, when we were lit­tle ones, keeps run­ning through my thoughts. It’s the stars, may be; there was a lit­tle win­dow by my bed that I used to watch them at, at a win­dow in my room at home in Che­shire; and if I were ev­er af­raid, as boys will be after read­ing a good ghost-sto­ry, I would keep on say­ing it till I fell asleep.

That was a good moth­er of yours, Dick; could you say that hymn now, do you think? Some of us might like to hear it.”

It is as clear in my mind at this min­ute as if my moth­er was here list­en­ing to me, said Dick. And he re­peated

Hear my prayer, O Hea­ven­ly Fa­ther,
Ere we lay us down to sleep,[sic] &c

Julian, p. 882