Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/61

 THE STORY OF THE HYMNS AND THEIR WRITERS 49

Hymn 7. Praise, Lord, for Thee in Zion waits. HENRY FRANCIS LYTE.

Psalm Ixv. from The Spirit of the Psalms, which he wrote for his own church in 1834, and enlarged in 1836. He endeavoured to give the spirit of each Psalm in such a compass as the public taste would tolerate, and to furnish sometimes, when the length of the original would admit of it, an almost literal translation ; sometimes a kind of spiritual paraphrase, at others even a brief commentary on the whole psalm.

Mr. Lyte, son of Captain Thomas Lyte, was born at Ednam, near Kelso, in 1793, an d graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he three times gained the prize for the English Poem. His first curacy was near Wexford, but in 1817 he moved to Marazion, Cornwall. There the death of a neighbouring clergyman in 1818 led him to look at life with new eyes. His friend had not found peace in Christ. He and Lyte, who were not yet awake to spiritual realities, searched the Bible together, and learnt the way of salvation. Lyte says, He died happy, under the belief that though he had deeply erred, there was One whose death and sufferings would atone for his delinquencies, and be accepted for all that he had incurred. I began to study my Bible, and preach in another manner than I had previously done. In 1823 he became Perpetual Curate of Lower Brixham, a little Devonshire fishing-port on the shores of Torbay, where William III landed in 1688.

Mr. Lyte lived first at Burton House, where he planted two saplings he had brought from Napoleon s grave at St. Helena. These trees seem to have died down. Shortly after his accession William IV visited Brixham. The stone on which William III had first set his foot was taken down to the pier, that His Majesty might step upon it. Mr. Lyte and his surpliced choir met the King, who made the clergyman a gift of Berry Head House, about half a mile from the town, originally the hospital for the garrison troops. It is covered by roses and creepers, and the sea comes to the very foot of the terraced gardens. It was here that Abide with me was written. As he died at Nice on November 20, 1847, he murmured, Peace ! joy ! and, pointing upwards, passed to his rest with a smile upon his face. He was buried at Nice.

In his last days at Brixham he wrote, I am meditating

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