1
June 1791 AD. Scottish
Anglican divine and hymnwriter, Mr. (Rev.) Henry Francis Lyte, is Born. Two famous hymns continue in our midst to
this day: (1) Praise My Soul the King of
Heaven and (2) Abide With Me Fast Falls the Eventide
We post the u-tube renditions,
respectively: (1) From St. Paul’s,
London: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d9RJMOP9Tw and
(2) From King’s College, Cambridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deJDkU6qiGE. Gems to be conserved and transmitted in the
covenantal generations, hymns bespeaking literacy, good doctrine, piety,
decorum, decency, balance and honor.
Now, for the brief on the Anglican divine.
The source for our bio-note is below.
No author. “Short History of Henry Francis Lyte.” All Saints Brixham Church. N.d. http://www.allsaintsbrixham.co.uk/index.php?PageID=biography. Accessed Apr 25, 2014.
Short History of Henry Francis Lyte - one time Vicar of All
Saints Brixham
Henry Francis Lyte (June 1, 1793 -
November 20, 1847) was a Scottish Anglican divine and hymn-writer.
He was born to Thomas and Anna Lyte on a farm
at Ednam, near Kelso, Scotland.[1] Thomas Lyte deserted the family shortly
after making arrangements for his two oldest sons to attend Portora
Royal School in Enniskillen, County
Fermanagh.
Anna moved to London, where both she and her youngest son soon died.
The headmaster at Portora, Dr. Burrowes,
recognized Henry Lyte's ability, paid the boy’s fees, and "welcomed him
into his own family during the holidays. Lyte was effectively an adopted son,
and he never forgot Burrowes' generosity and compassion.[2]
Lyte then studied at Trinity
College, Dublin. He took Anglican holy
orders in
1815, and for some time held a curacy in Taghmon nearWexford. In 1817 he was a
curate in Cornwall married to Anne
Maxwell, who came from Monaghan in Ireland. They had two
daughters and three sons, one of whom was the chemist and photographer Farnham
Maxwell-Lyte,
born on 10 January 1828 in Brixham.[3] Because of bad
health Lyte moved to England, and after several changes settled, in 1823, in
the parish of Lower
Brixham,
a fishing village in Devon where he helped
educate Lord
Salisbury,
later British prime minister.
In poor health throughout his life, he
developed consumption. He visited
continental Europe often and continued to write, mainly religious poetry and
hymns. While in Brixham, Lyte wrote his most famous hymns. Three of the best
known are paraphrases of psalms, taken from Lyte’s book, The Spirit of the
Psalms (1834). “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven” is Lyte’s version of
Psalm 103; “God of Mercy, God of Grace” is based on Psalm 67; and “Pleasant are
thy courts above” is a paraphrase of Psalm 84.[4] In 1844 Lyte's
health finally gave way. After his last service, he penned his most famous
hymn Abide
With Me after
watching the sun set over Torbay. Lyte died just two
weeks later in 1847 in Nice, southern France, and was buried there.[5]
Lyte's first work was Tales in Verse
illustrative of Several of the Petitions in the Lord's Prayer (1826),
which was written at Lymington and was commended
by Wilson in the Noctes Ambrosianae. He next published (1833) a
volume Poems, chiefly Religious, and in 1834 a little collection of psalms and hymns
entitled The Spirit of the Psalms. After his death, a volume
of Remains with a memoir was published, and the poems contained in
this, with those in Poems, chiefly Religious, were afterwards issued in
one volume (1868).
His best known hymns are:
Praise my soul the KIng of Heaven
Abide with me fast falls the eventide
Abide with me fast falls the eventide
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