Abide With Me
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. John 15:7
Henry Francis Lyte, vicar in the fishing village of Lower Brixham, Devonshire, England, ministered faithfully for twenty-three years to his seafaring people.
Though a humble couple, he and his wife, Anne, lived in an elegant estate, Berry Head.
It had reportedly been provided by King William IV, who had been impressed with Henry's ministry.
At waters edge, its coastal views were among the most beautiful on the British Isles.
Henry laid out waling trails through the estate's forty-one acres and enjoyed the tranquility of the house and grounds.
There he wrote most of sermons, poems, and hymns.
But Henry's lung condition hung over the home like a blackening cloud.
Lower Brixam suffered damp winters, and while in his lower fifties Henry realized that his lung condition had deteriorated into tuberculosis.
On September, 4, 1847, age 54, he entered his pulpit with difficulty and preached what was on to be his last sermon.
He had planned a therapeutic holiday in Italy.
"I must put everything in order before I leave," he said, "because I have no idea how long I will be away."
That afternoon he walked along the coast in pensive prayer then retired to his room, emerging an hour later with a written copy of "Abide With Me."
Some accounts indicate he wrote the poem during that hour; others say that he discovered it in the bottom of his desk as he packed for his trip to Italy, and that it had been written a quarter century earlier.
Probably both stories are true.
It is likely that, finding sketches of a poem he had previously started, he prayerfully revised and completed it that evening.
Shortly afterward, Henry embraced his family a final time and departed for Italy.
Stopping in Avignon, France, he again revised "Abide With Me"-- it was evidently much on his mind--and posted it to his wife.
Arriving on the France Riviera, he checked into the Hotel de Angleterre in Nice, and there on November 20, 1847, his phthisic lungs finally gave out.
Another English clergyman, a Rev. Manning of Chichester, who had happened to be staying in the same hotel, attended him during his final hours.
Henry's last words were "Peace! Joy!"
When news on his death reached Brixam, the fisherman of the village asked Henry's son-in-law, also a minister, to hold a memorial service.
It was on this occasion that "Abide With Me" was first sung.
Excerpt from "Then Sings My Soul" by Robert J. Morgan
Thomas Nelson Publishers
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