“O WORSHIP THE KING ALL GLORIOUS ABOVE.”
This hymn of Sir Robert Grant has become almost universally known, and is often used as a morning or opening service song by choirs and congregations of all creeds. The favorite stanzas are the first four—
O worship the King all-glorious above,
And gratefully sing His wonderful love—
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, and sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy, space;
His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light,
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distils in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail.
Thy mercies how tender! how firm to the end!
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!
This is a model hymn of worship. Like the previous one by Thomas Olivers, it is strongly Hebrew in its tone and diction, and drew its inspiration from the Old Testament Psalter, the text-book of all true praise-song.
Sir Robert Grant was born in the county of Inverness, Scotland, in 1785, and educated at Cambridge. He was many years member of Parliament for Inverness and a director in the East India Company, and 1834 was appointed Governor of Bombay. He died at Dapoorie, Western India, July 9, 1838.
Sir Robert was a man of deep Christian feeling and a poetic mind. His writings were not numerous, but their thoughtful beauty endeared him to a wide circle of readers. In 1839 his brother, Lord Glenelg, published twelve of his poetical pieces, and a new edition in 1868. The volume contains the more or less well-known hymns—
The starry firmament on high,
Saviour, when in dust to Thee,
and—
When gathering clouds around I view.
Sir Robert's death, when scarcely past his prime, would indicate a decline by reason of illness, and perhaps other serious affliction, that justified the poetic license in the submissive verses beginning—
Thy mercy heard my infant prayer.
* * * * * *
And now in age and grief Thy name
Does still my languid heart inflame,
And bow my faltering knee.
Oh, yet this bosom feels the fire,
This trembling hand and drooping lyre
Have yet a strain for Thee.