323. How sweet, how heavenly is the sight
Joseph Swain, 1761-96
A beautiful hymn of Christian love, suggesting lines by Alice Carey:
He who loves best his fellowman
Is loving God the holiest way he can.
It appeared in the author’s Walworth Hymns, 1792, entitled, “The Grace of Christian Love.”
Joseph Swain, English Baptist minister and hymn writer, lost his parents early in life and was apprenticed to an engraver. He led a careless, frivolous life until his conversion at the age of twenty-two, when he became a fervent Christian. He qualified for the Baptist ministry and began serving as minister of a congregation in East Street, Walworth, in 1791. His poetic gifts, formerly given worldly and superficial expression, were now turned with great effect to his evangelistic appeals. His short ministry of five years, cut off by a lamented early death, was very successful.
MUSIC. REMEMBER ME. For comments on Asa Hull, composer of the tune, see [Hymn 232].