The probability is that the hymn owns a mother instead of a father—and a grand hymn it is; one of the most stimulating in Missionary song-literature.
The stanza—
God shield you with a wall of fire!
With flaming zeal your breasts inspire;
Bid raging winds their fury cease,
And hush the tumult into peace,
—has been tampered with by editors, altering the last line to “Calm the troubled seas,” etc., (for the sake of the longer vowel;) but the substitution, “He'll shield you,” etc., in the first line, turns a prayer into a mere statement.
The hymn was—and should remain—a God-speed to men like William Carey, who had already begun to think and preach his immortal motto, “Attempt great things for God; expect great things of God.”
THE TUNE
Is the “Missionary Chant,” and no other. Its composer, Heinrich Christopher Zeuner, was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Sept. 20, 1795. He came to the United States in 1827, and was for many years organist at Park Street Church, Boston, and for the Handel and Haydn Society. In 1854 he removed to Philadelphia where he served three years as organist to St. Andrews Church, and Arch Street Presbyterian. He became insane in 1857, and in November of that year died by his own hand.