Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
“MY HOPE IS BUILT ON NOTHING LESS.”
The Rev. Edward Mote was born in London, 1797. According to his own testimony his parents were not God-fearing people, and he “went to a school where no Bible was allowed;” but at the age of sixteen he received religious impressions from a sermon of John Hyatt in Tottenham Court Chapel, was converted two years later, studied for the ministry, and ultimately became a faithful preacher of the gospel. Settled as pastor of the Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex, he remained there twenty-six years—until his death, Nov. 13, 1874. The refrain of his hymn came to him one Sabbath when on his way to Holborn to exchange pulpits:
On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
There were originally six stanzas, the first beginning:
Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move,
I rest upon unchanging love.
The refrain is a fine one, and really sums up the whole hymn, keeping constantly at the front the corner-stone of the poet's trust.