The hymn suggests a Jewish story quoted by W. F. Tillett in The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church:
The pupils of Rabbi Ben Jochai once asked him with regard to the manna sent to the Israelite host in the wilderness: “Why did not the Lord furnish enough manna to Israel for a year all at one time?” “I will answer you with a parable,” responded the teacher. “Once there was a king who had a son to whom he gave a yearly allowance, paying him the entire sum on a fixed day. It soon happened that the day on which the allowance was due was the only day in the year when the father ever saw the son. So the king changed his plan and gave his son day by day that which sufficed for the day. And now the son visited his father every morning. Thus God dealt with Israel.”
The author, Josiah Conder, born in London, was an editor and publisher. His friends included a large number of eminent literary and church men of the early 19th century. He was a member of the Congregationalist Church. A devout and earnest believer who knew what it was to struggle for daily bread, he had the occasion to practice the gospel of daily trust. He wrote many hymns, published more than a dozen scholarly books, and edited The Congregational Hymn Book in 1836, a work which attained wide popularity in England.
MUSIC. SEYMOUR. For comments on this tune see Hymn [No. 36].
248. One thought I have, my ample creed
Frederick L. Hosmer, 1840-1929
Several of Hosmer’s hymns express his “thought of God,” this being one of the finest. It relates all of life and its needs to the thought of God.
For comments on Frederick L. Hosmer see [Hymn 72].
MUSIC. PRAETORIUS is from Harmoniae Hymnorum Scholae Gorlicensis, Görlitz, 1599. It is supposed to have been written by M. Praetorius, for it appeared in his Musae Sionae, Pt. VI, 1609, and hence its name.
Michael Praetorius, 1571-1621, was born in Kreuzburg, Thuringia. He was educated at the University of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and became Kapellmeister at Lüneburg. Praetorius was a prolific composer, but his fame rests chiefly on a four-volume work on musical theory entitled, Syntagma musicum.