424. Savior, teach me, day by day
Jane Eliza Leeson, 1807-82
“Love’s sweet lesson” has never been presented more beautifully to the young than in this lyric from Miss Leeson’s Hymns and Scenes of Childhood, 1842, where it is entitled “Obedience.” The Scriptural basis is I John 4:19: “We love him because he first loved us.”
For comments on the author, Jane Eliza Leeson, see [Hymn 298].
MUSIC. POSEN is a short, vigorous tune which children, as well as adults, love to sing. The bass is no less interesting than the melody.
The composer, George C. Strattner, 1650-1705, was an able German musician whose most important work consisted in editing the fifth edition of Joachim Neander’s Collected Hymns, with music, published 1691, in which POSEN first appeared.
425. Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me
Mary L. Duncan, 1814-40
A beautiful evening prayer, written by the author for her own children.
Mrs. Mary Duncan was the daughter of Rev. Robert Lundie, minister at Kelso, England. In 1836, she married the Rev. William Wallace Duncan, minister of the Scottish parish of Cleish. Between July and December of 1839, the year before her death, she wrote a number of hymns for her small children. These were published in a Memoir by her mother and later issued separately—twenty-three in all—as Rhymes for My Children, 1842. Mrs. Duncan, whose life ended so prematurely, was a woman of fine intellect and lovable character, the memory of whom has been described as one of the “aids to the devout life” of Scotland in the last generation. Her sister married Dr. Horatius Bonar ([Hymn 129]), minister and hymn writer.