Another evening hymn, widely used, and destined to live as long as English hymns are sung. It is taken from the author’s Christian Year, a book of devotional poetry which sold 305,500 copies in forty-six years. The original poem of fourteen stanzas, composed November 25, 1820, appeared with the title, “’Tis Gone, that Bright and Orbèd Blaze,” and was headed with the text, “Abide with us” (Luke 24:29). The hymn represents a lone traveller pressing on his way after the sun has set, but trusting in Christ, the “Sun of the soul,” for guidance and protection, and lifting a prayer for the sick and poor and the helpless. Tennyson, too, likened Christ to the sun. Asked what Christ meant to him he paused beside a flower in the garden and answered: “What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is the Sun of my soul.”
For further comments on John Keble see [Hymn 22].
MUSIC. HURSLEY is a good tune but not as good as the original, “Grosser Gott, wir loben Dich” ([No. 519]), from which some unknown person adapted it. The melody and harmonization have been changed, not for the better, to suit the English words. “Hursley” was the name of the parish of which Keble was vicar, and the tune was doubtless given this name when it came to be associated with Keble’s hymn.
31. Day is dying in the west
Mary Lathbury, 1841-1913
An evening hymn of high rank which has been used widely in American churches during the past half century.
Mary A. Lathbury, daughter of a Methodist minister, was a successful art teacher but is remembered chiefly for her work with the Methodist Sunday School Union and her literary contributions to periodicals for young people. The “Look Up” Legion which she founded had for its motto, Edward Everett Hale’s four rules of good conduct:
Look up, not down;
Look forward, not back;
Look out, not in,