Thought for the Week - 26th June 2022

Dear Friends,

At a recent funeral service I led we sand the hymn ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ by Henry Francis Lyte, an Anglican clergyman of the 19th Century who served for 24 years in Lower Brixham, Devonshire. I do like to know something of the story behind the hymns that I sing, and I discovered that H F Lyte was born near Kelso in Scotland and studied at Trinity College Dublin where he won the prize for an English poem three times, his hymns revealing his poetic gifts. Although he was already ordained, he underwent a profound religious experience at the deathbed of a brother clergyman in 1817. Both found a deeper faith and Lyte’s own work and preaching received a new vitality because of the experience. He was a man known to be frail in body, suffering from chronic asthma and tuberculosis, but strong in faith and spirit. He retired from his parish in September 1847 at the age of 54 to go and live in Italy where the climate would be more suited to his ailments. He sadly died on the journey in Nice, France, in November 1847, and it is reported that as he drew his last breath he pointed upwards with his final words being, ‘Peace! Joy!’ The hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 103 and described as having beautiful imagery and thoughtful prose containing such themes as the love and care of God, healing and forgiveness, mercy and rescue, and joy and praise of God who is the everlasting King. One of the verses of his hymn which is sometimes omitted in hymnbook collections says, ‘Frail as summer’s flower we flourish; Blows the wind and it is gone; But, while mortals rise and perish, God endures unchanging on: Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise the high eternal One’. It is a reminder of the transient nature of life – perhaps H F Lyte was thinking of this own situation as he wrote those words – drawing all who would forever sing the hymn to consider who God is and what he is like, tender, gentle and caring, and then concluding with the whole of created order bringing praise and thanksgiving to the God of creation. 

Grace and peace,

Neil

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