As with gladness men of old
AS WITH GLADNESS MEN OF OLD
did the guiding star behold,
as with joy they hailed its light,
leading onward, beaming bright:
so, most gracious Lord, may we
evermore your splendour see.
2 As with joyful steps they sped,
Saviour, to your lowly bed,
there to bend the knee before
Christ whom heaven and earth adore:
so with ever-quickening pace
may we seek your throne of grace.
3 As they offered gifts most rare
at your cradle plain and bare,
so may we, with holy joy
pure and free from sin’s alloy,
all our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to you, our heavenly King.
4 Holy Jesus, every day
keep us in the narrow way
and, when earthly things are past,
bring our ransomed souls at last
where they need no star to guide,
where no clouds your glory hide.
5 In the heavenly city bright
need they no created light—
you its light, its joy, its crown,
you its sun which goes not down;
there for ever may we sing
hallelujahs to our King.
WORDS: WILLIAM C DIX 1837–98 © IN THIS VERSION JUBILATE HYMNS LTD www.jubilate.co.uk
William C Dix
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Dix, William Chatterton
b Bristol 1837, d Cheddar, Axbridge, Som 1898. He was named after the young poetic genius Thos Chatterton, whose tragically brief life had been chronicled by WCD’s father; Wm J Dix was a high church Bristol surgeon who nevertheless wrote a vivid and appreciative account of the preaching of Thos Binney (qv). William junr attended Bristol Grammar Sch; trained for a mercantile career and he became manager of a marine insurance company in Glasgow. He also wrote some very competent verse, marked by the high Anglicanism of his adult convictions. Among his published collections were Hymns of Love and Joy (1861), Altar Songs; verses on the Holy Eucharist (1867), Vision of All Saints (1871) and Seekers of a City (1878). He published two other devotional works and a children’s book on the life and example of Christ, and put into metrical form the prose translations of Gk and Abyssinian (Ethiopian) hymns made respectively by Richard Littledale and Rodwell. Many late-19th-c Anglocatholic books such as Lyra Eucharistica included his hymns; 5 of them were in EH and in the 1950 A&M. Two of his most popular have each been titled ‘The manger throne’: Like silver lamps in a distant shrine, and What child is this who, laid to rest, the latter written for and set to GREENSLEEVES. Both appeared in Christmas Carols New and Old (ed Bramley and Stainer, 1871) and many other collections since then. Nos.386, 918.