Fill all my life, O Lord my God

If this is not Horatius Bonar’s finest hymn (see 271, note), it has probably become his best known, reprinted in countless books since its first appearance in the author’s Hymns of Faith and Hope (3rd Series 1866), headed ‘Life’s Praise’. It then had six 8-line stzs, as ‘Fill thou my life …’, an opening changed in HTC to ‘Fill now …’ Often, therefore, as here, half of the original 48 lines have been omitted (sometimes more), and the choice of remaining stzs has varied. But the main thrust is inescapable: All, every, whole, every, each, each, every, all, all—the totality of life is devoted to the praise of God. The changes made here are at 3.4 (as HTC, from ‘however small and mean’); 5.1–2 (which most books now alter, from ‘… from me, ev’n me/ receive the glory due’); and 6.3–4 (‘… in every step,/ be fellowship with thee’). Other lines which sometimes survive are the penultimate ‘So shall each fear, each fret, each care/ be turnèd into song,/ and every winding of the way/ the echo shall prolong’ (included in PHRW, which drops stz 3 instead). Among those which do not are ‘Praise in the common words I speak,/ life’s common looks and tones,/ in intercourse at hearth and board/ with my belovèd ones’, and the more demanding, ‘Upon the bed of weariness,/ with fevered eye and brain … Loving and blessing those who hate,/ returning good for ill.’ The removal of these specifics has robbed the hymn of some of its distinctive power, making it more bland than the author intended; but the motivation of 4.3, mentioned briefly enough, remains vital.

The broad, climbing and soaring tune RICHMOND, with its climactic 3rd line, has been in frequent demand for many hymns. A first version appeared, set to O thou from whom all goodness flows (note the ‘all’ even here), in Thomas Haweis’ book Carmina Christo, or Hymns to the Saviour, 9th edn 1792. In 1808 the music was considerably revised to its present form by Samuel Webbe the younger in his Collection of Psalm-Tunes, and named after the composer’s friend, the preacher Legh Richmond. Among other names, including HAWEIS, it is known in America as CHESTERFIELD; the composer knew Lord Chesterfield through the Countess of Huntingdon whose chaplain he was.

b Edinburgh 1808, d Edinburgh 1889. Edinburgh High Sch and Univ; licensed to preach (Ch of Scotland) and became asst. to the Minister at Leith, where his first hymns were written as a response to the children who needed more than archaic Psalmody. With other young men he engaged in mission work in the city’s homes, courtyards and alleyways. Five of his own 9 children died while young. From 1837 he was Minister of the North Parish beside the Tweed in Kelso; then at the 1843 ‘disruption’ he became a founder member of the Free Ch of Scotland but (unlike many) was able to continue his existing ministry at Kelso. He edited the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 1848–73; Hon DD (Aberdeen) 1853; he visited Palestine 1855–6 and drew much imagery from his experiences there. From 1866, he was Minister of the Chalmers Memorial Free Ch, Edinburgh; from 1883, Moderator of the Free Church’s General Assembly. ‘Always a Presbyterian’, and a keen student of the Classics and early church fathers, he wrote about one book every year; his Words to Winners of Souls has proved of special value to Jerry E White, President of The Navigators a century later. Bonar was a frequent attender and speaker at London’s Mildmay Conferences; see under W Pennefather. As well as being committed to prayer, preaching and visiting, he wrote some 600 warmly evangelical hymns and other Psalm paraphrases, earning him the title ‘prince of Scottish hymn-writers’. Some were designed specifically for the visiting American singer (with Moody), Ira D Sankey. About 100 reached publication; many were written very rapidly but enjoyed great popularity in their day, and his lifetime witnessed a great change in what was sung in Scottish churches. The Keswick Hymn Book (1938) featured 17 of these and Hymns of Faith (1964), 13. But while the 1898 edn of the Scottish Church Hymnary included 18 texts (more than from any other author), CH3 (1975) found room for 8 and the 2005 book reduces these to 5; posterity has been less than kind to his wider reputation. Among those not quite forgotten is ‘All that I was – my sins, my guilt,/ my death was all my own;/ all that I am I owe to thee,/ my gracious God alone.’

A clause in Bonar’s will stipulated that no memoir should be published, but in the year after his death his son H N Bonar published Until the Day Break, and other Hymns and poems left behind, and in 1904 and further hymn selection with notes. Julian laments the hymnwriter’s ‘absolute indifference to dates and details’, while Routley is lukewarm about much of his work, and on receiving the news of his death, Ellerton acknowledged his limited vision, unpoetic lines and occasional triteness—‘But he is a believer. He speaks of that which he knows; of him whom he loves, and whom, God be praised, he now sees at last’—JE, 1889. Like this English hymnologist, several other historians have at least admitted Scotland’s debt to one who probably did more than anyone to bring hymns into the mainstream of the church’s and the nation’s song. Nos.151, 271, 581, 648, 701, 710, 793, 801, 838, 855, 874, 1284