In the hour of trial

Electronic copying has made a world of difference to hymnwriters as to many others. James Montgomery might have been grateful for a copier on 13 Oct 1834, when he wrote on the original handwritten ms of this hymn the names of 22 friends to whom he sent copies, and the dates on which they were sent. There has certainly been much debate about ‘pray for’ in its 2nd line, which 3 editors were venturing to improve to ‘plead for’, ‘stand by’ or ‘help thou’, if not before the ink was dry on their copies, at least soon afterwards. Whether this was one of the lines on which the author wanted reassurance, advice or challenge, we may never know; but 6 months later we have ‘stand by’ in his own hand on a further copy. However, the original form, as here, is clearly based on the very specific words in Luke 22:32, followed by Peter’s denials and the ‘look’ (1.6) in v61. This version survived into the author’s 1853 book Original Hymns, published in the year before he died, and from there more widely for a century or so, though fewer recent books include the hymn. Changes made here come at 1.4 (from ‘I depart from thee’ where the only issue is archaism, but we need to recall that Judas, not Peter, was the ‘traitor’: Luke 6:16) and 1.8 (‘suffer me to ..’); 2.1 was ‘With its witching …’, 4.1 had ‘sore affliction’, and the last stz began, ‘When in dust and ashes/ to the grave I sink,/ while heaven’s glory flashes/ o’er the shelving brink …’

M H Forrest’s tune SHREWSBURY (there is another of this name by J E Hunt) is set to these words in CH, and to Alice Pugh’s In the heart of Jesus there is love for you in Hymns of Faith, where the composer is named as ‘C H Forrest’. Charles H Forrest lived from 1846 to 1925, but no more information is yet available.

b Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland 1771, d Sheffield 1854. His father John was converted through the ministry of John Cennick qv. James, the eldest son, was educated first at the Moravian centre at Fulneck nr Leeds, which expelled him in 1787 for wasting time writing poetry. By this time his parents had left England for mission work in the West Indies. In later life he regularly revisited the school; but having run away from a Mirfield bakery apprenticeship, failed to find a publisher in London, and lost both parents, he served in a chandler’s shop at Doncaster before moving to Sheffield, where from 1792 onwards he worked in journalism. Initially a contributor to the Sheffield Register and clerk to its radical editor, he soon became Asst Editor and (in 1796) Editor, changing its name to the Sheffield Iris. Imprisoned twice in York for his political articles, he was condemned by one jury as ‘a wicked, malicious and seditious person who has attempted to stir up discontent among his Majesty’s subjects’. In his 40s he found a renewed Christian commitment through restored links with the Moravians; championed the Bible Society, Sunday schools, overseas missions, the anti-slavery campaign and help for boy chimney-sweeps, refusing to advertise state lotteries which he called ‘a national nuisance’. He later moved from the Wesleyans to St George’s church and supported Thos Cotterill’s campaign to legalise hymns in the CofE. He wrote some 400, in familiar metres, published in Cotterill’s 1819 Selection and his own Songs of Zion, 1822; Christian Psalmist, or Hymns Selected and Original, in 1825—355 texts plus 5 doxologies, with a seminal ‘Introductory Essay’ on hymnology—and Original Hymns for Public, Private and Social Devotion, 1853. 1833 saw the publication of his Royal Institution lectures on Poetry and General Literature.

In the 1825 Essay he comments on many authors, notably commending ‘the piety of Watts, the ardour of Wesley, and the tenderness of Doddridge’. Like many contemporary editors he was not averse to making textual changes in the hymns of others. He produced several books of verse, from juvenilia (aged 10–13) to Prison Amusements from York and The World before the Flood. Asked which poems would last, he said, ‘None, sir, nothing— except perhaps a few of my hymns’. He wrote that he ‘would rather be the anonymous author of a few hymns, which should thus become an imperishable inheritance to the people of God, than bequeath another epic poem to the world’ on a par with Homer, Virgil or Milton. John Ellerton called him ‘our first hymnologist’; many see him as the 19th century’s finest hymn-writer, while Julian regards his earlier work very highly, the later hymns less so. 20 of his texts including Psalm versions are in the 1916 Congregational Hymnary, and 22 in its 1951 successor Congregational Praise; there are 17 in the 1965 Anglican Hymn Book and 26 in CH. In 2004, Alan Gaunt found 64 of them in current books, and drew attention to one not in use: the vivid account of Christ’s suffering and death in The morning dawns upon the place where Jesus spent the night in prayer. See also Peter Masters in Men of Purpose (1980); Bernard Braley in Hymnwriters 3 (1991) and Alan Gaunt in HSB242 (Jan 2005). Nos.152, 197, 198, 350*, 418, 484, 507, 534, 544, 610, 612, 641, 657*, 897, 959.