Jesus, I my cross have taken

As with the previous item though in a lower spiritual key, this hymn has been overshadowed by the author’s better-known work. Henry Francis Lyte certainly makes a bold beginning (uncomfortably close to Mark 10:28), which perhaps has alarmed more cautious editors, since many books bypass it. Some make things easier by pluralising to ‘Jesus, we our cross have taken.’ But the writing was almost certainly prompted by the author’s recognition that others had taken this crucial step. One account sees the hymn as a retrospective tribute to his wife Ann, whose family despised her Methodist connections and commitment; another refers it to Mary Bosanquet who made a similar sacrificial decision c1760, later marrying John Fletcher of Madeley. In any event, the 6-stz text was published in an 1824 Edinburgh collection and in Montgomery’s The Christian Psalmist a year later, each time under the initial ‘G’. After 2 more appearances and some changes, it was included definitively in the author’s Poems Chiefly Religious in 1833. More verbal changes have been made since; those here include 1.3 (from ‘destitute’, to make clear who is being described) and 1.4 (from ‘thou from hence my all shalt be’). 3.1–2 was ‘Men may trouble … / ’Twill but drive me to thy breast’; 3.5–8 are changed for the sake of clarity from ‘O ’tis not in grief to harm me/ while thy love is left to me!/ O ’twere not in joy to charm me,/ were that joy unmixed with thee!’ Stz 4 had the lines ‘… rise o’er sin and fear and care:/ joy to find in every station/ something still to do or bear/ … what a Father’s smile is thine/ … should’st thou repine?’, and stz 5 began, ‘Haste then on …’ and retained the 2nd person address to ‘thee’ meaning ‘myself’.

For Andrew Maries’ tune FAITHFUL LOVE see the note to 323, for which it was composed.

b Ednam nr Kelso, Roxburghshire, Scotland 1793, d Nice, France 1847. Portora Royal Sch (a charity school for orphans), Enniskillen, N Ireland, andTrinity Coll Dublin (3 English poetry prizes; BA 1814). Having abandoned his medical course for theology, he was ordained in 1815 to a Wexford curacy at Taghmon, then moved to England and ministered in Marazion, Cornwall. It was here that, moved by the illness and death of a fellow clergyman, he experienced a deep spiritual renewal, abandoning among other things his contempt for the neighbouring Methodists. His friend had known that he had ‘deeply erred’, but died happy in the confidence that ‘there was One whose death and sufferings would atone for his delinquencies, and be accepted for all that he had incurred’. Lyte continues, ‘I was greatly affected by the whole matter, and brought to look at life and its issue with a different eye than before [cf 2 Cor 5:16–17], and I began to study my Bible, and preach in another manner than I had previously done’.

He then ministered briefly in Lymington, Hants, and from 1823 as ‘Perpetual Curate’ of Lower Brixham in Devon. While visiting the fishing fleet he made sure that every boat had a Bible; he was active in Wilberforce’s anti-slavery campaigning. King William IV, much impressed, presented him with Berry Head House where he lived for the next 24 years. While there he built up an impressive library and became both author and editor of much verse including Tales on the Lord’s Prayer in Verse (1826), Poems, chiefly religious (1833 and 1845), and The Spirit of the Psalms (1834, a title used only 5 years earlier by H Auber). We also owe to HFL two of the best known hymns in English, both being not only frequently sung but also often quoted well beyond the usual contexts of hymnody. The texts in two further edns of the 1834 book, the last issued posthumously at Torquay, vary considerably. Among other works Lyte edited the poems of Henry Vaughan, with a memoir, in 1846. His own verse is often tinged with sadness; writing of darkness and loss, he finds security and permanence in God and expresses his faith in disciplined, patterned verse. In spite of his comparatively enlightened attitude to dissent, he did not find it easy to relate to the newer and locally very active ‘Plymouth’ Brethren, and his schools work proved very demanding. He wintered in Rome and Southern Italy in 1844–45 without noticeable gain; in 1847 his fragile health broke down, and although travelling to Nice to recuperate, he died there later that year. Julian commends the tenderness and beauty of his texts, which ‘rarely [?] swell out into joy and gladness’; Ellerton especially commends his treatment of the Psalms, ‘in seizing the leading idea of a psalm, and embodying it in a few verses’. Between 3 and 6 of his hymns are still commonly found in mainstream American and British books; 7 have featured in the various edns of A&M, 6 were in Congregational Praise (1951) and 8 in CH, and at least two of his more joyful ones, as well as one solemn masterpiece, remain in great demand. Nos.67, 103B, 843, 905.