Henry F. Lyte 1847

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide

Lyte was in­spired to write this hymn as he was dy­ing of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis; he fin­ished it the Sun­day he gave his fare­well ser­mon in the par­ish he served so ma­ny years. The next day, he left for Italy to re­gain his health. He didn’t make it, though—he died in Nice, France, three weeks af­ter writ­ing these words. Here is an ex­cerpt from his fare­well ser­mon:

"O breth­ren, I stand here among you today, as alive from the dead, if I may hope to im­press it upon you, and in­duce you to pre­pare for that sol­emn hour which must come to all, by a time­ly ac­quaint­ance with the death of Christ".

For more than a cen­tu­ry, the bells of his church at All Saints in in Low­er Brix­ham, De­von­shire, have rung out “Abide with Me” daily. The hymn was sung at the wed­ding of King George VI of Britain, and at the wed­ding of his daugh­ter, the fu­ture Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

Mrs. Monk de­scribed the set­ting: This tune was writ­ten at a time of great sor­row—when to­ge­ther we watched, as we did dai­ly, the glo­ries of the set­ting sun. As the last gold­en ray fad­ed, he took some pa­per and pen­ciled that tune which has gone all over the earth.