He died at Nice,
France, Nov. 20, 1847.

On the evening of his last Sunday preaching and communion service he
handed to one of his family the manuscript of his hymn, "Abide with me,"
and the music he had composed for it. It was not till eight years later
that Henry Ward Beecher introduced it, or a part of it, to American
Congregationalists, and fourteen years after the author's death it began
to be sung as we now have it, in this country and England.

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens,--Lord with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

* * * * *

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

_THE TUNE_

There is a pathos in the neglect and oblivion of Lyte's own tune set by
himself to his words, especially as it was in a sense the work of a
dying man who had hoped that he might not be "wholly mute and useless"
while lying in his grave, and who had prayed--

O Thou whose touch can lend
Life to the dead. Thy quickening grace supply,
And grant me swan-like my last breath to spend
In song that may not die!

His prayer was answered in God's own way. Another's melody hastened his
hymn on its useful career, and revealed to the world its immortal
value.

By the time it had won its slow recognition in England, it was probably
tuneless, and the compilers of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_ (1861)
discovering the fact just as they were finishing their work, asked Dr.
William Henry Monk, their music editor, to supply the want. "In ten
minutes," it is said, "Dr. Monk composed the sweet, pleading chant that
is wedded permanently to Lyte's swan song."

William Henry Monk, Doctor of Music, was born in London, 1823. His
musical education was early and thorough, and at the age of twenty-six
he was organist and choir director in King's College, London. Elected
(1876) professor of the National Training School, he interested himself
actively in popular musical education, delivering lectures at various
institutions, and establishing choral services.

His hymn-tunes are found in many song-manuals of the English Church and
in Scotland, and several have come to America.

Dr. Monk died in 1889.

"COME, YE DISCONSOLATE."