y;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me!

I need Thy presence every passing hour:
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me!

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou 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!

Henry Francis Lyte, 1847.

HENRY FRANCIS LYTE AND HIS SWAN SONG

Many a man who has labored in obscure places, practically unnoticed and
unpraised by his own generation, has achieved a fame after his death that
grows in magnitude with the passing years.

When Henry Francis Lyte died in 1847, he was little known beyond his
humble seashore parish at Lower Brixham, England; but today, wherever his
beautiful hymns are sung throughout the Christian world, he is gratefully
remembered as the man who wrote "Abide with me."

In response to a questionnaire sent to American readers recently by "The
Etude," a musical magazine, 7,500 out of nearly 32,000 persons who
replied named "Abide with me" as their favorite hymn. It easily took
first rank, displacing such older favorites as "Rock of Ages" and "Jesus,
Lover of my soul."

How often we have sung this hymn at the close of an evening service, and
a settled peace has come into our hearts as we have realized the nearness
of Him who said, "And lo! I am with you always." Yet, this is not in
reality an evening hymn. Its theme is the evening of life, and it was
written when Lyte felt the shadows of death gathering about his own head.
We catch his meaning in the second stanza:

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away.

Lyte was always frail in health. He was born in Scotland, June 1, 1793,
and was early left an orphan. Nevertheless, despite the handicap of
poverty, he struggled through college, and on three occasions won prizes
with poems.

His first ambition was to become a physician, but during his college days
he determined to enter the ministry. The death of a young friend, a
broth