Benjamin Rhodes › Texts

Rhodes, Benjamin, born at Mexborough, Yorkshire, in 1743, was brought under the influence of religion by the preaching of George Whitefield in 1766. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and received the elements of a good education in his youth. He was for many years a Wesleyan Minister, having been sent forth to preach by John Wesley. He died at Margate Oct. 13, 1815. To Joseph Benson's Hymns for Children and Young Persons, 1806, and his Hymns for Children selected chiefly from the publications of the Rev. John and Charles Wesley, and Dr. Watts, &c, 1814 (an additional volume to the first, and sometimes bound up with it), he contributed several hymns. Very few of these are now in common use. They include "Children, your parents' will obey" (Duty towards Parents), "Come, let us join our God to praise" (Praise), and "Thou shalt not steal thy neighbour's right" (Against Stealing.) His best known hymn is "My heart and voice I raise" (The Kingdom of Christ). It appeared as stanza i. of his poem Messiah, 1787, pt. ii. being “Jerusalem divine." Each part is in use as a separate hymn.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)