Author of life, with grateful heart

Author: Samuel Pearce

Pearce, Samuel, son of a silversmith at Plymouth, was born in that town, July 20, 1766. Early in life he joined the Baptist Church in Plymouth, and, showing gifts for the ministry, was invited to preach. After a course of study at the Baptist College, Bristol, he became, in 1790, pastor of the Baptist congregation in Cannon Street, Birmingham. There his ministry was remarkably successful; but after a brief and bright course he died on Oct. 10, 1799. He was strongly disposed to foreign mission work, and was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society, in 1792. His Memoirs, by A. Fuller, was published in 1800. Embodied in the Memoirs were eleven poetical pieces. In the 2nd edition, 1801, these pieces were grouped together at the e… Go to person page >

Author of life, with grateful heart. S. Pearce. [Morning.] Appeared at the end of his Memoirs, by Andrew Fuller, first ed.,1800, pp. 286-7, and again in the 2nd ed., 1801, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines and entitled "An Evening Song." The hymn beginning with this stanza in Major's Book of Praise, is a cento from S. Pearce, thus composed: stanza i., the first stanza as above; stanzas ii.-v. are stanzas iii.-vi. from Pearce's Morning Hymn in the same Memoirs as above, thus making ,a morning hymn. The text in Major is altered from the originals.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)