Beset with snares on every hand. P. Doddridge. [Mary's choice.] This hymn is not in the Doddridge Manuscript. It was first published by J. Orton in the posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, 1755. No. 207, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "Mary's Choice of the Better Part;" and again in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, 1839. Although used but sparingly in the hymnals of Great Britain, in America it is found in many of the leading collections, and especially in those belonging to the Unitarians. The translation—-"In vitae dubio tramite transeo," in Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, p. 109—is made from an altered text in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >
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