Blest hour when mortal man retires. T. Raffles. [Hour of Prayer.] Printed in the Amulet for 1829, pp. 304-5, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. One of the first to adapt it to congregational use was the Rev. J. Bickersteth, who included 4 stanzas in his Psalms & Hymns, 1832, as No. 242. Its modern use in any form in Great Britain is almost unknown, but in America it is one of the most popular of Dr. Raffles’s hymns, and is given in many of the leading collections. The full text is No. 883 in Dr. Hatfield's Church Hymn Book, N. Y., 1872. Dr. Hatfield dates the hymn 1828, probably because contributions to the Amulet of 1829 would be sent to the editor in 1828.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)