Command Thy blessing from above. J. Montgomery. [Divine Worship.] Written for the Sheffield Sunday School Union, Whitsuntide gathering, June 3, 1816, and printed for that occasion, and in the Evangelical Magazine, Sept., 1816, p. 372. In 1819 it was included in Cotterill's Selection, No. 13, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and there entitled "For God's blessing on His assembled people." In 1825 it was republished, with alterations, by Montgomery, in his Christian Psalmist, No. 470, and again with the same text in his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 99. The arrangement, however, in common use are various, some following Cotterill’s text, as in Hymnal Companion from Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, others the revised text of 1825 and 1853, and others, as in New Congregational Hymn Book, a mixture of the two. The American use also varies in like manner.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >
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