Family Prayer

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Father of men, Thy care we bless

Author: Philip Doddridge
Published in 102 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 Father of all, Thy care we bless,
Which crowns our families with peace:
From Thee they spring; and by Thy hand
They are and shall be still sustained.

2 To God, most worthy to be praised,
Be our domestic altars raised;
Who, Lord of heav'n, yet deigns to come
And sanctify our humblest home.

3 To Thee may each united house
Morning and night present its vows;
Our children these, the rising race,
Be taught Thy precepts and Thy grace.

4 So may each future age proclaim
The honors of Thy glorious Name,
And each succeeding race remove
To join the family above.

Amen.

Source: The Hymnal and Order of Service #532

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Author: Philip Doddridge

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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First Line:	Father of men, Thy care we bless
Title:	Family Prayer
Author:	Philip Doddridge
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

Father of [man] men, Thy care we bless. P. Doddridge. [Family Worship.] Appeared in J. Orton's posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 2, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "God's gracious approbation of a religious care of our families." In J. D. Humphreys's edition of the Hymns, printed from the original manuscript in 1839, a considerable difference is found in the hymns, showing that Orton took more than usual liberties with Doddridge's text. The first stanza reads:—

"Father of men, Thy care we trace,
That crowns with love our infant race;
From Thee they sprung, and by Thy power
Are still sustain'd through every hour."

The text followed by the compilers of hymn-books from Ash & Evans in their Bristol Baptist Collection, 1769, to the New Congregational Hymn Book, 1859-69, was that of Orton, 1755: often altered as in Ash & Evans's Collection to "Father of all, Thy care we bless." This latter is the more popular reading of the two. The Methodist New Connexion Hymns, &c, 1835-60, has it as "Father of man, Thy care we bless."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

MARYTON

After various tunes had been set to this text, Gladden insisted on the use of MARYTON. Composed by H. Percy Smith (b. Malta, 1825; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, 1898), the tune was originally published as a setting for John Keble's "Sun of My Soul" in Arthur S. Sullivan's Church Hymns with Tun…

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BURMAH (Mosley)

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