Father of light, and life, and love

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Father of light, and life, and love

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

Father of light, and life, and love,
Thyself to us reveal,
As saints below and saints above
Thy sacred presence feel.

Not with the eye of mortal sense,
By angels round the throne,
Or happy souls departed hence,
Art Thou in glory known.

No sun by day, no moon by night,
For this our spirits need,
Who walk by faith, and not by sight,
They feel Thee nigh indeed.

Light in Thy light the blind may see,
No more by sin estranged;
Light in the Lord, so let us be,
Into Thine image changed.

Since Thou Thyself dost still display
Unto the pure in heart;
O make us, children of the day,
To know Thee as Thou art.

For Thou art light, and life, and love;
And Thy redeem'd below
May see Thee, as Thy saints above,
And know Thee as they know

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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Author: James Montgomery

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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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Father of light, and life, and love
Author:	James Montgomery
Meter:	8.6.8.6
Language:	English

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Notes

Father of light, and life, and love. J. Montgomery. [Public Worship.] Written on Nov. 24, 1842, for the Molyneux Hospital, Dublin (M. MSS.), but omitted from its Collection of hymns, 1854. In 1853 it was included in Montgomery's Original Hymns, No. 287, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and in 1873 in Dr. Martineau's Hymns of Praise & Prayer, No. 757.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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