How happy every child of grace. C. Wesley. [The Hope of Heaven.] Published in his Funeral Hymns, 2nd series, 1759, No. 2, in 8 stanzas of 8 lines, and from thence into the Supplement of the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1830. G. J. Stevenson has given interesting "Associations" in his Methodist Hymn Book Notes, 1883, setting forth the spiritual help this hymn has been to many. (Original text, Poetical Works, 1868-72, vol. vi. p. 216.) Its use with the Methodist bodies in all English-speaking countries is extensive. A cento from this hymn, beginning "A stranger in the world below," is given in H. W. Beecher's Plymouth Collection, 1855, No. 1273. It is composed of stanzas ii. and iii. A second cento in the American Hymns and Songs of Praise, N. Y., 1874, is, "O what a blessed hope is ours" (stanzas vii., viii.).
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)