Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing. [Close of Service.] This hymn is found in Dr. Hawker's Psalms and Hymns for the Sunday School in the Parish Church of Charles, Plymouth, 9th edition, no date, 13th edition 1807. In the Crawford and Eberle Index to the Irish Church Hymnal, 1876, p. 53, the editors say:—
"It is found also, but with considerable alterations, in the Rev. Edward Smyth's Collection, Manchester, 1793. Of these two versions that of Hawker seems to be the older, and is possibly by Hawker himself. It is ascribed to him in Baring-Gould's Life of the Rev. R. S. Hawker, where, however, Mr. Baring-Gould has inadvertently quoted the hymn with Fawcett's text which is found indeed in the latest edition of the Charles Collection (1867), but was then introduced in it for the first time by the editor, the Rev. H. A. Greaves. If the eight-line stanza is by Dr. Hawker, it must have appeared in his Collection before 1793. He became Vicar of Charles in 1784, and the Sunday School was established in 1787."
From the time of its appearance in the Charles and the Manchester Collections to the present, it has been republished in numerous hymnals, including D. Simpson's Macclesfield Collection, 1795; the Wesleyan Hymn Book, 1800; Williams & Boden, 1801; Bailey's Siorts Melodies, 1813-1866, and others. In the last case it is given in two stanzas from "Smyth's Manchester Collection " as noted above.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing, p. 687, ii. The date of Hawker's 11th ed. of his Psalms & Hymns as 1811 is an error. The l0th ed. is dated 1807. In his "Advertisement" to this edition the author says that alterations found in the texts of various hymns were introduced in that edition. This hymn is one of those which underwent alterations. The copy of the 13th ed. to which we refer is in the Church House Library, Westminster.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)
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