'Twas on that night when doomed to know. John Morison. [Holy Communion.] First appeared as No. 35 in the Draft Scottish Translations and Paraphrases, 1781, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, as a version of Matt. xxvi. 26-29. Here stanza iv. 11. 1, 2, read: —
"Then taking in his hands the cup,
To Heav'n again he thanks sent up."
The rewriting of these lines was the only change made in the public worship edition issued in that year to the Church of Scotland, and still in use. The hymn bears a close resemblance to a Latin hymn, beginning, "Nocte qua Christus rabidis Apellis" (Private Prayers, p. 405, Parker Society, 1851, quoted in full in the notes to the larger edition of the Free Church Hymn Book, 1882), by Andreas Ellinger, who was born 1526 at Orlamünde, on the Saale, a little above Jena, and d. March 12, 1582, at Jena, where he had become Professor of Medicine in 1569. Mr. William Bonar, of London, considered it a translation from Ellinger by William Archibald (ordained parish minister of Unst, Shetland, in 1735, d. there March 7, 1785), and that Archibald's text was altered by Morison for the Translations and Paraphrases. In the markings by the eldest daughter of W. Cameron, it is ascribed to Morison. It is very generally used in Scotland as a Communion hymn. Included in Burgess & Money's Psalms & Hymns, 1857; Common Praise, 1879; Church Praise, 1883, and other collections; and in full and unaltered, as No. 35 in the Free Church Hymn Book, 1882. The resemblance to Watts's "'Twas on that dark and doleful night," in his Hymns, 1709, Bk. iii., No. 1, often referred to, is but slight. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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