Abide with Me

This morning in Westminster Abbey there was a tablet unveiled to the memory of Henry Francis Lyte and one can think of nothing more fitting than that this faithful minister and poet should have his name inscribed in the place of honour among such illustrious names.
Doubtless this frail man who seemed always to be coughing and looking as if the wind would be likely to blow him away knew that his life would not be a long one and wondered how he could make it memorable and serviceable. How could he leave an influence what would linger on after his body had been laid to rest? He has always been fascinated by making melodies and he turns to his gift of poetry hoping to write something that will live for ages. Listen to these lines – If, he sings,
If I might leave behind
Some blessing for my fellows, some fair trust
To guide, to cheer, to elevate my kind
When I am in the dust.

Might verse of mine inspire
One virtuous aim, one high resolve impart,
Light in one drooping soul a hallowed fire
Or bind one broken heart!
O Thou, whose touch can lend
Life to the dead, Thy quickening grace supply
And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend
In song that may not die!

Now I’m not really sure that “Abide with me” was his swan song, but I do know that it closed his ministry. He left England a week after he wrote it and died in Nice two months later.
BUT WE ALL KNOW that his prayer was answered – answered magnificently. There is no hymn more popular and more widely known.
Lyte was a Church of England minister and his first curacy was at Wexford in Ireland and he returned there in 1820 to visit some friends. He learned while there that an old acquaintance William Le Hunte was desperately ill and went to see him. He found the old man full of fear that the sense of the divine presence he had enjoyed in life might leave him in death and while the young clergyman sat by his bedside he repeatedly clasped his hand and cried “Oh abide with me, abide with me.” That is where the idea of this hymn was born without a doubt, but there is no grounds for saying as some do that it was written then.
In 1823 at the age of 30 he settled in Brixham and spent nearly 26 years in the happy and historic little Devonshire fishing village. He loved the peace and humble fisher folk and soon won their affection. But he was a consumptive and was never well and in the autumn of 1847 had arranged to go to Nice before the winter set in. The fourth Sunday in September was sacrament Sunday in his church and much to everybody’s alarm he declared he would preach the communion service and assist in the sacrament. Neither could he be dissuaded. PREACH he DID. A Sermon that was talked about for long afterwards. LATER in the evening of the same day, he went down his garden path for a solitary walk along the sand. (His house had been given to him by William IV – had terraced garden down to shore.) Whilst he was walking beside the waves in the moonlight, he thought again of his text and it took a new turn in his mind. He had read for his lesson The Walk to Emmaus and preached from “Abide with me the day is far spent.”
Then it seemed his memory goes back to the death-bed of his Irish friend. “Abide with me.” And as he ponders over the years of his own life, he become aware of the failing light as the moon became hidden behind the clouds. Somehow it all wove itself into his mind in verse and he hastened back to his study, and wrote out the stanzas that had swept into his soul. He handed the paper with words and tune to his daughter and left Brixham the following evening. SO Henry Francis Lyte had woven his matchless experience into what Dame Clara Butt has called the world’s loveliest hymn.
Canon Ellerton has said that there is not the slightest allusion to the close of a natural day in the hymn and it is better adapted to be sung at funeral (Something!)
There is a verse which does not appear in any of our hymn books :-

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile
Thou has not left me, oft as I left thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

It is obvious he had in mind the companionship of one who meets us (& still does) on the road of life. And I feel that the hymn lives and always will because it expresses the needs and experiences of men.
It was the experience of Dr Stanley Hones in India – He called the book he wrote about it “The Christ of the Indian Road.”
Great missionarys and explorers in the lonely outpost and along lonely roads have been sure of the same companionship. J.G. Paton seems alone as he stands ringing the death among the blood thirst savages of the South Sea Islands, Indeed, he said, but for the consoling, supporting presence of Christ his reason must have given way. Livingstone spoke of Christ’s promise “Lo I am with you always.” as the word of a perfect gentleman. “But dying alone in a mud hut miles from any white man he would seem to be forsaken and alone. But is HE? The last word of his diary refutes it. He died on his knees. Need we ask who his companion was.
And in that amazing expedition over slippery glaciers and tossing ice flows in the South, Sir Ernest Shackleton met loneliness and difficulties that seemed to have him and his companions insuperable. His ship was last, his men marooned but as he and his two companions turned back he said “It seemed to me during that long and racking march that there were not three but four of us.” Later Worsley to whom he had not mentioned it said “Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another Person with us.” The story as Sir Ernest told it to his London audiences held them spell bound, you could have heard a pin drop.
Now, as I see it Christianity means little to us and these stories of others experiences tend to mock us, unless we can each one enter into a sense of Christ’s presence just every bit as real. And we can know it and feel it if only we will live as if it were true.
He is not far away;
Why do we sometimes seem to be alone
And miss the hand outstretched to meet our own
He is the same to-day,
As when of old he dwelt
In human form with his disciples – when
He knew the needs of all his fellowmen,
And all their sorrows felt.
Only our faith is dim
So that our eyes are holden, and we go
All day, and until dusk, before we know
The we have walked with him.

Abide with us – Abide with me. If we really desire it we can recapture the same divine presence ourselves as we sing it for our last hymn.
When Sir E. Shackleton took his last and fateful voyage he carried with him a gramophone record of that hymn as sung by Dame Clara Butt. He felt it would help him keep the sense of his divine companion. Just think of it ringing out over the icebound wastes of the Antarctic:-
“I need thy presence every passing Hour
What but T—hy grace can foil the tempters power
Who like Thyself, my guide & stay can be.
Through cloud and sunshine, O. Lord, abide with me.”
It was Shackleton’s one thought – a companionship that stayed with him to the end. He asked foe the record to be plated as he lay dying and listened with strained and reverent attention.
Now while as this was happening in South Georgia & the Elephant Island, Nurse Cavill waiting her execution in her cheerless prison in Brussels.
The British Consul called to say his last farewell and they repeated together very softly the words of Abide with me. And as he left she clasped his hand and said with a lovely smile “We shall meet again – Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s can shadows flee.” Then she turned and said to herself “In life, in death, O Lord abide with me.”

And now, to-night, as ever the words of this hymn “Abide with me.” will find a responsive echo in the hearts of all who hunger for the divine companionship.

So we are assured yet again that He who walked along the Emmaus Road, still walks along the roads of life and offers to abide with any who with true hospitality of soul desires and asks his company.


Preached on the evening of 16th November 1947 at Sydney Street Methodist Church, Burton-on-Trent.