O Lord, now let thy servant

Representative Text

1 O Lord, now let your servant
depart in heav'nly peace,
for I have seen the glory
of your redeeming grace:
a light to lead the nations
unto your holy hill,
the glory of your people,
your chosen Israel.

2 Then grant that I may follow
your gleam, O glorious Light,
till earthly shadows scatter,
and faith is changed to sight;
till raptured saints shall gather
upon that shining shore,
where Christ, the blessed day-star,
shall light them evermore.

Source: Evangelical Lutheran Worship #313

Author: Ernest Edwin Ryden

Ernest Edwin Ryden is a distinguished Lutheran clergyman who has been a life-long student of hymns. At present he is pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in North Grosvenordale, Connecticut. This is the latest of a long series of services he has rendered in the Lutheran Church. For twenty-seven years he was editor of "The Lutheran Companion," the official organ of the former Augustana Lutheran Church. His contributions to hymnody were many. He was a member of the Committee which created the Augustana Hymnal of 1925 to which he contributed eight original hymns and translations. He was co-editor of the Junior Hymnal for which he wrote a number of hymns. He was secretary of the committee which prepared the Service Book and Hymnal. Here again he h… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: O Lord, now let thy servant
Author: Ernest Edwin Ryden
Meter: 7.6.7.6 D
Source: Nunc dimittis
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Tune

NYLAND

NYLAND, named for a province in Finland, is a folk melody from Kuortane, South Ostrobothnia, Finland. In fact, the tune is also known as KUORTANE. NYLAND was first published with a hymn text in an appendix to the 1909 edition of the Finnish Suomen Evankelis Luterilaisen Kirken Koraalikirja. It gaine…

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LANCASHIRE (Smart)

Henry T. Smart (PHH 233) composed the tune in 1835 for use at a missions festival at Blackburn, Lancashire, England. For that festival, which celebrated the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in England, the tune was set to Reginald Heber's (PHH 249) “From Greenland's Icy Mountains.”…

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ST. THEODULPH (Teschner)

Now often named ST. THEODULPH because of its association with this text, the tune is also known, especially in organ literature, as VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN. It was composed by Melchior Teschner (b. Fraustadt [now Wschowa, Poland], Silesia, 1584; d. Oberpritschen, near Fraustadt, 1635) for "Valet wi…

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Timeline

Instances

Instances (1 - 2 of 2)
Text

Evangelical Lutheran Worship #313

Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal #67

Include 4 pre-1979 instances
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