Samuel Greg

Greg, Samuel, was born in Manchester, Sept. 6, 1804, and educated by Dr. Lant Carpenter, at Bristol, and at the Edinburgh University. He subsequently became a millowner at Bollington, near Macclesfield. He died, May 14, 1877. The addresses given by him at services which he conducted for his workmen at Bollington were published posthumously as A Layman's Legacy, 1877, with a prefatory note by Dean Stanley. He was also author of Scenes from the Life of Jesus, 1854, 2nd ed. 1869. Some of his short poems were appended to his Layman's Legacy. He is known to hymnody as the author of:—
1. My soul in death was sleeping. New Life in Christ. Appeared in his Scenes from the Life of Jesus, 1854, and included in the Baptist Hymnal, 1879, No. 400.
2. Slowly, slowly darkening. Old Age. Written in the midst of affliction, Sept. 1868, and published in his Layman's Legacy, 1877, in 11 st. of 4 lines, and entitled "Mystery of Life." In 1884 it was given in W. G. Horder's Congregational Hymns, No. 837. In Martineau's Hymns, 1873, it reads, "Now, slowly, slowly, darkening." It is a hymn of great merit, and is well suited for Private Devotion.
3. Stay, Master, stay upon this heavenly hill. [Transfiguration.] 1st published in his Scenes from the Life of Jesus, 1854, at the close of a chapter on the Transfiguration. It was reprinted in Macmillan's Magazine, 1870. pp. 543-6, together with Dean Stanley's hymn, "Master, it is good to be," on the same subject. It was included in W. G. Horder's Congregational Hymns, 1884, No. "4. [Rev. W. Garrett Horder]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology