Maria Grace Saffery › Hymnals

Saffery, Maria Grace, née Horsey [sic. Andrews], born in 1773, and died March, 1858, was daughter of the Rev. J. Horsey, [sic. She was not the daughter of J. Horsey. J. Horsey was a friend of her husband's] of Portsea, and wife of the Rev. Mr. Saffery, pastor of the Baptist Church at Salisbury. Early in life she published a short poem and a romance, and in 1834, a volume entitled Poems on Sacred Subjects (London, Hamilton, Adams & Co.). Mrs. Saffery was a gifted and accomplished woman. At the suggestion of her husband, and of her son, the Rev. P. J. Saffery, she wrote many hymns for special occasions. She contributed ten to Dr. Leifchild's collection, and others to the Baptist Magazine and other periodicals. Some time before 1818 she wrote a hymn on Holy Baptism, "Tis the Great Father we adore," which was printed in the Baptist New Selection, 1828, has since appeared in most Baptist hymnbooks, and is now in common use; and sometimes as, “’Tis God the Father we adore." Her hymn of a Mother for her Child, "Fain, O my babe, I'd have thee know," is in the Comprehensive Rippon, 1844. Her Evening hymn, "God of the sunlight hours, how sad," from her Poems, &c, 1834, p. 183, and her Good Shepherd, “There is a little lonely fold," from the same, p. 172, are also in common use. [Rev. W. R. Stevenson, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907), corrections provided by Serena McLaren, Maria Saffery's 3rd Great Granddaughter