To Thy temple I repair. J. Mont¬gomery. [Divine Worship.] Published in Collyer's Collection, 1812, No. 916, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and entitled "A Sabbath Hymn." It was repeated in Cotterill's Selection, 1819, No. 286; in Montgomery's Christian Psalmist 1825, No. 468; and in his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 115. It is in common use in its original form; as "In Thy presence we appear," in Kennedy, 1863; and as "To Thy presence I repair," in Dale's English Hymn Book, 1874. In R. Binghani's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, the original, with the omission of stanza v., is rendered into Latin as, "Sacratam Domini domum."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >
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