Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep. Margaret Mackay. [Burial of the Dead.] Appeared first in The Amethyst; or Christian's Annual for 1832 (Edin. W. Oliphant), edited by R. Huie, M.D., and R. K. Greville, LL.D., p. 258, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. It is thus introduced:—
"Sleeping in Jesus. By Mrs. Mackay, of Hedgefield. This simple but expressive sentence is inscribed on a tombstone in a rural burying ground in Devonshire, and gave rise to the following verses."
In reprinting it at p. 1 of her Thoughts Redeemed, 1854, Mrs. Mackay says the burying ground meant is that of Pennycross Chapel. She adds:—
"Distant only a few miles from a bustling and crowded seaport town, reached through a succession of those lovely green lanes for which Devonshire is so remarkable, the quiet aspect of Pennycross comes soothingly over the mind. “Sleeping in Jesus' seems in keeping with all around."
From the Amethyst it has passed into numerous hymnals in Great Britain and America, and was recently included, in full, and unaltered, as No. 241 in the Scottish Presbyterian Hymnal, 1876, and as No. 31 in the Free Church Hymn Book, 1882. In Thring's Collection 1882, No. 557, we have a cento composed of the first stanza of Mrs. Mackay's hymn, and stanzas ii.-vi. from Thring's "Asleep in Jesus, wondrous sleep," as noted below, but somewhat altered. This cento is unknown beyond Thring's Collection Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep , p. 87, i. The form of this hymn given in the 1903 edition of Church Hymns , is stanza i., line 1 by Mrs. Mackay and the rest by G. Thring, the same being a revision of his "Asleep in Jesus, wondrous sleep," noted at p. 87, i. This revision was made in October 1896, and published by Novello & Co. with the tune “St. Gabriel," by H. H. Pierson, which was written for Thring's original version, in 1872.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
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