Jesus, Tender Shepherd, Hear Me

Author: Mary Lundie Duncan

Duncan, Mary, née Lundie, daughter of the Rev. Robert Lundie, Parish Minister of Kelso, and Mary Grey Lundie Duncan, was born at Kelso, April 26, 1814. On July 11, 1836, she was married to the William Wallace Duncan, the son of Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D., founder of the Savings Bank movement and minister in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. In the end of December, 1839, she took a chill, which resulted in a fever and died on Jan. 5, 1840. Her hymns, mostly written for her children between July and December, 1839, appeared, in 1841, in her Memoir, by her mother, and were issued separately, in 1842, as Rhymes for my Children, to the number of 23. The best known are, "Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me," and "My Saviour, be Thou near me." Dian… Go to person page >

Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me. Mary Duncan, née Lundie. [Child's Evening Hymn.] This beautiful little hymn was composed for her children in 1839, and first published in 3 stanzas of 4 lines in her Memoir, 1841 (edition 1843, p. 311). It is No. 3 in her Rhymes for my Children, 1842, entitled "An Evening Prayer." It has been included in England in the Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858, the Hymnal Companion, 1876, and others; in America, in the Episcopal Hymn Book, 1871, the Evangelical Hymnal, N. Y., 1880, the Songs of Christian Praise, N. Y., 1881, and in other collections. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)