Eternal Source of every joy. P. Doddridge. [New Year.] Dated in the D. MSS. Jan. 1, 1736, and first published by Job Orton in his posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 43, in 7 stanzas of 4 lines, and in J. D. Humphreys's edition of the same, 1839, No. 55. In the D. MSS. the title is, "God crowning the Year with His goodness"; and in the Hymns, "The Year crowned with the divine goodness." It is usually given in an abbreviated form, the number of stanzas varying in the various hymn-books. Its use in Great Britain is much less extensive than in America. The text usually adopted is from the 1755 book, as in Lyra Britannica, 1867, p. 193; that, however, in the Methodist Sunday School Hymn Book is from the Brooke manuscript of Doddridge's Hymns.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >
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