Family Prayer

Father of men, Thy care we bless

Author: Philip Doddridge
Tune: MARYTON
Published in 101 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 Father of all, Thy care we bless,
Which crowns our families with peace:
From Thee they spring; and by Thy hand
They are and shall be still sustained.

2 To God, most worthy to be praised,
Be our domestic altars raised;
Who, Lord of heav'n, yet deigns to come
And sanctify our humblest home.

3 To Thee may each united house
Morning and night present its vows;
Our children these, the rising race,
Be taught Thy precepts and Thy grace.

4 So may each future age proclaim
The honors of Thy glorious Name,
And each succeeding race remove
To join the family above.

Amen.

Source: The Hymnal and Order of Service #532

Author: Philip Doddridge

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 >

Text Information

First Line: Father of men, Thy care we bless
Title: Family Prayer
Author: Philip Doddridge
Meter: 8.8.8.8
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Father of [man] men, Thy care we bless. P. Doddridge. [Family Worship.] Appeared in J. Orton's posthumous edition of Doddridge's Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 2, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "God's gracious approbation of a religious care of our families." In J. D. Humphreys's edition of the Hymns, printed from the original manuscript in 1839, a considerable difference is found in the hymns, showing that Orton took more than usual liberties with Doddridge's text. The first stanza reads:—

"Father of men, Thy care we trace,
That crowns with love our infant race;
From Thee they sprung, and by Thy power
Are still sustain'd through every hour."

The text followed by the compilers of hymn-books from Ash & Evans in their Bristol Baptist Collection, 1769, to the New Congregational Hymn Book, 1859-69, was that of Orton, 1755: often altered as in Ash & Evans's Collection to "Father of all, Thy care we bless." This latter is the more popular reading of the two. The Methodist New Connexion Hymns, &c, 1835-60, has it as "Father of man, Thy care we bless."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Tune

MARYTON

After various tunes had been set to this text, Gladden insisted on the use of MARYTON. Composed by H. Percy Smith (b. Malta, 1825; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, 1898), the tune was originally published as a setting for John Keble's "Sun of My Soul" in Arthur S. Sullivan's Church Hymns with Tun…

Go to tune page >


BURMAH (Mosley)


Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #1424
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)
The Cyber Hymnal #9989
  • PDF (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer Score (NWC)

Instances

Instances (1 - 2 of 2)
TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #1424

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #9989

Include 99 pre-1979 instances
Suggestions or corrections? Contact us