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For ever ours

Author: Edward Henry Bickersteth

Bickersteth, Edward Henry, D.D., son of Edward Bickersteth, Sr. born at Islington, Jan. 1825, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. with honours, 1847; M.A., 1850). On taking Holy Orders in 1848, he became curate of Banningham, Norfolk, and then of Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells. His preferment to the Rectory of Hinton-Martell, in 1852, was followed by that of the Vicarage of Christ Church, Hampstead, 1855. In 1885 he became Dean of Gloucester, and the same year Bishop of Exeter. Bishop Bickersteth's works, chiefly poetical, are:— (l) Poems, 1849; (2) Water from the Well-spring, 1852; (3) The Rock of Ages, 1858 ; (4) Commentary on the New Testament, 1864; (5) Yesterday, To-day, and For Ever, 1867; (6) The Spirit of Life, 1868;… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: For ever ours
Author: Edward Henry Bickersteth (1883)
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

For ever ours, The good and great, &c. Bp. E. H. Bickersteth. [St. James the Apostle.] Written in 1883, and published in his From Year to Year, 1883, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. It is also in the 1890 ed. of the Hymnal Companion In the notes thereto Bp. Bickersteth says:— "This hymn is assigned to St. James's Day from the allusion in the fourth verse of the Gospel of the day, and to the lines in Keble's undying poem:—
“But for the crown that angels weave
For those next Me in glory placed,
I give it not by partial love;
But in My Father's book are writ
What names on earth shall lowliest prove,
That they in heaven may highest sit.'"
Christian Year, 1827, St. James's Day. Written Oct. 7, 1823.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

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