From year to year in love we meet

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From year to year in love we meet

Author: James Montgomery
Published in 43 hymnals

Representative Text

1 From year to year in love we meet;
From year to year in peace we part;
The tongues of children uttering sweet
The thrilling joy of every heart.

2 But time rolls on; and, year by year,
We change, grow up, or pass away;
Not twice the same assembly here
Have hailed the children's festal day.

3 Death, ere another year, may strike
Some in our number marked to fall:
Be, young and old, prepared alike;
The warning is to each, to all.

4 Oft broke, our failing ranks renew;
Send teachers, children, in our place,
More humble, docile, faithful, true,
More like thy Son, from race to race.

Source: The Voice of Praise: a collection of hymns for the use of the Methodist Church #853

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Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	From year to year in love we meet
Author:	James Montgomery
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

From year to year in love we meet. J. Montgomery. [S. S. Anniversary.] This hymn was evidently written for one of the great gatherings of Sunday School children at Whitsuntide, at Sheffield. It is No. 545 in his Christian Psalmist, 1825, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines. It did not appear in the first copies of the first edition of his Original Hymns, 1853, but took the place of a cancelled hymn (“Our hearts are glad to hear," No. 338) in later copies of the same issue. It is popular with modern compilers.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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From year to year in love we meet, p. 400, ii. Written for the Sheffield Sunday School Union Festival, Whit-Monday, May 19, 1823.

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

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