The Savior's Coming Expected and Prayed For

Author: William Hiley Bathurst

Bathurst, William Hiley , M.A., son of the Rt. Hon. Charles Bragge (afterwards Bathurst) some time M.P. for Bristol, born at Clevedale, near Bristol, Aug. 28, 1796, and educated at Winchester, and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1818. From 1820 to 1852 he held the Rectory of Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds. Resigning the Rectory in the latter year, through his inability to reconcile his doctrinal views with the Book of Common Prayer, he retired into private life, and died at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, Nov. 25, 1877. His works include, The Georgics of Virgil: Translated by W. H. B., 1849; Metrical Musings; or, Thoughts on Sacred Subjects in Verse, 1849; and Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Use, 1831 (2nd ed. 1842). This last… Go to person page >

Jesus, Thy Church with longing eyes. W. H. Bathurst. [Second Advent.] First published in his Psalms & Hymns, 1831, No. 41, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed “Second Coming of Christ." It has passed into a large number of hymn-books, both in Great Britain and America, and ranks as one of the most popular of Bathurst's hymns. It is a most suitable hymn on behalf of Foreign Missions. Original text in Thring's Collection, 1882.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)