Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out

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 >

O Jesus, Saviour of the lost. Bishop E. H. Bickersteth. [Jesus, the Rock.] Appeared in his Water from the Well-Spring, &c, 1852, p. 180, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed, "Thou art my Rock." In 1858 it was repeated in his Psalms & Hymns, No. 135; and again, as "O Jesu, Saviour, &c," in his Hymnal Companion, 1870 and 1876. It is also in use in America. Bishop Bickersteth dates its composition 1849, but it is not in his Poems of that year.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)