O Thou God of my salvation. T. Olivers. [Praise to the Saviour.] This hymn we attribute to T. Olivers on the following evidence.
1. It appeared at the end of A Short Account of the Death of Mary Langson of Taxall, in Cheshire, who died January the 20th, 1769. Printed in the Year MDCCLXXI.
2. We find it next in the Wesley Pocket Hymn Book, York, 1774 (5th ed., 1786, No. 171, in 5 stanzas of 6 lines). Through this Pocket Hymn Book it passed into American Use, where, abbreviated and re-arranged, it is still somewhat popular.
3. T. Olivers was the Superintendent of the Methodist Circuit in which Taxall was included, in 1769-71, and is usually regarded as the author of the Short Account, &c, as above, and the hymn appended thereto.
4. From the manuscript evidence in our possession (the S. MSS.), we feel that the ascription of the authorship to Olivers is correct.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
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