Rest from thy labour, rest. J. Montgomery. [Death and Burial of a Minister. ] Montgomery was received into the Moravian communion as a member of that Society by the Rev. Christian Ramftler. Mr. Ramftler died at Bristol on Oct. 25, 1832. In the letter which conveyed to him the sad intelligence, Montgomery was requested to write a suitable hymn for the approaching Lovefeast at Bristol. The response was this hymn, which was first sung in public at Bristol Memoirs, v. 66). It was included in Montgomery's Original Hymns, 1853, No. 307, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "On the death of a Minister." On Jan. 22, 1851, Montgomery wrote a hymn on the death of the Rev. Dr. Sutton, Vicar of Sheffield, which began with the same opening stanza. This hymn is not in the Original Hymns, nor in common use. The original is in a large number of hymn-books. In 1849 st. iii.-v. were given in Dr. Alexander's Augustine Hymn Book, No. 494, and have been repeated in several later collections as "Lord Christ, into Thy hands." The early date of this cento suggests that the hymn was published before it appeared in the Original Hymns, 1853, and possibly in a magazine, but it has not been traced to any work of the kind.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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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